RESENHA
Memories of a polyvalent woman, com Philip Evanson
Maria Bettina Camargo Bub
PhD. Professor College of Nursing (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil)
MURARO, R. M. MEMORIES OF A POLYVALENT WOMAN, COM PHILIP EVANSON. RIO DE JANEIRO: ROSA DOS TEMPOS, 1999.404 p.
Philip Evanson describes Rose Marie Muraro (1932) as a polyvalent intellectual. She speaks different languages fluently, has studied mathematics and physics, written poems, books3 and articles. Besides, she is one of the most important persons of the Brazilian publishing field. Muraro has been the editor of Vozes (1969-1985), Espaço &Tempo (1986-1988), Rosa dos Tempos (1989-1998) and, currently of Editora Record. She was one of the founders of the feminist movement in Brazil, and has been involved with it since the 70's. In lhe 80's she was involved with politics. Initially, she was a candidate, as a federal deputy, for the political party PDT. Later, she was a candidate of PT (worker's party). Considering this brief biography, we have to agree that the tittle is coherent with her personality and trajectory.
In 1997, when she was teaching creative writing in Temple University, Philadelphia, she was stimulated by her students to write a book on her life. Professor Philip Evanson, promptly offered to do the interview, and one year later the draft of the book was ready. However, Betty Mindlin, who read the manuscript, claimed that the book lacked subjectivity. Mindlin argued that Muraro herself considered subjectivity a very important epistemic category. Muraro felt that she had been "caught" and states that" I only said what I had done, not what I had experienced. I behaved like a man. I was very much terrified about talking about myself. After overcoming her fear, Muraro finalizes this instigating book, constituted of five sections and thirty-three chapters.
In the introduction. Muraro tells the reader about a visual deficiency she had since childhood, and which became a challenge for the development of her creativity during all her life. According to Muraro, "Only what is unachievable shows us new things... Only what is unachievable makes us create". And it was through the use of this creativity that she designed the structure of this book. In the book, she makes a relation between the timeline of her life and important historical events in Brazil and in the world. The timeline starts in the 30's and shows how external events shaped her own life.
Muraro characterizes the 30's as "The gestation of the future". It was the future of Brazil, and the future of Rose, since she was born on November 11 1930. and this was also the day in which Getúlio Vargas invaded Riode Janeiro and deposed Washington Luis, initiating a policy of industrialization. Rose, had a solitary and rich childhood, She was the daughter of Lebanese industrials and had a privileged education. At this time, there was a common sense view that the world was essentially "good". The relationship between men and women was so idealized that the good would always overcome the evil. This view, which is opposite to reality, made many women disappointed, since life was not as romantic as they thought it was (any coincidence with commercial films?) In the 40's. with the spread of the Second World War II "The world burns". Her family impoverishes. Her father, who she admired and had a strong affective relationship with, passes away. According to her, he was "a powerful and tender man. What I liked about him was his tenderness". It was also in this decade that Rose became involved with religion and started her physics course, which she abandoned after some time.
During her narrative, Rose relates the historical facts to her personal life. This happens when she refers to a pre, trans and post-revolution period, to feminism, subjectivity, the sexuality of Brazilian women, liberation theology, personalities such as Frei Ludovico e Don Héider, divorce, deconstructton of the body, and her separation from the publishing company Vozes, in which she worked for a long period, publishing international best seller books.
What mostly calls our attention in this narrative are her impressions of the United States, which she visited in the 80's and in the 90s. At this time she observed the death of the mentalities. The yuppies (young upward bound mobile professional) had taken over the hippies Those earned around 500.00 dollars per year. According to her, the final stroke against progressists was represented by the politically correct policy," [...] the worst kind of control I have ever seen". Besides discussing sexism in the American Universities, she says that one of the most shocking aspects; about the country are in the text "The Unveiled Illegal Economy". According to Muraro, in this text, Bill Clinton gives the information that the United States represents 5% of the world population. However it consumes 50% of the drug in the world. Based on information collected in the Foreign Investment Report (1994), published by the World Bank the author says that, illegal economy controls formal economy. Illegal money is taken to fiscal paradises, then it goes to New York's stock market and after that it joins the formal economy. This explains why the blue ships of Dow Jones industrial indexes are unbeatable, since it took 82 days to go up and 6 or 7 thousand points, while it used to take 10 years to increase up to 10 thousand points ..
Another interesting information given by Muraro, was about the so cailed American think thanks - research cenlers coordinated by inlellectuals, dedicated to thinking about lhe future of the world (each country had one of these cenlers linked to the American think thanks. ln Brazil, Ihis cenler was called IBAD. According to the author, these centers discussed lhe cold war, divided lhe countries in blocs, planned e stimulated dictatorship in Latin America. The big problem at the end of lhe 70's was to end up with the Revolution of the Mentalities. The think thanks discovered the important association between sexual liberation and liberalion of the economic oppression, important obstacle to lhe development of capitalism.
This brief summary provides enough information to motivale the reader for this insligating and clarifying reading.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
24 June 2014 -
Date of issue
Aug 2002
