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His list of works is too numerous to mention in a fragmentary introduction of this nature; chief among them stands Innocencia; a sister tale, so to speak, to Isaacs's María. According to Verissimo, Innocencia is one of the country's few genuinely original novels.
Fiala made sketches of improved tents, hammocks, and other field equipment, suggested by what he had already seen. Some of us read books. Colonel Rondon, neat, trim, alert, and soldierly, studied a standard work on applied geographical astronomy. Father Zahm read a novel by Fogazzaro. Kermit read Camoens and a couple of Brazilian novels, "O Guarani" and "Innocencia."
Both Maria and Innocencia have been mentioned for that honor. Issued, in English by the publishers of this book. There is a distinct basis for comparison between Innocencia and the more famous Spanish American tale from Colombia; between these and Canaan, however, there is little similarity, if one overlook the poetic atmosphere that glamours all three.
Whatever of artifice there is in these tales is overcome, one of his most sympathetic critics tells us, by the poetic sincerity of the whole. Taunay, too, has been likened to Pierre Loti for his exotic flavor. In Yerecé a Guaná we have a miniature Innocencia. Yerecé and Alberto Monteiro fall in love and marry. The latter has been cured, at the home of Yerecé, of swamp fever.
The inevitable, however, occurs, and Montero hears the call of civilization. The marriage, according to the custom of the tribe into which Montero has wed, is dissolved by the man alone. He returns to his old life and she dies of grief. A work that may stand beside Innocencia and Verissimo's Scenes from Amazon Life as a successful national product is Inglez de Sousa's O Missionario.
Innocencia is all that her name implies, and dwells secluded with her father, who is a miner, her negress slave Conga, and her Caliban-like dwarf Tico, who loves Innocencia, the Miranda of this district. Into Innocencia's life comes the itinerant physician, Cirino de Campos, who is called by her father to cure her of the fever.
Innocencia, on the other hand, is stouter in texture. In María there is no love struggle; the struggle is with life and circumstance; in Innocencia there is not only the element of rivalry in love, but in addition there is the rigid parent who sternly, and at last murderously, opposes the natural desires of a child whom he has promised to another.
There is in each book a similar importance of the background. In Innocencia the "point of honor" is quite as strong and vindictive as in any play of the Spanish Golden Age. María shares with Innocencia relieving touches of humor and excellent pages of character description. Taunay's O Encilhamento is a violent antithesis to the work just considered. Here the politician speaks.
The tragedy seems foreordained, for Innocencia makes spirited resistance, while Manaçao avenges himself by killing the doctor. A comic figure of a German scientist adds humor and a certain poignant irony to the tale. Such a bare outline conveys nothing of the mysterious charm of the original, nor of its poetic atmosphere.
Comparing Innocencia with what has been termed its sister work, María, I believe that María is the better tale of the two, although there is much to be said for both. The point need not be pressed. The heroine of María is more a woman, less a child than Innocencia, hence the fate of the Spanish girl is tragic where that of the other maiden is merely pitiful.
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