Os Guardadores – Sobre rebanhos e tabaco: o delírio da humanidade pela ficcionalização da realidade

Abstract

This work takes as its starting point the novel The Tobacco Keeper (2011), by the Iraqi writer Ali Bader. The book chronicles the researches of a ghostwriter hired by an international newspaper to write about the life of a renowned violinist (fictional character) murdered in Baghdad in 2006, in the context of the post-invasion of Iraq. The work studied is a bridge that allows me to move between past and present, West and East, fiction and reality, by linking the main character with the heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa and historical figures from the scene of European classical music. In my analysis, I explore issues raised by The Tobacco Keeper’s narrative that require resorting to other fields of knowledge that go beyond the literary universe. Specifically, I build my research on five pillars of investigation: the contemporary, identities, conflicts, structures, and music theory. First, I deal with the contemporary and the breadth of the present filled with specters from the past, presenting a survey of the interactions between groups of humanity with common roots. Then, I consider the construction of identities in the book through the relationship established between the heteronyms of Pessoa and the characters in the novel, making use of philosophy to try to understand the constitution and ontologies of these individuals. Next, I move on to the study of human conflicts and the catastrophes that devastated humanity and the life of the main character during the 20th century, to understand the formation of Iraq and of the countries in the region. After that, I consider the literary genre of the novel, Bildungsroman, and relate, through history, the context of consolidation of this canonical form to the context raised by the studied novel. Finally, I use musical elements presented in the narrative, such as Bach’s fugues and Schoenberg’s dodecaphony, to contribute to the analysis undertaken and help to understand both the character's trajectory and the book’s possible meanings for the contemporary reader.