The fine weaving of “various patches” in Tocata para dois clarins, by Mário Cláudio

Abstract

The novel Tocata para dois clarins, published in 1992 by Mário Cláudio, coherent with the whole of the writer’s work, is a place where a fruitful dialogue between literature and other artistic manifestations happens. In it, the story of the couple António and Maria, which refers to the biography of Mário Cláudio himself, revisits the Portuguese Estado Novo period, however, using artifices for the weaving of plots that seek to subvert the harshness of the trumpets of the Salazarist system. This article, by revisiting the novel from the 1990s of the last century, intends to highlight the “various patches” that compose it, demonstrating, from the contemporaneity of the discussions provoked by it, a reflection on the role of literature in representation of the reality and in the creative possibilities of re-elaborating it. These “patchworks”, namely music, photography, sculpture, architecture and literature itself, stand out in the light of consecrated critical readings of the Marioclaudian text, such as those undertaken by Maria Theresa Abelha Alves, Teresa Cerdeira and Dalva Calvão. Furthermore, this proposal is based on theorists of dialogic relations between literature and other arts, such as Karl Erik Schøllhammer, Alberto Manguel and Aguinaldo José Gonçalves, who obviously go by the unavoidable name of G. E. Lessing. Renouncing the novelty of its object of reading, this article recovers texts from the recent past to highlight the metalinguistic, self-reflective and (auto)ironic character of the Portuguese literary production of the post-74, of which Mário Cláudio is a representative.