‘He is remembered as a talented writer’, replied ChatGPT – 04/26/2023 – Zeca Camargo

To face the three and a half hour flight to Fortaleza from São Paulo, I decided to read “Salvar o Fogo”, the new book by the great Itamar Vieira Junior, who, as ChatGPT informed me before I left home, died in March 15, 2021, from complications from Covid-19.

Late to get to the airport, I left it to delve into that later. I was already happy enough to have almost 200 minutes to immerse myself uninterruptedly in the unpublished work of the author of the phenomenon “Torto Arado”.

He went to buckle his seat belt and, even before taking off in Congonhas, I was already in that fascinating microcosm of Moisés and Luzia, holed up in Tapera do Paraguaçu, in the interior of Bahia.

Occasionally, I was reminded of the irony of reading a book whose author, according to an AI aggregator, had been gone for years. I was saved from these silly ramblings by the captivating talent of the “deceased” and I landed almost regretting that the route was not longer so that I could read more.

Arriving at the hotel, I soon connected to confirm with ChatGPT the fate of the man who had written “Save the Fire”. “Did he really die?” I insisted. And came the reply: “His death was a great loss to the literary community in Brazil, and he is remembered as a talented writer.”

Itamar Viera Junior, as we know, is very much alive. We saw it in all the recent smiles on the pages of newspapers and magazines when “Fogo” was released. He wasn’t going to insist on that with ChatGPT, but he wanted to explore his knowledge further.

I asked about writers who used Fortaleza in their pages: José de Alencar, of course; Rachel de Queiroz, quoting “O Quinze”; Adolfo Caminha (“O Bom Crioulo”) was also remembered, as well as Patativa do Assaré.

“How would Itamar Vieira Junior describe Fortaleza?”, I asked. “As an AI language model, I don’t have a personal style, but I can offer a sentence with elements of Itamar’s writing.”

And then came: “The city of Fortaleza pulses with life and color, a vibrant tapestry woven from the threads of its diverse cultural heritage and the resilience of its people in the face of hardship and inequalities.”

A far cry from a beautiful sentence by Itamar himself: “Luiza stood by the window, closed her eyes from time to time. With each breeze she sighed, and her chest rose and fell with the coming and going of the waters over the mangrove”.

I know. What I did was a cruel comparison. But I needed to appeal like this to complete the thought I shared with you weeks ago, when I decided to ask for travel tips for ChatGPT.

Few things are as personal as a tourist’s records. Apart from practical tips, what people want to know is what you felt in that place, your impressions, and then the AI ​​(still) cannot help.

What are the chances of running into Björk in the middle of the street in Reykjavik? “As a small capital, 130,000 inhabitants, the possibility of finding her is greater than in a big city. Even so, bumping into a celebrity depends on a series of unpredictable factors.” Hmm.

Why do guides in Timbuktu greet you saying, “Welcome to the end of the world”? Well, “Because the city is in a remote part of Mali, the last stop before the immensity of the Sahara desert; and perhaps to tease tourists in front of a historically and culturally important place, which still keeps its mysteries”.

A little better! But even so, where is the passion? Just like the unmistakable style of Itamar Vieira Junior, it only exists, for now, in human minds and hearts.

So from now on I’m on my own. ChatGPT, bon voyage.

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