PRECISION, CONCENTRICITY AND WAVE-FORM IN UMA A VENTURA INQUlET ANTE: NOTES ON ITS TEMPORAL AND LOCATIONAL REFERENTS1

That questions of chronological or calendar time and geographical place are important in the prose fiction of José Rodrigues Miguéis is hardly debatable on a subjective level, yet there is a general lack of specific detail with regard to particular works. Therefore, it is proposed that Uma Aventura Inquietante' be examined with a view to furnishing concrete data in these two respects. It is hoped, furthermore, that these data will yield other insights into Miguéis' techniques beyond those elicited by a study of the temporal and locational referents of this work as discrete entities in thernselves. First, the matter of time.

That questions of chronological or calendar time and geographical place are important in the prose fiction of José Rodrigues Miguéis is hardly debatable on a subjective level, yet there is a general lack of specific detail with regard to particular works. Therefore, it is proposed that Uma Aventura Inquietante ' be examined with a view to furnishing concrete data in these two respects. It is hoped, furthermore, that these data will yield other insights into Miguéis' techniques beyond those elicited by a study of the temporal and locational referents of this work as discrete entities in thernselves. First, the matter of time.
In contrast to most of Miguéis' earlier works (for example, Páscoa Feliz,3 Onde a Noite se Acaba" and Léah e Outras Histàriasi , the span of time over which the main action of Uma Aventura Inquietante takes place is clearly indicated, at least insofar as the day and the month are concerned. Much in the fashion of a diary, each of twenty chapters contains at least one notation as to the day and the month in which the events portrayed in that particular chapter are meant to have taken place." Some times, as in the second chapter of Part I, the second and sixth chapters of Part lI, and the last chapter of Part III, there are several notations as to date. In this manner, the author indicates that the maín span of time with which the novel is concerned is a two-month period beginning on a February 20th and ending on a 20th of April (pp. 17 and 263).
Nevertheless, this temporal aspect is actually more complicated than the steadilyrecurring indications of date lead the reader to believe throughout most of the story. First, it should be noted that, while the main action begins on the 20th of February and is largely ended by the last definite indication of date (the 20th of April), the last three paragraphs on the last page of the novel takeplace at an indefinite time after April 20th: the passage is labelled "sem data" (p. 264). The point in time closest to the present is therefore not definitely indicated. Thus Miguéis has set his temporal referents in such a manner as to allow for a great deal of elasticity with regard to chronological or calendar time at the point in the story which ís closest in time to the reader's "present time," while at the same time increasing the tension of the novel's plot by the mention of a long sUccession of definite dates -dates which are given in a visually stressed position at the head of each chapter, one might also point out.

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Then, there is the question of the year in which Zacarias has hís misadventure with the law. Here the reader, although certain that the epoch is twentieth-century, must make deductions from textual indications salted here and there in the story. There are, for example, numerous references to World War I and the immediate postwar era (pp. 29,38, 50, 51, 55, 60, 186, 199-202, 207, 220 and 221). There are references to the Polísh politician, Pilsudski, who died in 1935 after having become a prominent figure in the years immediately following World War I (pp. 44 and 137). There is even a reference to the Soviets (p. 167), which places the action in the years following the Revolution of 1917.
Besides these, there are indications of other sorts which tend to fix still more clearly in historical time the period which Miguéis is portraying. For example, there are numerous references to a great economic depression which afflicts Belgium, its financial structure and its trade with other countries (pp. 33, 46, 103, 108, 254 and 264). Given the magnitude of its effects, there is no reason to suppose that it is not the Great Depression of the 1930's. In addition, there is a catastrophic future event which is foreseen in Uma Aventura Inquietante: on the far horizon, some of the processes leading to World War II can be seen at work (pp. 193 and 263). At the same time, the Belgians criticize a current wave of gangsterism in Chicago (p. 208) while their politicians belabor the question of Disarmament (p. 263).
AlI of this leads to the conclusion that the story takes place at some time during the decade of the 1930's, after the onset of the Great Depression but before that of the Second World War. lndeed, bearing in mind the dates of publication of Uma Aventura Inquietante in its original form (1934)(1935)(1936), the range of possible dates is even narrower: 1929-1930 to 1934-1936. Such a range is already a fairly precise one, but Miguéis has given one further indication which removes a1l doubt as to the year in which the action occurs: the fact that Chapters V and VI of Part II are dated "February 29" (pp. 135 and 149, respectively). We are dealing, therefore, with a leap year: that ís to say, within the framework of the possibilities mentioned above, either 1932 or 1936. Furthermore, the latter date must be eliminated, due to the fact that the original publication, let alone the writing, of the novel was complete by July of 1936. For this reason, it is obvious that the period of time in which the main action of Uma Aventura Inquietante takes place begins on February 20th, 1932 and proceeds to April 20, 1932, before being finally terminated at an indefinite, but presumably fairly immediate, time afterwards.
Of interest with regard to the author's precision in locating the main action of the novel ís the contrasting aura of temporal imprecision surrounding the protagonist's past. It is only in the penultimate chapter that Zacarias' age at the time of the main action ís given: he is forty-eight (p. 247)_ Earlier, there is mention of hís having gone to Afríca " ... com pouco mais de trinta anos ... " (p. 99), or at some time after the year 1914, if one turns back in time for a maximum of eighteen year from 1932. Nevertheless, there ís no mention of African involvement in World War I, so one would presume that Zacarias was at least thirty-three or thírty-four years old when he journeyed to that continent. Other than that there are only such references as " ... alguns anos no Congo ... " (p. 101) " ... durante um ano ... " (p. 103) and " ... um ano, ou pouco mais ... " (p. 103) to guide the reader, until he notes that at one point Zacarias is forty-five years old (p. 105), and that a year and a half later the Tampico Fuel Oil Company goes out of business (p. 107).
The cumulative effect of these indications, however, is imprecise: thus, they simply serve to give the reader an impression of motion backwards or forwards in time, while at the sarne time heightening the aura of mystery that surrounds Zacarias' past, particularly his African adventures.
Zacarias' age is use fui in another respect, as well, for it gives us the earliest possible [irnit of hís personal experiences. Given that he is forty-eight years old in 1932, his hypothetical date of birth would have lain approximately in the year 1884. Therefore, unlike the main characters in such stories as "O morgado de Pedra-Má,"? who might have belonged to Miguéis' grandparents' generation or those in "Saudades para a Dona Genciana,"s whose life might have coincided roughly with his parents' lifetime, or the protagonist of Páscoa Feliz,9 who was a fictional contemporary of Miguéis', Zacarias d' Almeida occupies an intermediate position in this respect: he is older than the author but younger than Miguéis' parents. Thus, while almost ali of the events to which alJusions are made fali within the author's lifetime (and an extremely important portion of it, at that' 0) and therefore conceivably within his personal experience, the very earliest events, such as the protagonist's attending the "Colégio Nacional da Rua das Pedras Negras" (p. 139) would seem to antedate the year of the author's birth. In sum, Uma Aventura Inquietante is to some extent a transitional work with respect to chronological or historical time vis-à-vis Miguéis' own lifetime, ís somewhat different from its fictional predecessors with regard to the author's presentation of temporal referents, yet is highly indica tive of Miguéis control of this aspect if one notes the varying degree of precision with which it is handled.
As is the case with time, Uma Aventura Inquietante is cJearly set in terms of the geographical location -place -of the main action. Zacarias' involvement with the law occurs in Belgium, principally in BrusseJs and environs, although the scene does shift to Antwerp and other places from time to time. Nevertheless, the total impression of the geographic scope of the story is much vaster than this, for the author has employed, as it were, a system of concentric circJes in his use of toponyms and other indications of place, as if they were ripples generated by a pebble thrown into a pondo First, there are those place names which relate to the main action as it unfolds. Next, there is a series of toponyms to which reference is made in connection with the protagonist's life. Last, there are those places which are mentioned in connection with collateral aspects of the story. There are many overlappings among these three categories of locational referents, but when they are taken together, they cover no fewer than five continents.
To begin with, among the places one "actually sees," there are many which are easily identifiable in a standard atlas:!! Woluwee, with its park (pp. 19 and 55); Brussels Still within this first category of place-markers, that is, those having to do with the 1l'Iain action of the story, there are at least two sub-categories: those which indicate certain characteristics of the Belgian nation, and those real or invented names which serve to amplify the effect of Zacarias' being in a foreign environment, primarily a Frenchspeaking one. Thus, in the first sub-category one finds allusions to a night watchman who speaks a núxture of French and Flemish (p. 20), to the Flemish people (pp. 30 and 83), to Flenúsh separatists (p. 40), and even to the " .. Zacarias thereupon returns to Brussels and, in keeping with his' impoverished status, does not stray far. Thus, there immediately follows a series of references to the Belgían capital andnearby cities, which are madein sucha way as to constitute a sub-type of the present 'cateEory of places having to do with Zacarias' life: the " .. Now overlapping the first two concentrically-arranged indications of the story's locational orientation, now spreading far beyond their boundaries, one notes a third category of place references: those which are mentioned in connection with ancillary aspects of the work, There ís an enorrnous' number of thern, begínning with those places having somethingto do with·the rnurder: Woluwee (pp. 18,35,43,50,58,90,91,124, Spain and Beira Baixa (p. 259). Finally, like roiled waters under a calm sky, the locational picture clears, returning to an increasingly faithful reflection of the current sítuatíon: as the novel comes to a dose, one notes references to Coq-sur-Mer (p. 259), to Uccle (p. 260), Vilvoorde (p. 260) and, at the very end, Boitsfort (p. 262), where the author met the nameless Portuguese expatriate whose adventures were to form, perhaps unbeknownst to him, the framework for this detective novel (pp. 9-13).
To recapitula te, when one examines the temporal referents Miguéis has given his readers in Uma Aventura Inquietante, one finds that the author has been extremely precise about the setting of the main action with regard to calendar or chronological time. Furthermore, these referents are given a relatively large number of times in comparison with those existing in other works of Miguéis', and their importance is stressed by their most frequent1y-observed position at the head of each chapter. Such precision and repetition, it is argued, heightens the dramatic tension of the "present-time" plane of the work just as a corresponding imprecision with regard to Zacarias' past adventures adds to the aura of mystery which surrounds his African affairs. Secondly, the author allows for a great deal of elasticity regarding the reader's perception of his own "present time" vis-à-vis the novel's last segment of "story-tírne." Finally, with respect to Miguéis' own life time , the main action fo Uma Aventura Inquietante is found to be set in a very important portion of it, even though the earliest events depicted may antedate it, thus causing the novel to occupy a somewhat transitional position among Miguéis' works insofar as their extreme temporallimits are concerned.
Similarly, the locational referents of the main action of Uma Aventura Inquietante are precise:' 2 most of the action takes place in Brussels and environs. However, it is also found that Miguéis uses a tecnique which can be likened to wave-forms on the surface of a liquido First, the author's mention of a vast number of toponyms and other place-markers proceeds along what appear to be a series of concentric circles, with the protagonist's current location as their center. These wash outward until they touch upon no less than five continents, expanding and contracting the reader's view in the processo At times, this concentricity shatters into reflected ares and bits of circles and, in the end, subsides like choppy water after a storm, finally returning the reader to a calm and happy "present-time" at the centrallocus of the story.
These are merely a few notes on temporal and locational aspects of just one of Miguéis' many works 13 -although it is indeed one of his longer ones -but it is hoped that they illustrate in some small way the strict control the author has over the written word and the way in which he gives a cosmopolitan perspective to what in another writer's hands could have been a most provincial novel and undistinguished "entertainment, " Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Northern lllinois University lliinois, USA