Todog olambolic Todog.
What does it mean?
We don’t usually translate. Either the words enter you or they don’t. Xuma understands me, don’t you Xuma?
Yes, Todog.
Some familiar faces, armed with banners and posters, were outside waiting for us. The familiar faces greeted us, revered us, idolised us and showed themselves to be faithful to Todog. I was impressed when they said there were ten thousand people waiting in Getúlio, wanting to hear my prayers.
Some familiar faces gave us white, tight-fitting clothes, just like everyone now wore.
We reached the gates of the farm in Getúlio and there were a lot of people jostling around. Some familiar faces inside the car showed me that the tax payments were up to date and the farm was legal.
Xamarei kodof pluicinai orlandopen rictimu asimbandueira pepinovic astrolov erguirochonte. Ritmos lacrimai rictyuliberius profteriobarto labaredasava perbuliam Todog.
Todog.
Todog morten Todog livus.
Todog.
Some even more familiar faces took us back. We drove through the crowd with the top down. They threw things at me. Underwear, bras, letters, posters, pieces of paper, confetti, streamers, guitars, bottles, plastic cups. I stood up and waved to the crowd. All of a sudden, a crazy Todog fundamentalist got up close to the car and shot me twice. They grabbed the man and he screamed, saying he was Todog.
I struggled between life and death. I fought with the help of the doctors and drugs, but I didn’t make it. At my funeral, Xuma said that Todog died with me. Even so, many people still say they follow Todog.
Princilimpimpotus todog todog todog and crickets and electrodes and a house in ruins and a blue dog and an orange cake and B Cops and Granny and I’m going to Paracambi if I don’t eat, I’ll go to Caju and Attorney General Brylcreem and Xuma and now the now. D-Day. The moment of truth. The bomb and its mushroom cloud of endorphins explode in my bayoneted body with the chemical of the angels. The warhead. And then, Rodrigo? What did you do with the after? Here where the clouds meet I always get a bigger shock than the ones I got in the asylum.
Where I am now all the dogs aren’t blue. They gave me a third pair of glasses, third eye. Third ear. A third arm. Third leg. A third hand. All in threes. Then they gave me two more penises. Two more noses. Another foot. Two more stomachs. My third life.
Three Hail Marys.
I had to get used to my new life and what’s worse is I still haven’t turned into a monster because of it.
I’m still the boy with the blue dog. A great big blue reflected now in the eyes of the boy who found my blue dog in the rubbish.
Publisher’s preface to the second Brazilian edition of All Dogs are Blue
This book has a long, difficult history.
I received the manuscript of the first version of All Dogs are Blue in 2003, and was blown away when I read it. We weren’t able to invest in its publication at the time (the usual challenges of distributing and marketing first-time authors), but I got in touch with Rodrigo to let him know how much I’d liked the text; to discuss a partnership that would let us explore alternative publishing options; and to encourage him to send it along to other, bigger publishers, as it was one of the best manuscripts I’d ever laid hands on.
During that first conversation, I made a commitment to publish the book as soon we could afford it — something that would only come about five years later, thanks in part to a grant from Petrobras which enabled Rodrigo to work on the final version of his text, and us at 7Letras, his publisher, to produce an initial print run of 1,500 copies.
Over the years, we talked a few times on the phone (he never left the house) and I was struck by how lucidly and clearly he spoke about his condition — the schizophrenia, the medication, his paranoia, the hospitalisations — which only increased my admiration for his talent and his art.
During the time we worked on the book, Rodrigo’s closest contact at 7Letras was with Valeska de Aguirre, who edited the text and became a sort of friend. The two spoke almost daily, always by phone, as well as exchanging extensive emails about Rodrigo’s other literary projects, which were to remain posthumous.
Only on the day we launched All Dogs are Blue, at a signing in the playground of the building where Rodrigo lived with his family, did he and I finally meet in person. On that day it became clear that his work — which he had already begun to share on the internet — was getting recognition from several people in the literary world. Rodrigo himself purchased a sizeable share of books from that first imprint to send to various critics, writers and journalists, always trusting his own instincts.
A few months later came the announcement that the book had been nominated as one of fifty finalists for the Portugal Telecom Prize. On the night that the longlist was announced, his book was specifically cited (alongside the names of some of the most prominent names in Portuguese-language literature) as a sign of renewal and originality in Brazilian literature. The next day I rang Rodrigo — who by then was getting out of the house more, taking a painting course at an art school — to tell him the good news. During the course of the phone call he became very emotional, his voice cracked, and all he could say was ‘so much suffering’. He repeated the phrase and then couldn’t carry on, and I may also have choked up before we rang off.
News of Rodrigo’s death fell like a bombshell on 7Letras. It confirmed, somehow, the author’s own prediction (in a message that mixed his delirious lucidity with a dash of irony) that his books would only become successful after his death. In life, I think he was at least able to take in the positive reactions of those first readers and critics, who realised the strength and scope of his potent prose.
I wasn’t able to share with Rodrigo the joy of seeing the book’s first edition sell out (a rare success for a newcomer in Brazil, still a country of few readers), but I can imagine he would feel happy and fulfilled to see this new edition in circulation, coming to life with each new reader — just as I imagine each new reader will feel the same impact that I felt upon discovering this incredibly dense, rich and original work, which I continue to appreciate more fully with each new reading.
Jorge Viveiros de Castro, 2010
Publisher, 7Letras
Notes
1 It’s only Tupi in Anhembi. The Tupi indigenous peoples occupied much of the territory that is now Brazil when the Portuguese arrived in 1500. European diseases and slavery largely wiped out the indigenous population, but the mixed-race descendants of Portuguese settlers and indigenous women — known as mamelucos — kept the Tupi heritage alive and well. Indeed, until the Marquis of Pombal made Portuguese teaching mandatory in Brazilian schools in 1750, the Tupi language formed the basis for the country’s earlier lingua franca, Nheengatu, and its close southern relative, the Língua Geral Paulista.
Anhembi is a small town in the state of São Paulo. It so happens that its patron is Our Lady of Remedies. The word ‘Anhembi’ is of Tupi derivation.
The narrator is also alluding to Oswald de Andrade’s 1928 ‘Cannibal Manifesto’, one of the most important texts of Brazilian modernism, which includes the English phrase: ‘Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question.’ The manifesto argues that cannibalism has been misrepresented by sensationalist accounts: cannibals may ritually eat an enemy or an important ancestor, but in both cases it will be someone they revere. By eating the respected person the cannibals take the person’s strength into themselves. Andrade suggests the strength of Brazilian culture lies in its ability to ‘digest’ foreign influences without being dominated by them.