Mário de Sá-Carneiro (1890–1916)

Aestheticism and decadence meet existential crises of gender, sexuality, identity, and the tenuous boundary between reality and fantasy, illusion and madness. S��-Carneiro killed himself at age 26, and I believe this is the only one of his novels to have been translated into English. Apparently, there are many others from this quizzical genius; I hope someone translates them soon���they must be similarly wonderful and maddeningly surreal as Lucio's Confession was, and more people should read his work and know his name outside of his native Portugal.… (mais)

Lucio's Confession is the account of events and relationships affecting the titular character in late 19th century Paris and Lisbon. It starts with a portrait of the bohemian milieu of artists in Paris and is decadent in atmosphere and description. The story takes off in Lisbon where, involved in a love triangle Lucio questions his relationship with reality and his identity. I'm no expert on decadent writing but it reminded me of the psychological stories of Poe. It has strong LGBT themes and works effectively in a subtle way that was necessary back in 1913, when it was written, the gay element being veiled within the plot and recounted with distance.… (mais)

"Deep down, I did hate those people – the artists. That is, those false artists whose work consists of the poses they strike: saying outrageous things, cultivating complicated tastes and appetites, being artificial, irritating, [and] unbearable. People who, in fact, take from art only what is false and external.”

In “Lucio's Confession” by Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Margaret Jull Costa (translator)

From the street, two floors below my hotel window in a dreary urban business park slash hotel district, I heard desperate, blood chilling cries for help. I rushed to the window, expecting to see the victim of a hit and run car accident lying bloodied at the curb-side but instead, I saw a young man with a tear stained face wearing only a long sleeved, open-cuffed shirt walking this way and then that, each time with purpose, until the moment he changed his mind. Shouting, pleading with his hands outstretched. For a heartbreaking moment, I thought he looked like a guy I knew from work. It was early morning and there was no-one on the street to hear his shouting; I guessed he’d been up all night. For some reason, I felt I understood his problem; he should be in a field somewhere herding cattle for the morning milking or chopping wood for winter but instead, he’s been dumped in this incomprehensible, concrete and steel alien landscape, except that it isn’t alien … we made it, we imposed it on the poor bastard and it just doesn’t make sense. Before I had time to decide whether or not I should go outside and see if he was OK, a police car turned up and scooped him away.

I was reminded of this incident by reading “Lucio’s Confession” by Mário de Sá-Carneiro. They speak to me of the same kind of lost soul drowning in the same kind of fin-de-siècle urban nightmare – not at all of a celebration of life or of happiness or even of anything particularly specific to men or women. Coveting another woman’s wife is one of those symptoms for which people can be sectioned instantly. Are we so different from the protagonist Lucio? Our supposed lucidity is reliable, especially in a world where it is not impossible, for example, to fall in love with an image on the computer, and often before this virtual reality, we fantasize about being another person, and let the fantasies dominate? The novel left me very strong impressions; it seemed to me to be within a dream and at the same time within a reality that denies itself, re-creating it. Madness? Not sure. Maybe it’s just the way we see Art depicting Life.

I agree with Mário de Sá-Carneiro. This is not art, it is a symptom.

Mário de Sá-Carneiro killed himself in 1916.

Coda: “Like Pessoa, Sá-Carneiro had a horror of madness and abnormality in general, the reason, perhaps, why the whole of his work was a concerted effort to exorcise those demons.” Yes, we all know about the influence Sá-Carneiro had on the Pessoa’s Heteronimity. The letters between those two is something everyone interested on these matters should read.

By Eugénio Lisboa in the introduction to “Lucio's Confession” by Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Margaret Jull Costa (translator)… (mais)