Book, Grande mentecapto, The: stories of the adventure and desvent of Viramundo[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. "The Brazilian Don Quixote In The Great Mind, classic by Fernando Sabino, the reader is transported to the state of Minas Gerais, more precisely to Rio Acima, the small town where José Geraldo Peres da Nóbrega e Silva, known as Geraldo Viramundo, was born - or just Viramundo. Geraldo grows up and realizes that his way of looking at the world is changing. As a young man, he becomes interested in knowing the details of religious life, until he decides to enter the seminary, in Mariana. But he leaves the seminary and continues a life full of adventures and twists and turns: he goes through the hospice, the Army, politics, falls in love - but cannot fit into any of these realities. He then advances on his journey, passing through Ouro Preto, Barbacena, Juiz de Fora, Uberaba, Cataguases and many other cities in Minas Gerais, getting involved in fun adventures, until ending his journey in Belo Horizonte, the state capital. Despite the misunderstandings he gets involved in, Viramundo is a well-intentioned citizen, who does good and believes in people, but on several occasions he is used by them. In the dictionary, “mentecapto” means someone who is maladjusted, alienated, who loses his mind. Empathy with the character is immediate; it awakens the compassion of those who understand the difficulty of fitting into the so-called normal world, in the face of so much neglect, irony and demands. Some critics compared Geraldo Viramundo to a character from one of the world's great literary classics: Don Quixote, the protagonist of the novel written by the Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes. In fact, both Quixote and Viramundo have in common the humanist, dreamy, adventurous character. They often seem hallucinated, looking for a place in the world that can make their existence more meaningful. Just like Cervantes' work, The Big Mind makes a series of references to other works and authors, in addition to presenting complex and well-constructed characters, making the reader get involved in this hilarious and dramatic story, with interest and curiosity. It is one of the great novels of Brazilian literature. "