daytripper

Brothers Gabriel Fá and Fábio Moon have received numerous praises for this ten-part masterpiece. I don’t have to be forced to add my own. The series dissects the life story of aspiring novelist and obituary writer Brás de Oliva Domingos, each chapter looking into an important day in different years of his life. He is 34, he is 11, he is 21, he is 76. Every chapter (except, quite fittingly, the last one; in my opinion, the series could have done away with the ninth issue and still be cohesive, but that’s a personal opinion) ends the same way. I was stunned by the first issue, and confused by the second, but by the third chapter I understood what the creators were doing and was impressed by their genius.

How else can the writers make us treasure a chronicled life, if not by dangling the constant specter of death? Suddenly, with this knowledge, our senses become knife-sharp, and we notice Brás’s shallowness and stupidities and mistakes, his irrelevant fears and useless obsessions.

We, like Brás, who do not know how or when our chapters will end, wake up each morning and believe we will live forever.