Book, Nature reserve[LS]

In ten short stories, Rodrigo Lacerda addresses the theme of the “natural world”. But the “reserve” of its title could also evoke dissimulation and modesty, on the one hand, and on the other the potential power to destroy troops in the rear. The natural world in this book is a world of mystery, violence, beauty, and fear. In a natural reserve, nature is not always an idyll, nor is it always hell. It includes man, competes with him, provokes him and threatens him. Life forms of a moving and embarrassing simplicity — bacteria, microbes, cancer cells — “perform their biological functions without pleasure or pain, without critical judgment”. A woman collects, in small bottles, a little of the air of Paris, and intruding humans investigate and emulate the sexual games between orchids and insects. There is a moment of rapture on a masseur's table, a moment of joy for the body, and there is the fear of death by the sea, just when life seems most intense and intoxicating. In these moments, and in so many others, Rodrigo Lacerda keeps us suspended, glued to the text, to this world from which we have strangely distanced ourselves. The confidence with which he assumes different voices and the dexterity with which he entangles us in these narratives shows, once again, why he is among the most relevant authors in the country.