In a time of politicized emotions and affections, Sérgio Abranches' novel speaks of radicalism, intolerance, and the apparent impossibility of reconciling opinions.
The Butterfly Interpreter deals with characters who live the daily life of large Brazilian cities, with stories, desires, and questions that lead us to see our own lives through different eyes. Who doesn't have an uncle, cousin, sibling, parent, or friend with radically different political views and values? In the book, as in everyday Brazilian life, this disagreement also intensifies social inequality, causing the most vulnerable to be oppressed by the perverse dynamics that constantly exclude them and deny them basic living conditions.
Sérgio Abranches structures this novel around two family groups. One consists of a girl entering adolescence and trying to find herself; the mother, recently converted to religion, who doesn't understand her daughter and tries to mold her to her new behavior patterns; and the father, more understanding, who seeks to help his daughter and prevent a definitive rupture in their relationship. The other consists of two brothers who have come to hate each other due to political differences. Between these groups, several characters' lives are transformed by something they have in common: the polarization and violence that have gripped the country.
Over this turmoil, where people with opposing ideas can no longer communicate, hangs the Elder. His political experience began on the streets of Paris in 1968, when the student protests reached their peak. Upon returning to Brazil, he joined the general outrage against the military dictatorship. He was arrested, tortured, and held in solitary confinement for seven years. Now, almost like a guru, he lives secluded and isolated on a farm, surrounded by trees and butterflies. His discourse, steeped in experience, seeks to open a peaceful path between radicalism and restore the ability to coexist with differences.
Extremely current, with references from Racionais MCs and slam poetry to the political demonstrations of the 20th century and the present day, The Butterfly Interpreter weaves a story about ruptures and divergences that definitively change relationships.
Lonely, people gather in closed groups, in cocoons of intolerance, and the course of affection is lost in the aridity and distrust of others. Feelings become intoxicated, sorrows multiply, affection fades in the fading of memories, in the forgetting of joys, in the numbing of esteem, in the end of empathy, in the willful and repeated burning of bridges, in slammed and locked doors. The other is the enemy, and if the other is my extreme, I am the other's extreme. One defines the other through negation. Everything prevents return. The beginning again. Everything seems to end.
