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Director André Klotzel successfully keeps the playful nature of Machado de Assis’ novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas in this 2001 movie (IMDb.com page). The movie plays off the abundant irony in the book, touching on many of the same subjects. While it avoids the literary references that provide depth to the novel, Klotzel […]
Statue of Machado de Assis at the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Machado was the first president of the Academy) Picture source“Time is an invisible web on which everything may be embroidered.” — Machado de Assis A wonderful introduction to an author that I had not heard about until recently. If it is possible to make […]
That Stendhal should have confessed to have written one of his books for a hundred readers is something that brings on wonder and concern. Something that will not cause wonder and probably no concern is whether this other book will have Stendhal’s hundred readers, or fifty, or twenty, or even ten. Ten? Five perhaps. The […]
Picture source Chapter CXXXV: Oblivion… Put that name in small caps. OBLIVION! It’s only proper that all honor be paid to a personage so despised and so worthy, a last-minute gues at the party, but a sure one. The lady who dazzled at the dawn of the present reign knows it and, even more painfully, […]
I’m beginning to regret this book. Not that it bores me, I have nothing to do and, really, putting together a few meager chapters for that other world is always a task that distracts me a little from eternity a little. But the book is tedious, it has the smell of the grave about it; […]
Rua Direita no Rio de Janeiro (by Johann Moritz Rugendas) Brás Cubas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Virgília . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brás […]
Picture source For some time I debated whether I should start these memoirs at the beginning or at the end, that is, whether I should put my birth or my death in first place. Since common usage would call for beginning with birth, two considerations led me to adopt a different method: the first is […]
Joaquim Maria Machado de AssisIt took a while to find things online (in English) about Machado de Assis. While a few of these items are repetitive, I’ll include the links I found interesting: His Wikipedia entry A beautiful site created by the Academia Brasileira de Letras Reading Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, an article from […]