O arquipélago, the final part of the trilogy O tempo e o vento, is being published, confusingly enough, in three parts too. The first volume of O arquipélago, covering two periods, a few days in 1945 and lengthy flashbacks to the early 1920’s, continues the sweeping history of a family in Rio Grande do Sul since the mid-eighteenth century. The remaining two volumes of O arquipélago, which I assume will be published soon, promise to bring the family history up to the year 1945.
If one may judge from the first volume, O arquipélago fails to equal the scope and drama of the excellent first part of O tempo e o veuto, entitled O continente. Nonetheless, because of its lucid flashes of insight into Brazilian life, O arquipélago reveals to the historian a valuable angle of vision of post-World War I Brazil in general and of the Rio Grande do Sul of Borges de Medeiros in particular. The entire background of the novel is a panorama of Brazilian history, while the opinions expressed are definitely those of Rio Grande do Sul. Those revealing conversations which complain of mineiro and paulista domination of the Republic and express the need for a gaúcho president sound the overture to the Vargas regime which will be treated in the two forthcoming volumes.
