A Cup of Rage

the long version

This is a novella about the highly erotic relationship between a young, urban, feminist woman and a similarly well educated, but older, cynical and macho small-scale farmer in the Brazilian outback, this book is shocking and infamous. It is a famous book of Brazilian modernism, it could at first sight appear a piece of chauvinist fantasy, but that would be to ignore the fact that the author is at an ironic distance to the narrator, and although almost all the book is in the narrator's voice, it becomes clear that the book is a scathing portrayal of the male psyche, its infantilism and tantrums - the egotistical man unable to deal with the new gender role, yet this does not stop the book also being a merciless reckoning with second-hand, glib liberal posturing.