"The Third Bank of the River" is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

written by

João Guimarães Rosa João Guimarães Rosa (; 27 June 1908 – 19 November 1967) was a Brazilian novelist, short story writer and diplomat. Rosa only wrote one novel, '' Grande Sertão: Veredas'' (known in English as ''The Devil to Pay in the Backlands''), a revoluti ...

, published in his book '' Primeiras Estórias'' (First Stories), in 1962. It is narrated in first person by the son of a man who decides to leave the family and the whole society to live within a small anoein a huge

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

. Guimarães Rosa uses several expressions and culture facts of specific regions of Brazil (which is known as regionalism in the literature), but the tale is however universal, dealing with great dilemmas of human existence. It is written in poetic

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

and has sentences that play with specific orality of

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...

Criticism and interpretations

Alienation

In a article from February 1966 about the short stories of the book "First Stories" and the general work of Guimarães Rosa,

Paulo Rónai Paulo Rónai ( hu, Rónai Pál; 13 April 1907 - 1 December 1992) was a Hungarian-Brazilian translator, philologist, and critic. Biography Rónai Pál was born in the Hungarian capital Budapest into a Jewish family. He completed his primary ...

concludes that "The third bank of the river" deals with the alienation that is "accepted as a painful part of life's routine when it is gradually declared." The narrator of the tale starts to infect himself with the

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

of his father.

Orality

About

orality Orality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition. The term "ora ...

, Rónai observes that the tales of "First Stories" use idioms that we are accustomed to hear in the mouths of people and that, in their fruity vigor, give delicious flavor and energy to the popular speech. He uses as examples the following sentences extracted from this short story: "Nosso pai nada não dizia.", "Do que eu mesmo me alembro", "Nossa casa, no tempo, ainda era mais próxima do rio, obra de nem quarto de légua", "perto e longe de sua família dele", "avisado que nem Noé". Rosa, therefore, would not be a writer who merely reproduces popular language, as he uses neologisms and idioms in a way that, for Rónai, is "so provocatively original".Rónai, 1966, p.32.

Neologisms

As stated earlier, Rosa not only portrays a popular and peasant speech, but also invents new words and terms in his texts. On "The third bank of the river", the

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

"diluso" is a possible variant of "diluto" or "diluído" (diluted, dissolved).A terceira margem do rio (Conto de Primeiras estórias), de Guimarães Rosa
Passeiweb. Acesso: 8 de julho de 2018.

Influence

Popular music

The

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

"The third bank of the river", with music by

Milton Nascimento Milton Nascimento (; born October 26, 1942), also known as Bituca, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has toured across the world. Nascimento has won five Grammy Awards, including Best World Music Album for his alb ...

and lyrics by

Caetano Veloso Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso (; born 7 August 1942) is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo, which encomp ...

, was composed in 1991, explicitly from the eponymous tale of Guimarães Rosa. The song is ninth track of the album '' Circuladô'' (1991), by Caetano Veloso.

Adaptations

Cinema

* This tale was adapted to the cinema in a French-Brazilian film of 1994 named '' The Third Bank of the River'' and directed by

Nelson Pereira dos Santos Nelson Pereira dos Santos (22 October 1928 21 April 2018) was a Brazilian film director. He directed films such as ''Vidas secas (film), Vidas Secas'' (Barren Lives), based on the Vidas Secas, book with the same name by Brazilian writer Gracilia ...

Radio

* An adaptation was also made for radio with an episode titled ''The Third Bank of the River'' airing in 1985 as part of the ''

Vanishing Point A vanishing point is a point on the image plane of a perspective drawing where the two-dimensional perspective projections of mutually parallel lines in three-dimensional space appear to converge. When the set of parallel lines is perpendicul ...

'' series.

Bibliography

* RONAI, Paulo. "Os vastos espaços" (escrito em 1966). in: '' Primeiras Estórias''. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 2001. * ROSA, Vilma Guimarães Rosa. ''Relembramentos''. Nova Fronteira, 2014

983 Year 983 ( CMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Diet of Verona: Emperor Otto II (the Red) declares war against the Byza ...

* SANTANA, Ana Glécia Ramos de. "O estudo da literatura na contemporaneidade: como a poética é realizada nas canções". Camaçari: Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 2013. Available onlin
here

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Third Bank of the River, The 1962 short stories Works by João Guimarães Rosa Brazilian works adapted into films Short stories adapted into films