Dom Casmurro

Dom Casmurro 

by Machado de Assis

translation by Helen Caldwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this novel. I discovered Machado de Assis back in college when I read Epitaph for a Small Winner (aka Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas) for a Latin American Literature class and was immediately a fan. I have read several of his other novels that have been translated to English (unfortunately I can't read Portugese) and have enjoyed all of them. 

The introduction in the edition I read was by Waldo Frank (dated 1952) and he explained that Laurence Sterne was a strong influence on Machado. This makes sense to me as the dry, quiet tone and the way the author steps out of the pages now and then to make asides, is similar. Dom Casmurro is told from the point of view of a man looking back over his life and telling us about it. He hints at the future implications of the events he describes, but until you get there in the story you don't know what happened. This builds a tension in the novel that propels you through it. 

“In ordinary life, the action of a third party does not free the contractor from an obligation; but the advantage of making a contract with heaven is that intentions are valid currency.” --Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

This book is on my Classics Club list.

Esau and Jacob

Esau and Jacob 

by Machado de Assis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the third novel I have read by Machado de Assis. In college I read The Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas (Epitaph of a Small Winner is the English title) and Quincas Borba (which was called Philosopher or Dog? in English) and really enjoyed both. I liked the style of this novel which is one of his later novels (it was published in 1904). I felt like this story dragged a bit though. My recollection is that the earlier books had a similar style; the author jumps in regularly to comment on the story he is telling. A few quotes illustrate the style:

"They might not have the same opinions, and they might have the same likes ... From that to saying that both loved her was a comma; Pedro placed the period on the sentence." (p. 114)

"They had been to the theater with Aires one evening, killing time. You know this dragon. Everyone has given him the hardest blows they can; he kicks, expires, and revives. So it went, that night. I don't know which theater it was, nor which play, nor which genre. Whatever it was, the purpose was to kill time, and the three left him stretched out on the floor." (p. 192)

Dom Casmuro (published 1899) is the other major novel by this author and is on my TBR list.