Grande Sertão: Veredas (Bedeviled in the Badlands) by João Guimarães Rosa

The following is an excerpt from the new translation of João Guimarães Rosa’s magnum opus, Grande Sertão: Veredas, first published in English in 1963. That translation soon fell out of print for reasons that are not entirely clear. As translator Alison Entrekin explains in her introduction to the piece on our blog, “[t]o read Grande Sertão: Veredas for the first time in Portuguese is like setting foot in a foreign country where the people speak a dialect similar to your own language, but with such a different accent and turns of phrase that you struggle to make sense of it.” Rosa’s novel is frequently compared to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and yet it remains unavailable to English-language readers in a good translation until now. The challenges to complete the entire book-length project are many, as Entrekin explains. We hope that funding to undertake this mammoth project may finally be found.

Nonought. Shots you heard weren’t a shootout, God be. I was training sights on trees in the backyard, at the bottom of the creek. Keeps my aim good. Do it every day, I enjoy it; have since the tendrest age. Anyhow, folks came a calling. Bout a calf: white one, strayling, eyes like no thing ever seen and a dog’s mask. They told me; I didn’t want to see. Seems it was defective from birth, lips curled back, and looked to be laughing, person-like. Human face, hound face: they decided—it was the devil. Oafenine bunch. They killed it. Nought a clue bout the owner. They came to beg my guns, I let em. I’m not superstitious. You got a way of laughing, sir . . . Look: when shots are for real, first the dogs set up barking that instant—then you go see if anyone’s dead. Don’t mind, sir, this is the sertão. Some reckon it in’t: the backlands are further off, they say, the campos-gerais inside and out, back-o-beyond, high plains, far side of the Urucúia. Lottarot. To folks in Corinto and Curvelo, in’t this here the sertão? Ah, and that’s not all! The sertão makes itself known: it’s where pastures have no fences, they say; where a man can go fifteen, twenty miles without coming to a single house; where outlaws live out their hallelujah, in the yonder beyond the law. The Urucúia comes from the highlands in the west. But nowadays, all long the riverrun, there’s everything—walloping great farms, lushlands bordering banks, the floodplains; crops that go from wood to wood, thickset trees, even some virgin forest. All round is Minas Gerais. These gerais have no bounds. Anyway, you know how it is, sir, to each his own: cows or kine, depends on your eyen . . . The backlands are everywhere.

The devil? Nought to say. Ask round, sir. Out of false propriety, folks in these parts skirt his name—they just say: the Whatsit. Heavens! No . . . The more a man fights shy, the closer he gets. So avouches a certain Aristides—in the palm thicket over on my right here, called the Gentle-Cow-of-Santa-Rita-Way—they all believe: he can’t set foot in three specific places, cause when he does there comes a weeping, behind, and a tiny voice, like a warning, “Here I come! Here I come . . .”—it’s the old goat, the Whatsit . . . And a José Simpilício—anyone here’ll tell you he keeps a demon captive in his home, a wee little Satan, forced to assist in all his greedy schemes; which is why Simpilício is well long on the road to richness. Heck, they also say it’s why his mule skitters, spooks when he tries to mount . . . Folklore. Any rate, José Simpilício and Aristides are fattening up, hearing or not-hearing. And consider this, sir: right now, in this day and age, there’s folks out there avowering that the Devil himself stopped off on his way through Andrequicé. Seems a young stranger showed up there bragging he could get here—usually a day and a half on horseback—in just twenty minutes . . . cause he rounded the headwaters of the Old Chico! Or—noffense—could it, for example, have been you, sir, who nounced yourself like that as you were passing through, just for a little larksome shenaniganry? Course, don’t grudge me, I know it wasn’t. No harm intended. It’s just that, nown then, a timely question can peace the mind. But you understand, sir, that the young man, if he exists, was just pulling legs. Cause, you see, to detour round the headwaters would be like doubling back through the interior of this state of ours, some three months in the doing . . . Whatsit? Madness. Figmentation. And as for hiding him behind fancy names, well now that’s just asking him to take form, to entify!

Don’t. I’ve all but ceased to give him credence myself, by the grace of God; that’s just between us, sir. I know he’s well stabled, and he’s rife in the Holy Scriptures. I once met a young seminarian; he looked the part, glancing in his prayer book, draped in robes, switch of maria-preta in his hand—claimed he was going to help the priest evict the Beast from the body of an old woman in Cachoeira-dos-Bois. He was going with the vicar of Campo-Redondo . . . Good Lord. Are you like me, sir? I didn’t buy a word. What it is, cording to my pal Quelemém, is inferior, disincarnated spirits, lowest of the low, running muck in the murkiest underworld, yearning for contact with the living—they latch on. My pal Quelemém comforts me a lot—Quelemém from Góis. But he has to live a long way away, in Jijujã, Brown Buriti Way . . . But hey, I’d wager that—bedevilled or with latchons—you’ve happened cross all sorts yourself, sir, men, women—no? For my part, I’ve seen so many I’ve learned. Mama-Neigh, Blood-Sucker, Lippy, Slit-Beneath, Cold-Blade, Goat-Boy, a certain Treciziano, Azinhavre . . . Hermógenes . . . Whole bunch. If only I could forget all the names . . . I’m no horse wrangler! Sides, if thoughts of outlawry a man entertains, it’s that the devil’s already wangled his way in. Wouldn’t you say?

The following is an excerpt from the new translation of João Guimarães Rosa’s magnum opus, Grande Sertão: Veredas, first published in English in 1963. That translation soon fell out of print for reasons that are not entirely clear. As translator Alison Entrekin explains in her introduction to the piece on our blog, “[t]o read Grande Sertão: Veredas for the first time in Portuguese is like setting foot in a foreign country where the people speak a dialect similar to your own language, but with such a different accent and turns of phrase that you struggle to make sense of it.” Rosa’s novel is frequently compared to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and yet it remains unavailable to English-language readers in a good translation until now. The challenges to complete the entire book-length project are many, as Entrekin explains. We hope that funding to undertake this mammoth project may finally be found.

Nonought. Shots you heard weren’t a shootout, God be. I was training sights on trees in the backyard, at the bottom of the creek. Keeps my aim good. Do it every day, I enjoy it; have since the tendrest age. Anyhow, folks came a calling. Bout a calf: white one, strayling, eyes like no thing ever seen and a dog’s mask. They told me; I didn’t want to see. Seems it was defective from birth, lips curled back, and looked to be laughing, person-like. Human face, hound face: they decided—it was the devil. Oafenine bunch. They killed it. Nought a clue bout the owner. They came to beg my guns, I let em. I’m not superstitious. You got a way of laughing, sir . . . Look: when shots are for real, first the dogs set up barking that instant—then you go see if anyone’s dead. Don’t mind, sir, this is the sertão. Some reckon it in’t: the backlands are further off, they say, the campos-gerais inside and out, back-o-beyond, high plains, far side of the Urucúia. Lottarot. To folks in Corinto and Curvelo, in’t this here the sertão? Ah, and that’s not all! The sertão makes itself known: it’s where pastures have no fences, they say; where a man can go fifteen, twenty miles without coming to a single house; where outlaws live out their hallelujah, in the yonder beyond the law. The Urucúia comes from the highlands in the west. But nowadays, all long the riverrun, there’s everything—walloping great farms, lushlands bordering banks, the floodplains; crops that go from wood to wood, thickset trees, even some virgin forest. All round is Minas Gerais. These gerais have no bounds. Anyway, you know how it is, sir, to each his own: cows or kine, depends on your eyen . . . The backlands are everywhere.

The devil? Nought to say. Ask round, sir. Out of false propriety, folks in these parts skirt his name—they just say: the Whatsit. Heavens! No . . . The more a man fights shy, the closer he gets. So avouches a certain Aristides—in the palm thicket over on my right here, called the Gentle-Cow-of-Santa-Rita-Way—they all believe: he can’t set foot in three specific places, cause when he does there comes a weeping, behind, and a tiny voice, like a warning, “Here I come! Here I come . . .”—it’s the old goat, the Whatsit . . . And a José Simpilício—anyone here’ll tell you he keeps a demon captive in his home, a wee little Satan, forced to assist in all his greedy schemes; which is why Simpilício is well long on the road to richness. Heck, they also say it’s why his mule skitters, spooks when he tries to mount . . . Folklore. Any rate, José Simpilício and Aristides are fattening up, hearing or not-hearing. And consider this, sir: right now, in this day and age, there’s folks out there avowering that the Devil himself stopped off on his way through Andrequicé. Seems a young stranger showed up there bragging he could get here—usually a day and a half on horseback—in just twenty minutes . . . cause he rounded the headwaters of the Old Chico! Or—noffense—could it, for example, have been you, sir, who nounced yourself like that as you were passing through, just for a little larksome shenaniganry? Course, don’t grudge me, I know it wasn’t. No harm intended. It’s just that, nown then, a timely question can peace the mind. But you understand, sir, that the young man, if he exists, was just pulling legs. Cause, you see, to detour round the headwaters would be like doubling back through the interior of this state of ours, some three months in the doing . . . Whatsit? Madness. Figmentation. And as for hiding him behind fancy names, well now that’s just asking him to take form, to entify!

Don’t. I’ve all but ceased to give him credence myself, by the grace of God; that’s just between us, sir. I know he’s well stabled, and he’s rife in the Holy Scriptures. I once met a young seminarian; he looked the part, glancing in his prayer book, draped in robes, switch of maria-preta in his hand—claimed he was going to help the priest evict the Beast from the body of an old woman in Cachoeira-dos-Bois. He was going with the vicar of Campo-Redondo . . . Good Lord. Are you like me, sir? I didn’t buy a word. What it is, cording to my pal Quelemém, is inferior, disincarnated spirits, lowest of the low, running muck in the murkiest underworld, yearning for contact with the living—they latch on. My pal Quelemém comforts me a lot—Quelemém from Góis. But he has to live a long way away, in Jijujã, Brown Buriti Way . . . But hey, I’d wager that—bedevilled or with latchons—you’ve happened cross all sorts yourself, sir, men, women—no? For my part, I’ve seen so many I’ve learned. Mama-Neigh, Blood-Sucker, Lippy, Slit-Beneath, Cold-Blade, Goat-Boy, a certain Treciziano, Azinhavre . . . Hermógenes . . . Whole bunch. If only I could forget all the names . . . I’m no horse wrangler! Sides, if thoughts of outlawry a man entertains, it’s that the devil’s already wangled his way in. Wouldn’t you say?

Grande Sertão: Veredas

Nonada. Tiros que o senhor ouviu foram de briga de homem não, Deus esteja. Alvejei mira em árvores no quintal, no baixo do córrego. Por meu acerto. Todo dia isso faço, gosto; desde mal em minha mocidade. Daí, vieram me chamar. Causa dum bezerro: um bezerro branco, erroso, os olhos de nem ser—se viu—; e com máscara de cachorro. Me disseram; eu não quis avistar. Mesmo que, por defeito como nasceu, arrebitado de beiços, esse figurava rindo feito pessoa. Cara de gente, cara de cão: determinaram—era o demo. Povo prascóvio. Mataram. Dono dele nem sei quem for. Vieram emprestar minhas armas, cedi. Não tenho abusões. O senhor ri certas risadas . . . Olhe: quando é tiro de verdade, primeiro a cachorrada pega a latir, instantaneamente—depois, então, se vai ver se deu mortos. O senhor tolere, isto é o sertão. Uns querem que não seja: que situado sertão é por os campos-gerais a fora a dentro, eles dizem, fim de rumo, terras altas, demais do Urucuia. Toleima. Para os de Corinto e do Curvelo, então, o aqui não é dito sertão? Ah, que tem maior! Lugar sertão se divulga: é onde os pastos carecem de fechos; onde um pode torar dez, quinze léguas, sem topar com casa de morador; e onde criminoso vive seu cristo-jesus, arredado do arrocho de autoridade. O Urucuia vem dos montões oestes. Mas, hoje, que na beira dele, tudo dá—fazendões de fazendas, almargem de vargens de bom render, as vazantes; culturas que vão de mata em mata, madeiras de grossura, até ainda virgens dessas lá há. O gerais corre em volta. Esses gerais são sem tamanho. Enfim, cada um o que quer aprova, o senhor sabe: pão ou pães, é questão de opiniães . . . O sertão está em toda a parte.

Do demo? Não gloso. Senhor pergunte aos moradores. Em falso receio, desfalam no nome dele—dizem só: o Que-Diga. Vote! não . . . Quem muito se evita, se convive. Sentença num Aristides—o que existe no buritizal primeiro desta minha mão direita, chamado a Vereda-da-Vaca-Mansa-deSanta-Rita—todo o mundo crê: ele não pode passar em três lugares, designados: porque então a gente escuta um chorinho, atrás, e uma vozinha que avisando:—“Eu já vou! Eu já vou! . . .”‑que é o capiroto, o que-diga . . . E um José Simpilício—quem qualquer daqui jura ele tem um capeta em casa, miúdo satanazim, preso obrigado a ajudar em toda ganância que executa; razão que o Simpilício se empresa em vias de completar de rico. Apre, por isso dizem também que a besta pra ele rupeia, nega de banda, não deixando, quando ele quer amontar . . . Superstição. José Simpilício e Aristides, mesmo estão se engordando, de assim não-ouvir ou ouvir. Ainda o senhor estude: agora mesmo, nestes dias de época, tem gente porfalando que o Diabo próprio parou, de passagem, no Andrequicé. Um Moço de fora, teria aparecido, e lá se louvou que, para aqui vir—normal, a cavalo, dum dia-e-meio—ele era capaz que só com uns vinte minutos bastava . . . porque costeava o Rio do Chico pelas cabeceiras! Ou, também, quem sabe—sem ofensas—não terá sido, por um exemplo, até mesmo o senhor quem se anunciou assim, quando passou por lá, por prazido divertimento engraçado? Há-de, não me dê crime, sei que não foi. E mal eu não quis. Só que uma pergunta, em hora, às vezes, clareia razão de paz. Mas, o senhor entenda: o tal moço, se há, quis mangar. Pois, hem, que, despontar o Rio pelas nascentes, será a mesma coisa que um se redobrar nos internos deste nosso Estado nosso, custante viagem de uns três meses . . . Então? Que-Diga? Doideira. A fantasiação. E, o respeito de dar a ele assim esses nomes de rebuço, é que é mesmo um querer invocar que ele forme forma, com as presenças!

Não seja. Eu, pessoalmente, quase que já perdi nele a crença, mercês a Deus; é o que ao senhor lhe digo, à puridade. Sei que é bem estabelecido, que grassa nos Santos-Evangelhos. Em ocasião, conversei com um rapaz seminarista, muito condizente, conferindo no livro de rezas e revestido de paramenta, com uma vara de maria-preta na mão—proseou que ia adjutorar o padre, para extraírem o Cujo, do corpo vivo de uma velha, na Cachoeira-dos-Bois, ele ia com o vigário do Campo-Redondo . . . Me concebo. O senhor não é como eu? Não acreditei patavim. Compadre meu Quelemém descreve que o que revela efeito são os baixos espíritos descarnados, de terceira, fuzuando nas piores trevas e com ânsias de se travarem com os viventes—dão encosto. Compadre meu Quelemém é quem muito me consola—Quelemém de Góis. Mas ele tem de morar longe daqui, na Jijujã, Vereda do Buriti Pardo . . . Arres, me deixe lá, que—em endemoninhamento ou com encosto—o senhor mesmo deverá de ter conhecido diversos, homens, mulheres. Pois não sim? Por mim, tantos vi, que aprendi. Rincha-Mãe, Sangued’Outro, o Muitos-Beiços, o Rasgaem-Baixo, Faca-Fria, o Fancho-Bode, um Treciziano, o Azinhavre . . . o Hermógenes . . . Deles, punhadão. Se eu pudesse esquecer tantos nomes . . . Não sou amansador de cavalos! E, mesmo, quem de si de ser jagunço se entrete, já é por alguma competência entrante do demônio. Será não? Será?