The Brothers in Three Times: Mith, History and Circum-inscription

Abstract

What marks our time of being if not the way in which in the time we are given, in it experiencing other times that converge with ours when they flow? This, this mode of temporality, although in the form of questioning, is what happens to the narrator of The Brothers, by Milton Hatoum (2006). Nael is and faces a time that, not being his, gives himself to him and allows him the possibility of becoming. In this sense, the present work aims to reflect on three forms of time in the novel The brothers, focusing on the narrator and his relationship with and on the relationship between the characters Yaqub and Omar, Halim and Domingas. We will make this reflection from a dialogue with Castilo (2021) and his concept of “perlaboração”, and with Benedito Nunes (2009, 2013b) and his discussion about the myth in Hatoun's novel, aiming to combine time and memory, thus raising the possibility of thinking about the relationship between the three times: myth, history and circum-inscription. It will be the first two times that produce and open the way to the third, through which Nael circulates and enters the circle of the story that happened.