Fantastic Realism - fictions and facts in Samantha Schweblin

Fantastic realism possesses a unique cathartic ability, perhaps precisely because it was woven within the mystical Latin American womb. Maria Cristina Batalha says (2012, p. 498 apud CORTÁZAR, 1974) that “magical realism is the super-naturalization of the natural and the naturalization of the supernatural.”

Fever Dream, whose literal translation title is Rescue Distance, by Samantha Schweblin, draws a thin line between these elements — and a very grave note of warning. How far are we from touching with our own feet the fantastically and dangerously tangible universe of Schweblin?

(This was originally an essay for academic purposes, so if you want your experience with this book to be a full surprise — which I absolutely recommend, stop your reading at ‘’The Reality of Fiction’’ section.)

elements in action

Critics point out the Argentine author as the heir of José Cortázar’s magical realism, and her work presents a series of issues around motherhood and safety, marked by a crucial element in its plot that has also occupied many current headlines: pesticides.

The title already suggests its alarming nature and, without much delay, the main character, Amanda, explains to us that “rescue distance” is how she describes the space separating her from her daughter, Nina, with the danger that surrounds her: how long would it take to rescue her from a potential disaster?

Amanda shares the main stage with a second voice: David, marked by italics. Guided into Amanda’s universe of memories by this second voice, in dialogue with her, we are caught up in its urgent rhythm.

David tells us what is important, and what is not. Right from the first pages, we know that Amanda doesn't have much time, and the reader’s reaction can only be to race with her through the memories. However, we are both left without the answer to the first question that David implants in us: where are the worms born?

They need to find out by traveling through Amanda’s recollections, and at the same time, we remain attentive to every detail, wondering what she might have missed.

The tension and constant feeling of imminent danger arise from this nebulous beginning — a sparkle that will follow you all the way. As readers, we are blindfolded: where these characters are, or how did they get there? The pull is strong, and we embark on this dialogue about their past and begin to piece together the fragments with them. We do know something went wrong: if everything were alright, Amanda and David probably wouldn’t be having that conversation.

(Jump this paragraph for no spoilers) Once we understand how it unfolds, the story is sophisticatedly simple: Amanda and her young daughter, Nina, go on vacation to a small town, where they meet a woman named Carla. Carla’s recent past, however, turns the key that will move all the gears: her son, David, was poisoned while drinking from a river, and to save him, the only option was to take him to the woman in the greenhouse. This figure of ancestral wisdom, a combination of shaman, witch, or healer, proposes to split David’s soul, warning the mother that they could not know where the other part of the soul would land and that her son would not be the same again — as indeed, he was not.

The fatalistic web, from which Amanda cannot escape, has been sealed, and as if sensing this, she can only watch her fate unfold before her eyes while the thread that links her to Nina shortens and tightens increasingly. Her maternal protection, though unconditional, would never be enough in the face of an invisible threat, like the one permeating her story. This poisonous, abstract mist of destruction lurks within familiarity.

The earth is poisoned from within: the rivers, the food… The air? How can one protect someone from something invisible? Intuition and attention to detail, characteristics usually associated with the feminine universe, are prominently present throughout the text.

the reality of fiction (life and art, imitating one another)

Throughout the story, there are elements that we can relate to intoxication due to pesticide use, which would be attributed to the company Sotomayor. Some of these are a girl with one leg shorter than the other and facial deformities (SCHWEBLIN, p.40); the dog missing a leg (p.50), and the alarming can of peas that are rustic, hard, and cheap (p.61), which Amanda says she would never choose to feed Nina.

When Amanda meets David for the first time, she sees that he has skin blemishes, which are thinner and pinker around the red eyes and mouth (p.54). The presence of the sophisticated chain of facts and its supernatural breath also contributes to the sensation of imminent fatality and destruction. They speak to the reader’s intimate instincts, communicating this unnatural rhythm, like an attack against the laws that govern the fragile cosmos, where altering a mere comma could destabilize the perfect and unnamed equation that sustains the whole.

Are we in a dialogue between the natural, the supernatural, and the unnatural, hoping they will come into balance before our erroneous human interference causes our own destruction?

“If man tends to define himself by his adherence to the supernatural, it is undoubtedly because it offers the exact measure of his reason’s power; without the supernatural, there is no rationality.” (BATALHA, 2012, p.482 apud CHELEBOURG, 2006, p.13).

Perhaps we are not splitting souls (are we?), but indeed there are certain moments in Distancia de Rescate where its resemblance to the real world becomes confrontational: like a warning, an alert of the direction we are heading. Argentine photographer Pablo Piovano captured frames of this reality when he portrayed the effects of the pesticide glyphosate on rural inhabitants of his country during two years of photographs of sick and deformed adults and children in the provinces of Missiones and Córdoba.

(12/07/2014, Colonia Alicia, Misiones. Lucas Techeira is five years old and was born with an incurable disease called lamellar ichthyosis, caused by a mutant gene. His parents worked in a tobacco field and other plantations in the area where agrochemicals like glyphosate and 24-D, one of the components of Agent Orange, are sprayed. — Original caption by Pablo Piovano, my translation.)

A year and a half after the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged that glyphosate might cause cancer, coinciding with the first murder trial by agrochemicals held in Argentina (when a four-year-old child died from inhaling the poison in Lavalle, Corrientes), this work, titled The Human Cost of Pesticides, won first place by the Phillip Jones Griffiths Foundation. It was also presented at the Monsanto International Tribunal, in The Hague, Netherlands (2015–2016) — after all, Monsanto is the producer of glyphosate. A few years later, nothing seems to have changed: the web of fatality continues to be woven, and the imminent evil becomes increasingly palpable.

Lamellar ichthyosis is a keratinization disorder characterized by the presence of large scales over the entire body. The skin has a shiny outer layer, with a waxy appearance, and undergoes intense peeling. The photograph strikes us with an electrifying shock of reality: the indescribable helplessness of the central figure, a naked child, arms folded, perhaps trying to protect his fragile existence from the deadly harm that surrounds him from the intrauterine environment. A dark world evokes loneliness, and his gaze, despair. The door is open, and there is light outside, but he is not there, is he? His skin evokes compassion or repulsion — perhaps both.

Could Lucas Techeira be a David? Are we still able to ask questions like “what is the cost of pesticides, what is the cost of the human life they destroyed?” Because in the face of such an image, such questions sound pathetic, almost. Are pesticides the problem, or is it the humans who allow them in? Could each of us forge a rescue distance concerning our fellow beings? Yet, it might not be enough.

Ignorance is not necessarily a blessing. When Nina gets poisoned while sitting on contaminated grass (SCHWEBLIN, p.71), Amanda notices nothing. David talks to her, warning that something different should have caught her attention, but she is distracted. When David notes that this moment is when the poisoning begins, and Amanda confirms by saying there was a very subtle bitter taste under her tongue (p.74), the inevitability of the facts becomes clear. Amanda starts showing irritability when she realizes that everything is happening right under her nose, within the rescue distance, while she remains calm, ignoring the thread that tightened until it pulled at her stomach as they were talking to Carla on a pleasant walk through the pastures — walking towards death.

Do we live our lives distracted, without any intentionality in what we do? If so, who could we blame when the end reveals itself to be a tragedy? The web continues to be woven as I write this essay: do I write with enough intentionality? Am I convinced of my own words and reflections? nd even if I am, what power do I have over such conditions?

Humanity could have a key to change the tracks of its train, like an exit curve, but the fact is that it continues at full speed toward complete destruction.

According to Pignati et al. (2017, p.3284), Brazil planted 71.2 million hectares of crops in 2015, of which soybeans predominated, representing 42% of the entire planted area of the country (32.2 million hectares), followed by corn with 21%, and sugarcane with 13%. Together, these three accounted for 76% of all planted areas in Brazil and were the ones that consumed the most pesticides, corresponding to 82% of the entire country’s consumption, also in 2015. According to this research, it is estimated that a total of 899 million liters of pesticides were sprayed on formulated products in the analyzed types of Brazilian crops, just in 2015. Soy was the crop that used the most pesticides in Brazil, representing 63% of the total, followed by corn (13%) and sugarcane (5%). Tobacco was the crop that presented the highest average amount of pesticides per hectare with 60 l/ha.

Cotton was the second, consuming 28.6 l/ha, followed by citrus, with 23 l/ha, tomatoes (20 l/ha), soybeans (17.7 l/ha), grapes (12 l/ha), bananas (10 l/ha), rice (10 l/ha), wheat (10 l/ha), papaya (10 l/ha), corn (7.4 l/ha) and sunflower (7.4 l/ha). According to the analyzed crops, Mato Grosso planted 13.9 million hectares and consumed 207 million liters of pesticides, followed by Paraná with 10.2 million hectares, consuming 135 million liters of pesticides, and Rio Grande do Sul with 8.5 million hectares planted, using 134 million liters of pesticides. Brazil, my country, ‘’the farm of the world’’, feeding 10% of the world’s population with its agricultural exports. It seems reality and fiction are not so distant after all. If you follow this thread, you will find many other horrors and fantastic things that will, hopefully, open your eyes to the scam of the modern world.

Conclusion

Finally, there is the loose thread. The feeling of loss is inevitable. All the danger and sense of paranoia culminated in a tornado of unstoppable events, consuming the reader in a tachycardiac, spiraling route, where one lands with the certainty that something very important has been left behind: the essential and irreplaceable — perhaps life itself.

It’s like returning from a trip without your luggage, empty-handed. Maybe this loose thread is the feeling of an entire humanity when confronted with its impotence in the face of a constant catastrophe, a destruction that disintegrates everything around: the web being woven as one lives, without being able to deviate from the tracks or turn back. The inevitability of evil: are we like Amanda, doing our best to protect those we love, and always losing what matters most? What similarity would we have with David, tying all the things in his room (p.136), trying to connect the loose thread of this rescue distance that can no longer be calculated? He may be trying to connect the little he has left, that which seems solid, seeking to connect with something familiar, something that sustains a world that seems to be in free fall, heading nowhere.

This world — this very world of mutations, of the poisoned mist, of the dead ducks buried in the backyard, of the silence that devoured all things, this world of Schweblin’s fantastic realism is our fantastic real world.

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References:

BATALHA, M. C. Literatura Fantástica: algumas considerações teóricas. R. Let. & Let. Uberlândia-MG v.28 n.2 p.481–504 jul.|dez. 2012

In an essay and documentary, the Argentine photographer reveals the “human cost of pesticides.” Conexão Planeta, 2 Jul. 2018. Available at: http://conexaoplaneta.com.br/blog/em-ensaio-e-documentario-fotografo-argentino-revela-o-custo-humano-dos-agrotoxicos/ Accessed on: 07 Jul. 2019.

PIGNATI, W. A. et al. Distribuição espacial do uso de agrotóxicos no Brasil: uma ferramenta para a Vigilância em Saúde. Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso. 2017.

SCHWEBLIN, S. Distancia de Rescate. Rio de Janeiro. Record, 2016. 144p.