The fairy with big eyes

inverse proportion in the "Fragments" of Almada Negreiros

Abstract

This study proposes a first reading of the group of seven narrative “Fragments” by Almada Negreiros, published only in 2002 in his collected Fictions. Decentering the attention given to more prominent and well-discussed works in the author’s oeuvre, a mixed approach is adopted, combining, on one hand, a revision of the main avenues of criticism on the fragment and short form literature, and, on the other, a close reading of the texts under consideration. By analyzing the creation of textual beings and objects throughout these fragmentary fictions, we conclude that inverse proportion — more than the gap or the ellipse commonly invoked — is the primordial concept in the idea of fragment for Almada. This concept is allegorized in those metaliterary beings and objects as figure and performance, that is, as a demonstration in action, of its own theory and, by extension, of the author’s theory of fiction.