"The letters of the law - short stories", published by Casa da Palavra, brings together short works of fiction by well-known jurists such as Eros Grau and Miguel Reale Júnior.
Jurists - judges, lawyers, prosecutors - are perhaps among the greatest connoisseurs of the human soul. After all, they don't limit themselves to the cold reading of codes, records and petitions, or to writing opinions: they always have to come into close and even intimate contact with people in each case, be they criminals, victims, witnesses, police officers, experts, always dealing with emotions or ambitions. Dealing with human beings driven by the needs of the heart, dealing with people driven by the anxieties of the pocket, jurists, by virtue of their profession, are deeply familiar with the depths of human emotions. That's why, in addition to cultivating legal writing, law students and professionals stand out among all professions as great cultivators of so-called fine literature, especially fiction writers who have delved into the lights and shadows of the darkest recesses and the most illuminated pulsations of human hearts.
This is clearly demonstrated by this small collection 'As letras da lei - contos', published by Casa da Palavra, which brings together short works of fiction by well-known jurists such as Eros Grau and Miguel Reale Júnior. Pierre Moreau, a Harvard-educated lawyer and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, had the brilliant idea of bringing these authors and their short stories together. Organizer of the volume, Moreau says in the introduction that, when he studied Law and Literature at Harvard, he realized that, for the founder of this discipline, the famous American jurist Benjamin Cardozo, this course 'was a way of enabling law students to draw on Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Kafka and other well-known authors to build their own discourse and improve their legal writing'.
Since then, Moreau has conceived "the plan to put into practice the gathering of literary writings signed by renowned lawyers", which has now come to fruition. The volume opens with a short story by Eros Grau, a full professor at the University of São Paulo and retired minister of the Federal Supreme Court, who is already well known as a fiction writer. It's the short story 'A.'s Shoulder'. These are ramblings about the shoulders of a woman whom the narrator has only seen once in his life: 'Three palms separated us. There was only infinity between us. Not just three palms in front, on the table she occupied. About four on the side. I was at the next table. Absolutely by chance. But we were together for a moment. As if forever. She was wearing a low-cut blouse, two or three fingers below her neck, so that I could only see her shoulders, one at a time, never both. In the space of a few seconds, because of a brief gesture on her part, the blouse slipped and I saw her right shoulder and bra strap. That point of the shoulder where bra straps rest. Our eyes met, she straightened up, and I realized she was reddening. No more than a few seconds of nakedness and infinity between us.
He has never seen her since. But he kept the memory of that fleeting shoulder forever, which, many years later, he thought he recognized in other women, when he saw them, for example, on television. Every time he remembered that shoulder, he wondered how his life would have been different if he had been close to that woman. The delicacy of this tale is reminiscent of Machado de Assis' subtleties in 'Uns braços' or 'As mãos de Sancha'.
Miguel Reale Júnior, also a full professor at USP and Minister of Justice under Fernando Henrique Cardoso, was inspired by his own profession in the short story 'The Ruby Ring'. It was on the ring finger of the right hand of 'a man in his fifties, with a slumped step and a yellow grease stain on his jacket', who entered a bar where children were playing. 'When he saw the waitress, he nodded and waved his hand for her to bring him his usual drink. The girl immediately brought him a medium glass of draft beer. The movement of the children and the street could have been the object of his attention, but his absolutely impassive state showed that he was not registering anything, his gaze empty, his face without any reaction. Once in a while he tapped his fingers, with dirty fingernails, on the tabletop, but most of the time he was absolutely static, absent'. Thus, with mastery worthy of Eça de Queiroz, a story opens that is steeped in grandeur and melancholy.
In addition to his short story, jurist Eduardo Muylaert also contributed beautiful photographs to accompany the texts. Other authors are José Alexandre Tavares Guerreiro, Luís Francisco Carvalho Filho, Luciana Gervoic, Luiz Kignel, José Gregori, José Renato Nalini, Marcelo S. Barbosa and Denis Borges Barbosa.