Brazil Red [Hardcover]

Jean-Christophe Rufin (Author), Willard Wood (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004

"BRAZIL RED tells the story of two orphaned children, Just and Colombe, who are dragged off on the French colonizing expedition--they are meant to learn the native languages and act as interpreters. Everything in this novel is outsized: the setting, a jungle still populated by cannibals; the characters, including Villegagnon, the expedition's eccentric leader, who might be a model for Cyrano or d'Artagnan; and the events, a dress rehearsal for the Wars of Religion ten years in the future. Packed with portraits, landscapes, and action, "Brazil Red is a novel about coming of age and discovering love. On a deeper level, the story follows the destinies and decisions of Just and Colombe, presenting two conflicting views of man and nature. On one hand, a conquering European civilization, offering liberation but delivering death. On the other, the Indian world, with its sensuality, its harmony, its sense of the sacred, its continual call to happiness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A page-turner that won the Prix Goncourt in 2001, Rufin's third offering (after The Abyssinian and The Siege of Isfahan) fits neatly into the romance novel mold of beautiful maidens, brave knights and dastardly villains. The story centers on the plight of two 16th-century French orphans, Just and Colombe, who are tricked into joining a colonial expedition to subjugate Brazil. The enterprise is commanded by Chevalier Durand de Villegagnon, a colonist whose actual memoirs provided Rufin with some of the details that inspired this novel. Once across the ocean, Villegagnon prematurely dubs Brazil the "New France" and sets about combating his enemies: the hot Brazilian sun, the native residents and the Portuguese, who claimed sole right to Brazil long before. Years roll by and as the action proceeds, a question hovers portentously over the book: will the orphans grow up to be cruel colonialists or secular humanists who appreciate the Indians' wisdom? Rufin provides plenty of rousing action, yet somehow, despite the author's historical research, the book never rises far above melodrama. This is partly due to tired word choice and to the playlike structure of scenes that end with a conveniently chiming clock or thunder in the distance. Mostly, however, it is the natural consequence of the novel's overly neat divide between good and evil.
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From Booklist

The decade of French colonization prior to the Wars of Religion provides the backdrop for this adventuresome novel about a forgotten piece of French history. In 1555, led by Admiral Villegagnon, a group of French artisans, knights, criminals, and religious zealots set sail for Brazil to form a colony. In need of interpreters to communicate with the natives, the admiral drafted two orphan children to act as go-betweens, a brother and sister named Just and Columbe. The story centers on the children as they spend their formative years amid two opposing cultures: the transported French and the native Tupi Indian. The division between the two cultures is reflected in the siblings--Just is galvanized by militaristic order, whereas Columbe flowers in the natural rhythms of Tupi society. The pair must also contend with the colony's likely annihilation by a variety of sources that includes dwindling provisions, nature's wrath, and a war with the Portuguese. Ultimately, however, it is the splintered sects of Christianity that pit man against man and unleash mankind's capacity for evil and self-destruction. Jerry Eberle
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393052079
• ISBN-13: 978-0393052077
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #457,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A ripping yarn!, October 7, 2004

By 

P. Schafer (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brazil Red (Hardcover)

If you approach this book expecting high literature, you're going to be disappointed. It is not cerebral and the writing is at time clumsy. But if you enjoy a historical novel full of derring-do and exotic locales, with good guys and bad guys and a forest full of sixteenth-century proto-Brazilians, go ahead. As in all good adventure yarns, the love scenes (except with the treacherous betrayer) provide nothing but a slowing down of the action. I was driven to research the history of "la France Antarctique" and was introduced to a bit of French history I had never even heard of. I've already passed my copy on to a friend who has reported he's as gripped as I was. And he's a professor of French literature!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun Read and Enlightening, February 14, 2005

By 

George D. Eeds (Pinole, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brazil Red (Hardcover)

Rufin's story is great adventure told by a subtlety humorous narrator-no small achievement given the seriousness of Brazil Red's themes. This would also be a terrific book for advanced young readers, age fourteen and up. A rare book that makes history real, entertaining, and meaningful. Because of its child protagonists, Just and Colombe, Brazil Red favorably reminded me of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass.