Nomadismo e solidão na cidade veloz: alegorias da compressão do tempoespaço na ficção de Caio Fernando Abreu

Abstract

This essay discusses the contemporary processes of subjectivization based on the effects of “time-space compression” (Harvey, 1994) on psychosocial experience, as presented in the fiction of the Brazilian writer Caio Fernando Abreu (1948-1996). His works reveal different scenes of urban life under the dominance of the consumer society, as well as situations that evoke the fragmentation of the subject and the emergence of new strategies for dealing with transitoriness, speed and loss in contemporary culture. His short-stories, novels and personal letters show deep social criticism to grievous situations in which individuals find themselves at the end of the twentieth century. Errantry, loneliness and narcissism are some of the themes explored that seem to characterize subjectivity under a post-utopian perspective. Abreu’s literature shapes various faces of contemporary subjectivity in characters, plots and scenarios which represent global urban experience, with particular focus on the Brazilian context of modernization. This paper discusses a selection of short-stories included in Os dragões não conhecem o paraíso (1988), Morangos mofados (1995), Estranhos estrangeiros (1996) and the novel Onde andará Dulce Veiga (1990) under the light of the critique of modernity outlined by authors such as David Harvey, Zygmunt Bauman, Fredric Jameson among others.