An 'Earthly' Reading of Campos de Carvalho's A lua vem da Ásia

Abstract

This paper aims to interpret the configuration of space in the 1956 novel A lua vem da Ásia, by Campos de Carvalho. In order to do so, I read the novel in an ‘earthly’ fashion, that is to say, I take heed of the manner in which its social and historical context contributes to the configuration of its spatial aspects. This course of action is in stark contrast to most interpretations of the novel, which read it from the perspective of its mad, lunatic narrator. The interpretation I propose here draws particularly on the concept of deterritorialization as employed by sociologist Renato Ortiz. It leads to construe the status of space in the novel as being de-centralized or mondialized. In this spatial configuration, the travelling narrator also becomes a ‘citizen of the world’ in the sense that he no longer needs to travel to find the same objects: they come to him. This configuration dissolves dichotomies such as East/West, North/South, and native/foreigner, which affects the way the narrator sees the world – and himself. I conclude that, if the space in the narrative can be interpreted as conditioned by the narrator’s ‘madness’, by his ‘mystical facet’ and/or by his ‘gnostic sensibility’, an alternative or complementary factor of this conditioning is the social and historical process of mundialization, observable in the phenomenon of deterritorialization, which appears in the novel, albeit in a hyperbolized manner, artistically and aesthetically modified.