The Time and the Wind are the
workmanship most important of Érico Verríssimo, and one of most important of the country. It
tells to the Saga of the family Terra Cambará and, through it, the history of the settling of the Rio Grande do Sul. The trilogy initiates with the
workmanship the Continent, in a reference the immense of land little inhabited of the south region in the second half of century XVIII. Through the history of Ana Land, son of bandeirantes (that precious indians and metals hunted), who has a romance with a dissolute indian of just destroyed reductions of guaranis, shows to the formation of the people ‘gaúcho’. In the Continent, the strong
personages are the women, first Ana Land and later its Bibiana granddaughter, married audacious and the adventurer Rodrigo Cambará. They are the women who resist, keeping the survival of the family while the men fight in without end wars. As the book, the Picture, describes the life of the Rodrigo Cambará, grandson of the first one. It tells the turn of century XIX for century XX e, through the conflicts of Rodrigo, argues the conflicts of the society of the time. Rodrigo has many ideals politicians, who with the time go if modifying for the economic interests. It is the picture of caudilho, self-centered and populist. The last book of the trilogy, the Archipelago, makes reference to the division of the continent in some islands, demonstrating the diversity of ideas of the personages of the family and the proper brazilian society in the half of century XX. It is a reflexive workmanship on its time. He includes in the narrative real personages, as Getúlio Vargas, but the main personage is Floriano Cambará, son of Rodrigo and its great opponent. In the truth, Floriano is to alter ego of the writer. Trying to rescue its origins, Floriano starts to write the history of its family. Thus the trilogy finishes where it started, demonstrating that the time passes but the wind he is cyclical.