guimarães rosa > james joyce [verify, gm]

"The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, his 600-page epic masterpiece on honour, courage, love, and treachery that takes the form of a first-person monologue by a backlands outlaw who makes a pact with the Devil to gain revenge. The original title refers to the veredas - small paths through wetlands usually located at higher altitudes characterized by the presence of grasses and buritizais, groups of the buriti palm-tree (Mauritia flexuosa), that criss-cross the Sertão region in northern Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil - as a labyrinthine net where an outsider can easily get lost, and where there is no single way to a certain place, since all paths interconnect in such a way that any road can lead anywhere. The English title refers to a later episode in the book involving an attempt to make a deal with the Devil. Most of the book's spirit is however lost in translation, as the Portuguese original is written in a register that is both archaic and colloquial, making it a very difficult book to translate. The combination of its size, linguistic oddness and polemic themes caused a shock when it was published, but now it is considered one of the most important novels of South American literature."