Rio de Janeiro

The city of Rio de Janeiro is deeply significant to the events of the novel, in no small part because of Heringer's interest in the overarching cultural truths about Brazil and the ways in which these cultural attitudes impact the lives of his characters. Rio is among the largest cities in Brazil and serves as one of its cultural capitals, making it something of a stand-in throughout the novel for the state of Brazilian culture as a whole. Indeed, Camilo develops a fascination with the crumbling infrastructure of the city's streets and buildings, fixating in his old age on a tree whose roots have grown through a sidewalk and caused it to crack and warp. The large space that the infrastructure of Rio takes up in Camilo's mind has more to do with its symbolic significance to Camilo than with a specific concern for infrastructure; Camilo...