Negation of the Narrative Framework or the Failure of Narrative Memory

As a narrative of the crumbling Portuguese empire written a few years after the colonial war had come to an end, Os cus de Judas denounces the affects and effects of that war, which are perceived as a hindrance to any positive representation of the individual and Portugal. The novel's unnamed protagonist is continually rendered impotent in his many attempts to escape the disturbing and obsessive images of the war and to restore a memory traumatized by recollections of the past. These images have a bearing on the articulation of his self and color his vision of a nation still beholden to the rhetoric of its fascist past, which has purposefully erased from its memory the atrocities and the horrors of the colonial war. As an individual condemned to live among the ruins of a former empire defined by a strong instinct for collective forgetfulness, the protagonist comes to the realization that it is pointless to construct a narrative that may provide coherence and unity to his life or give meaning to his country. His only option in life is to engage in a mode of self-referential narration without the possibility of closure

Art · Literature · Narrative · Negation · Programming language · Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism · Computer Science · Latin American Literature Analysis · Literature, Culture, and Aesthetics · Psychology