Compadrio, Marketing Approach e David Soares

Este post de Cristina Torrão sobre o compadrio legalizado que é sugerido na revista Ler, estendendo a piolheira nacional aos meandros da edição, parece querer dar razão a quem pensa que a fraqueza dos portugueses está nos seus genes e reforça a percepção que o mérito no nosso rectângulo é um lugar distante.

Portuguese writer David Soares’ recently-released book, O Evangelho do Enforcado is perhaps his best work in a career that has spanned a decade since the release of his first novel, A Conspiração dos Antepassados. It is, as have his other novels been, simultaneously a history of sorts of Portugal’s past and a feverish fantasy that evokes images of the supernatural. But it is here in O Evangelho do Enforcado that I believe Soares manages to mix these two narrative elements together to create a seamless whole that grabs the reader’s attention from start to finish.

 The story here spans roughly sixty years, from 1390 to 1450, during the time that the Portuguese royal family, including Prince Henry the Navigator, began to expand Portugal’s influence beyond the Iberian peninsula. It is a story that revolves in part around the mysterious os Painéis de São Vicente (the Panels of St. Vincent), which was made during this time and which may contain several mysterious references to the royal family of Aviz. Soares devotes a lot of narrative space toward making each main subplot believable and yet fresh and exciting as well.

The intervening two years have only strengthened my conviction that if Soares were to receive the right marketing approach from an American or UK publisher, his fiction could have a strong cross-genre appeal similar to that enjoyed by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. There is something for those who love great mysteries, supernatural occurrences, or excellent historical stories. Not too often does a writer manage to meld these elements together to create a seamless entity that is stronger for having these disparate elements, but Soares is one of those rare talents that manages to do. It is a shame that he is not yet available in translation.

A leitura supra faz-nos entretanto perceber que há uma razão fundamental hoje na edição que se chama «the right marketing approach». Sem ele, sem este lugar aparentado do sexo, mentiras e vídeo, a escrita parece ser um lugar cada vez mais solitário.