Books like Captains of the Sands

The newspaper articles framing Jorge Amado’s Captains of the Sands provide a touch of realism while introducing the underlying conditions and hardships facing a group of orphans in Bahia. I liked this introduction and the first number of chapters that chronicled the exploits and streets smarts of the Captains of the Sands. This group is made up of about 100 youths who sleep in an abandoned warehouse and eke out a starvation existence by thieving. In the various chapters, the focus shifts between one of several characters in the gang. This makes it feel like a collection of stories rather than a novel. The pretext that this is an objective documentation of events also falls away with each successive story. Through it all, though, there is a sense that there are no alternatives for these orphans if they want to survive. They are led by Pedro Bala (Bullet). It took me quite some time to come to terms with the leader’s casual rape of a 15-year old girl. For a while, I tried to convince myself that we were not meant to approve of Bullet or the actions of the other Captains of the Sands. Cruelty is not a stranger in their lives. Why should they be expected to treat others with a humanity that is denied to them? However, with no more mention of the assault (he later thinks about his sport of ‘pulling little black girls onto the sand’ to have his way with them as different than his love for Dora), the narrative moves forward. Worse yet, it is clear that we are meant to admire Bullet. Frankly, to have him romanticized after that is a bit galling. What was still compelling was the inability of any of the other orphans to achieve their dreams. They recognize that such dreams are impossible and sabotage them if there’s a chance at them coming true. For instance, at one point, Legless is taken into a home with a woman who treats him like a mother. Instead of accepting the love he has yearned for he lets the gang know how best to rob the house and disappears. When the Professor’s artistic skill is admired by a man who is in a position to help him with his art, the Professor throws the man’s card away and tells Bullet that all they’ll ever be is thieves. Though some of the gang including the Professor move away from the gang near the end in order to chase after their dreams, a pervading feeling remains that nothing has changed the way a class-conscious society looks down on the less fortunate. That’s probably why the very last pages of Captains of the Sands resound with such revolutionary fervor. More than anything else, Amado wanted the world to understand the suffering of the Bahian people.