I met Vitor Silva Tavares two and a half years, when I was knocking it underground in Amendment Street, headquarters of the mythical mythical & amp;. etc, to him talk about João César Monteiro
It was not a formal interview, but a listening: I was determined to write a biography of John Caesar and wanted to know what he thought of the subject and had availability to talk to me. Vitor had availability, of course, and it was pouring availability with the stories piling up on top of each other, atilhadas with anecdotes and dichotes, as befits a generation that grew up chatting in cafes, and not only read far more than my generation, and, above all, spoke and lived much more than her.
In front of me, I had a living archive of almost everything the best that Lisbon culture managed to produce in second half of the twentieth century, and after a few minutes was already arrependidíssimo have not taken a tape recorder to record what was supposed to be just a presentation of conversation. Was the investigation around the João César Monteiro that led me to Vitor Silva Tavares and, largely, was Vitor Silva Tavares who took me to the small but lush world of Portuguese independent edition, where the book is still surrounded by a sacred aura and remains a craft work, loving and tough rules of the “market” even when it is traded on Saturdays between booksellers Street Anchieta.
Still, what most fascinated me in Vitor Silva Tavares was not your editor careful work, idiosyncratic and unshakable principles, which made & amp; etc exemplary publisher that today is not even the man who courageously faced new state censorship. These are all admirable qualities, to be sure, but in both cases it is possible to find other names that share. However, there was a very particular that it was for me surprising and disconcerting; a character trait that Vitor Silva Tavares seemed to share with anyone else:. the capacity that had to stay friends with Luiz Pacheco and João César Monteiro over a lifetime
Pacheco and João César had spells impossible, and their lives are a long road crucified friendships by their temperaments; people who, later or earlier, turned out not stand and walk away. However, in this terrible list of fallen friends, the name of Vitor Silva Tavares was always scratching – and is this perseverance that lies its mystery. It not being exactly the meekest of men, as the integrity of his journey and demonstrates how to justify this patience of Job? What a strange quality did always remain beside who both demanded and so little gave the in return?
I will not pretend that I found a good answer to this question, because the long interview of João César Monteiro never arrived to be held, my fault: the biography has been making way, but too slowly, as it turns out. Yet Vitor Silva Tavares attitude towards the most eccentric of the eccentric has been, since my visit to the street Amendment not only an enigma, but also an inspiration. Is in her posture a character magnitude that has outgrown its work, an assumed erasing itself – even as a writer and poet – for other shine. And this is an absolutely radical way of giving to others, at all worthy of our amazement and our admiration.
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