The Humanevi newsletter
Weekly
Once a week: 5 things worth your time.
1 story, 1 idea, 1 discovery, 1 tool, 1 book.
The Humanevi newsletter
Once a week: 5 things worth your time.
1 story, 1 idea, 1 discovery, 1 tool, 1 book.
Machado de Assis's novel narrated by Brás Cubas, who tells his own life story after death, with irony, digressions and very short chapters.
Advertising · Affiliate link
By purchasing through this link, Humanevi may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
The book is a landmark of Brazilian realism and invents a narrator with nothing left to lose. Brás Cubas comments on his vanities, loves and the Rio de Janeiro society of the nineteenth century without shame, and Machado's irony exposes hypocrisy with humor and calculated cruelty.
Readers who want to meet one of the great names in Brazilian literature, enjoy acid humor and like narrators who talk to the reader. It also matters to students reading it for exams, literature classes or research on imperial Brazil.
First published as a book in 1881, the novel reflects a slaveholding, hierarchical society, presented critically but without preaching. Part of the effect lies in noticing what the narrator hides or distorts. A second reading usually reveals much that went unnoticed.
Choose an edition with notes explaining allusions, expressions and historical figures, ideally with a critical preface. Being short, a pocket format works well. Afterwards, Dom Casmurro by the same author lets you compare two kinds of unreliable narrator.