Literature on demand by exu or notes for the deconstruction of literature

Abstract

Under Exu's demand, Jorge Amado's literature erases the division between high and low. It unites the sublime and the pop, in a new coexistence that strengthens the ties between two old enemies, the one in the big house and the one in the basement, the logic of the condominium and the slums. The exurian pranks, starting with Jorge Amado, taking him as a starting point and taking me away from him, trying to say what I would never have said, being faithful to him in infidelity, constrain the metaphysics of presence – a Greek-European metaphysics of Jewish and Christian matrix–, bringing to light what has been repressed by European villainy, that is, that all metaphysics has always been the metaphysics of the sign. It means that all meaning is only produced in a chain, in a movement from difference to difference, and it is not possible to reduce any text to a fixed structure without loss and serious damage. Literature is the locus of “non-truth”, which does not have fixed identity or self-identity, and cannot be appropriated by anyone or any theory of knowledge, even more if it is organized by hierarchies and colonial exclusions. The Exu-Amadianas mischief opened paths to Literature and smeared its crossroads with palm oil, marafo and farofa. I maintain that the presence of the Nagô Exu orixá in a Catholic baptism is a metaphor for thinking about the deconstruction and decolonization of Literature. Situated between Literature and Macumba, crossed by Jorge Amado's Exu, this writing produces routes to deviate from the oppressions that still insist on obsessing Literature.