{"id":4520,"date":"2013-09-30T11:38:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T11:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=4520"},"modified":"2013-10-02T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T11:31:58","slug":"the-eternal-son-by-cristovao-tezza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=4520","title":{"rendered":"The Eternal Son by Cristovao Tezza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Translated by Alison Entrekin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Scribe Publications 29 August 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

224pp, paperback, \u00a38.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Shirley Whiteside<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cristovao Tezza is a multi-award-winning Brazilian novelist.\u00a0 When his son was born with Down \u2019s syndrome, Tezza found that the only way he could write about his feelings was through a third-person narrator in novel form.\u00a0 It makes for a strange hybrid of novel and autobiography, perhaps the label of fiction giving the author license to be more honest about his reactions to his own son\u2019s birth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We meet the father \u2013 only Felipe, the son, is given a name \u2013 as he waits in hospital for his child to be born.\u00a0 He passes the time fantasizing about all the thing he will do with his child, how the very fact of being a father will change society\u2019s view of him, make him more serious, more worthy.\u00a0 He imagines himself teaching his child about the world and his pride in displaying his clever progeny to his friends and family.\u00a0 It is an entirely self-centred fantasy and not altogether surprising for a man who says he wants to be a published writer but seems to be more comfortable being a perpetual student, supported by his patient wife.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The grim-faced doctors impart the news of Felipe\u2019s Down\u2019s syndrome but the father cannot, will not, take it in.<\/p>\n

\u2018He refused to advance on the timeline, struggling to stay in the second before the revelation, like a cow bucking in the narrow aisle of the slaughterhouse.\u2019<\/p>\n

The father comforts himself with the thought that Down\u2019s syndrome children often have short lives and even wishes the child dead as he lies innocently in his mother\u2019s arms.\u00a0 He would rather be a tragic father who lost his son within a few years than father to a living child with this disability.\u00a0 The mother is barely mentioned, Tezza saying in interviews that he wanted to protect his wife; instead he maps the relationship between a man-child and a child becoming a man of twenty-five.\u00a0 The father learns from his growing son and does make some progress, but there is mention of the father being autistic which would preclude any major emotional changes.\u00a0 Even bearing this in mind, the father is not a likeable character and one wonders whether Tezza is punishing himself for his own initial shame at having produced a Down \u2019s syndrome child.\u00a0 There seems no reason why the fictional father should have little or no redeeming qualities as if Tezza wants to make sure we never really sympathize with his plight.\u00a0 If this is an accurate portrayal of Tezza\u2019s reaction to his own child\u2019s birth it seems honest to the point of self-immolation.<\/p>\n

The translation sometimes follows the grammatical structure of Portuguese and it takes a few pages to adjust to the rhythm of the narrative.\u00a0 Tezza has a florid style that only just steers clear of purple prose but he has an eye for the telling detail and his metaphors and similes avoid clich\u00e9.\u00a0 This is not an easy read and the temptation to throw the book at the wall as the father once again demonstrates his overweening self-pity is strong.\u00a0 However it is worth sticking with, as Felipe\u2019s small triumphs light up the grim story and his enjoyment of the here now with no thought of yesterday or tomorrow is a lesson we could all learn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Shirley Whiteside<\/p>\n

The grim-faced doctors impart the news of Felipe\u2019s Down\u2019s syndrome but the father cannot, will not, take it in.
\n\u2018He refused to advance on the timeline, struggling to stay in the second before the revelation, like a cow bucking in the narrow aisle of the slaughterhouse.\u2019
\nThe father comforts himself with the thought that Down\u2019s syndrome children often have short lives and even wishes the child dead as he lies innocently in his mother\u2019s arms. He would rather be a tragic father who lost his son within a few years than father to a living child with this disability […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4520"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4534,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions\/4534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}