Brasyl

Last up on my Hugo nominee list for this year was Ian McDonald's Brasyl (Pyr, 2007; no editor listed, but I'm guessing Lou Anders).  I struggled a little getting into the story; Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language are considerably less familiar to me than Jewish culture.  While there was a glossary, I don't like flipping back and forth while I'm reading (especially since I'm reading on a laptop screen) and I'm a bit twitchy over a book so heavy with foreign words that it requires a glossary anyway. I read the glossary through once at the start and depended on memory and and similarity to Spanish and general context to make my way through fairly successfully.  It would probably go even better on a reread.

Brasyl is so complex that it's difficult to describe.  Most of the book consists of three separate stories, taking place in Brazil in 2006, 2032-3, and and 1732-3.  The modern-day story concerns a Botox-addicted television producer, Marcelina Hoffman, who specializes in trashy and sometimes humiliating reality shows, and her "alt dot family" of mostly gay friends and co-workers.  The 2030s story, which I found most interesting, was that of Edson Jesus Oliveira de Freitas, a small-time "businessman" (hustler) with a transvestite alter ego and his varied liaisons (business and personal) with a cast of colorful characters ranging from superhero fetishist Mr. Peach to black-market quantum physicist Fia Kishida.  The 18th-century tale pairs a Jesuit priest with a violent past, Luis Quinn, with a French scientist/geographer, Dr. Robert Falcon, as they push into the Brazilian jungle in search of (respectively) a heretical priest with a huge native following and a spot on the equator from which to measure the Earth.  The time-shifting among the stories reminded me of both last year's much-loved-by-me nominee Eifelheim and (especially) Gene Wolfe's recent Pirate Freedom.  By the end of the book, the connections among the three stories are apparent, though I did not find them strong enough to really pull the book together in a satisfactory way.

Each of the three major characters is drawn into a series of mysterious events.  Marcelina, searching for a futbol futébol (soccer) star from 1950 for a new reality show concept, is stalked by an unknown double who is quietly destroying her life.  Quinn finds madness first among horses and mules and then among men as he penetrates further into the jungle and the simultaneous rococo glory and underlying horror of renegade Diego Gonçalves's sect.  Edson finds love and death and some rather complex physics in the story that is really the science-fictional heart of the book.  I certainly can't complain that McDonald isn't ambitious!  But while each story is interesting in and of itself, and the details of the worldbuilding in the near-future and past segments are deliciously rich, the whole thing  doesn't quite work for me.  McDonald does an impressive job of explaining the quantum physics in layman's terms (Edson serves as a useful stand-in for the reader in asking questions and needing explanations), but the alternately physics- and pharmaceutical-fueled time/space-hopping, religious connections (Catholic and candomblé), and minimally-explained groups like the mysterious Order don't just pull together sufficiently.  I understand what McDonald is selling (an impressive accomplishment given how hard I bounced off physics in school), but I don't buy it.

I loved the details, though.  From the capoeira (which seemed true to what I've seen of the dance/martial art form) to the sexually-charged cultures of the 2006 and 2030s segments to the sacred golden frogs to the tattooed-on organic computer to the truly amazing basilica Our Lady of the Flood Forest, McDonald displays a brilliant imagination and an impressive gift for description.  All three temporal settings are intensely believable, and I enjoyed each of the three stories.  But I liked the parts better than their sum, and the book weakens when McDonald starts to make the connections between them.

I had to think for a while about where to place Brasyl on my ballot.  Brasyl is much, much better than Rollback, and not nearly as irritating as Yiddish Policemen's Union despite the superficial commonality of making a real culture the alien setting.  I don't think McDonald quite pulled it off, but he went some fascinating places.  I was left a little frustrated (and a little confused), but not unbearably so.  It's more ambitious than The Last Colony, and has some delicious worldbuilding, but it's not as complete or satisfying a story.  How many points to give for shooting for the moon and not quite getting there vs. successfully managing something less complex?

For now I'm going to leave things as they were and put Brasyl in at three.  My ballot as it stands, forty-eight hours before the deadline, still subject to rethinking:

1. Halting State
2. The Last Colony
3. Brasyl
4. Rollback
5. The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Get your own copy:

Comments

[Fledgist]

Sounds like a worthy read, though it sets off my 'European trying to be a Latin American writer of the Boom' radar. The Portuguese word for 'football' is 'futébol' not 'futbol', btw. Más, eu não sé muito desas coisas.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Eek. 'Futbol" for 'futébol' is my error, not McDonald's, and I will correct it above. I have a real problem with bleedover from Spanish when I read (or try to read) Portuguese or Italian.

I admit that devilish thoughts of "is this magic realism because it's set in South America?" and "can an Irish writer write magical realism or is being brown-skinned a requirement?" floated through my head, but I decided not to go there this week.

It's definitely worth a read, maybe even a second read.

[Marilee J. Layman]

Don't take too long to put your ballot in -- the online ballot software has screwed up other times and if it's not there on time, it's not counted.

[Serge]

I haven't read Brasyl yet, but it seems like you had the same problem with it that I had with McDonald's River of Gods. I enjoyed the book's story of the Indian continent a few decades from now, but I was disappointed with how all the various plotlines sort-of came together. That's probably why I preferred his shorter story The Little Goddess, which was set in the same milieu.

[Susan de Guardiola]

This was the first McDonald I've read, and I'm not opposed to reading more. Brasyl came very close for me, and I'm still tussling over whether or not to move it up to the #2 spot on my ballot over The Last Colony. I'll probably reread it at some point.

And no, Marilee, I will not wait until the last minute to vote. I even found my PIN this morning. I'll vote before 5pm today, and if it doesn't work online there's a fax number. After all this thinking about how to vote I won't miss my chance!

[Fledgist]

I think that Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, or Jorge Amado would be shocked to learn that they were brown, rather than white, myself. Well, maybe not Gabo...

Lo real maravilloso, realismo mágico, or whatever you want to call that particular form of marvellous surrealism that erupted out of Latin America in the middle of the twentieth century had a lot to do with the interplay of cultures in the circum-Caribbean and Brazil. That has a familial relationship (an elective affinity, to be Weberian) with sf, as John Brunner pointed out years ago.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Sorry, that snark arose from a hot button grown from my recent experience of being told to my face that they were really looking for people of color, Hispanics, etc. for their uniquely transgressive viewpoints. Apparently Real Hispanics don't study dead white European people. Reminded me of being told earnestly that Hispanics don't read SF because there are no people like them in it. (I could have saved myself a lot of reading this weekend if I'd known I didn't read this stuff.) Maybe I need to carry a sign, or go on Oprah? ("Today: pale-skinned, subtly transgressive, accent-free Hispanics and the people who assume they're Italian!")

I've never found a clear definitional line to separate magical realism from other forms of f&sf, and don't feel familiar enough with the tradition to have a clear opinion one way or another. It felt more SFnal and cyberpunkish than surreal in the 2006 and 2030s storylines, though there was also a certain, hmm, I am failing to come up with a word here.

If you get around to reading it I would be most interested in your opinion on this.

[Serge]

Would it be foolish to assume that the difference between magic realism and fantasy is that the former assumes that magic IS a real element of Reality, while the latter assumes that there is no such thing as magic but it pretends that there is - at least for the duration of the reading?

[Marilee J. Layman]

Hard to believe Chabon's won, isn't it? Charlie's now been nominated for Novel five times and never won -- he's beaten Heinlein. I finished Saturn's Children this week and you'll see Fragano likes it, too.

[Serge]

Life is too short, and books too numerous. Thus I think it wise for me not to spend my time and money on stories that people whose judgment I trust recommends against. Oh, and in case people might think me provincial for avoiding someone who isn't really an SF writer, I also intend to stay away from David Weber's frustrated missiles.

[Susan de Guardiola]

I was disappointed that Brasyl placed below Rollback, which I found a much inferior work.

I got a look at the full voting numbers at the Hugo Losers Party and was interested to see that 75 other people besides me placed No Award above the Chabon. I wonder how unusual that is.

Most of my picks ended up in second place. I guess that's better than last.

[Serge]

I was sitting next to one of ML's regulars, David Goldfarb, when Chabon's book was announced as the winner. He didn't seem offended, but it may well be that he hasn't read the book. Of course I haven't either, but I can tell from the comments of others when a story is not going to appeal to me.

[Susan de Guardiola]

This is hardly the first time something I disliked won the Hugo, and I'm sure it won't be the last. One must be philosophical about it. The Hugos are a reasonably good guide for my reading, but far from perfect.

[Serge]

They are indeed a guide. I have read and loved stories that I'd never known about if not for the Hugos.

[Marilee J. Layman]

And you have to remember that there are people who vote but don't read.