An Opening Anecdote

It was the mid-1980s. I can’t exactly recall the year. 1984, or maybe 1985. I had read in the newspaper that Décio Pignatari, one of the founders of the Concrete Poetry movement, was going to deliver a lecture in São Paulo. I was then a high-schooler crazy about soccer, music, and books, and living in my hometown of Santos. Despite the distance – Santos lies approximately 80 kilometers away from São Paulo – I decided to attend the talk. On the scheduled day, I took the bus, then the subway, rushed the streets a few blocks, and eventually arrived at the venue where Pignatari was about to speak. As I write these lines and walk down memory lane, I’m able to see a few pictures in my mind: the room with its huge windows, the high ceiling, lights, and chairs; the overwhelming number of people; the poet wearing his trademark Ben Hogan hat … But I can’t remember the subject of the lecture. It was not about Machado de Assis, though. That’s for sure.

It turns out that the most vivid memory I have of that night comes from the Q&A section when Pignatari, in answering a question from the audience, did approach the topic of Machado de Assis, and, while developing it, made a bold, provocative statement. Pignatari was known as a provocateur, so his statement should not have been taken that seriously. Yet, for some reason, I took it that way. That’s why it stuck in my memory. Pignatari said – and I will try to replicate his words in translation as closely as possible – “Machado de Assis is not just Brazil’s foremost author; he is unquestionably the greatest Latin American writer of all time … better than Borges.”

As he spoke, Pignatari’s disposition was brightly assertive, and his tone echoed this confidence. Nevertheless, Pignatari never documented what he said that night. Why not? Because he surely knew the consequences he would have faced had he written such a statement. Interestingly enough, during my college years in the late 1980s, I heard the same assertion – that Machado was better than Borges – a few more times. I heard it from my professors in hallway conversations or, informally, during a class. They usually approached the topic more like a rumor, or a secret wish, rather than a serious critical claim.