The Book of Emotions

February 13, 2012
Nearing the end of his life in the year 2022, a blind Brazilian photographer, Cadu, revisits his past in Almino's tale of memory and regret. Cadu lives alone, haunted by the yearning for all the women he's loved and lost. His only remaining friends are Mauricio, the son of his late wife, and Carolina, his goddaughter whose mother he wished to seduce. With Mauricio and Carolina's help, he decides to create The Book of Emotions, a photo journal of his "incomplete, sentimental memories from a period in which could see, and saw too much." Although he is blind, the photos of former friends, lovers, and enemies "reveal themselves in rich detail" in his mind, evoking powerful emotions from years past. The journal begins when his lover Joana leaves him for the wealthy politician Eduardo Kaufman. Cadu then moves to the capital city, Brasília, where he finds political corruption and chases a series of women, images of whom he captures for his exhibit of nude photographs and which epitomize his "instantaneous, fleeting and sometimes deceptive reality." Almino (The Five Seasons of Love) succeeds in capturing the essences of these photographsâloneliness and longingâthrough language, and readers will sympathize with the artist who never receives the love or respect he seeks and deserves.

January 1, 2012

Blind Brazilian photographer Canu reflects on his life and loves by assembling an unusual memoir, using a diary and photographs to recall events from 20 years earlier. Rejected by his lover, Joana, he takes a photographic assignment in Brasilia. While there, he tries to mount a photographic exhibit that no one seems interested in and seeks revenge on the corrupt politician who has hired him and whom he blames for his breakup with Joana. Almost in spite of himself, he becomes romantically involved with a woman named Aida. This many-layered and impressionistic novel from novelist/diplomat Almino ("Brasilia Quintet") gives only a slice of Canu's full, rich, and not always exemplary life, as some events and characters from the past are mentioned but not fully explained. Canu's struggles to make a narrative out of the remnants of his life and memories are intermingled with musings on memory, art, spirituality, sex, and love. VERDICT Not an easy read, but rewarding for the patient.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
Readers familiar with Brazilian author Almino's celebrated The Five Seasons of Love (2003; Eng. trans., 2008) may recall a philandering photographer named Cadu who appeared in that book. Now, it is 2020, and Cadu is still as lustfuland as lonelyas ever. But the photographer has lost his sight, and so the visual memoir he seeks to create must be compiled from his memories of the photographs that have defined his life. Some, like Cadu's photo-essay collecting images of dozens of female triangles, explicitly recollect his sexual desires, fulfilled and unfulfilled. Yet other photographs, Cadu explains, may show a street scene or a flowering purple ip tree but reveal a fleeting moment of true intimacy amid the small failures and missed opportunities, a life lived inside out. And perpetually in the background appears Brazil's capital city, in all of its own bustle, beauty, and heartbreak. Almino (also a political scientist and diplomat) offers an intelligent and moving depiction of loss and love that confirms his place as one of Brazil's top living novelists. Ed: wrong font. Also, in the imprint, add a tilde over the a in the author's first name.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)