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Dom Casmurro (Classicos Da Literatura Brasileira)
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by: Machado de Assis
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Sales Rank: 462524
Luso-Brazilian Books
Released: 2005-02-04 |
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Media: Paperback (1)
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Amazon.com Review
The unreliable narrator and the fictional memoir are long-standing literary traditions. Nineteenth-century Brazilian author Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis uses both to brilliant effect in his novel Dom Casmurro. Narrated by Bento Santiago, this memoir looks back over a life filled with the suspicion of betrayal: Bento is convinced that his wife had an affair with his best friend, and that his son was the result of it. Though he has no real evidence to support this belief, Bento becomes so obsessed with it that, in the end, he commits crimes far worse than the suspected adultery to avenge himself. The memoir itself is a kind of justification for his actions; Bento, now alone, recreates the environment of his childhood and attempts to rewrite the facts of his life--in essence, reconstructing the past. Among readers familiar with Latin American literature, Machado is considered a master. His novels blend black comedy with deadly accurate social commentary and an unerring perception of human psychology to create works that are brilliant, complex without being opaque, and joys to read. The Oxford University Press edition is ably translated by John Gledson and accompanied by critical essays that will help orient readers unfamiliar with Machado's work.
Product Description
A classic story of love and jealousy, Dom Casmurro is the story of Bento and his childhood love, Capitu, who overcome their parents? reluctance to marry. But Bento jealously suspects that their son is not his. But beyond this straightforward plot, Machado plays with the reader?s expectations and comments on the structure of the story, blurring the line between fiction and reality and appearing very modern.
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Dom Casmurro (Classicos Da Literatura Brasileira)
- Paperback: 176 pages (2005-02-04)
- Publisher: Luso-Brazilian Books; 2005-02-04
- Label: Luso-Brazilian Books
- Studio: Luso-Brazilian Books
- ISBN: 0850515033
- Average Customer Review: based on 29 reviews
- Sales Rank in Books: #462524
Avg. Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Spoilers below 2008-05-08
Comment: All in all I thought this was an excellent novel. The first three quarters are an idyllic story of a boy's first love in late 19th century Brazil. The last part is how the marriage fell apart due to suspicions of adultery.
In regards to the debate on whether Capitu cheated, I must say that at first I was unsure also. The thing that swayed me into thinking that yes, she did cheat, was the part where Bentinho's mother was indifferent to his child. If you remember, Bentinho was confused by this since the child was her only grandson. I think she was indifferent because something led her to intuit that the child was not her son's. (Thus his mother knew Capitu was unfaithful long before he did. She never told him, but she knew). Add to this the circumstantial evidence that Bentinho pieced together on his own, and I have to say that in the end, he got it right. Capitu cheated on him.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Machado is a universal genius! 2007-08-27
Comment: Every Brazilian knows that Machado de Assis is among the top 5 writers in the world and now the world will discover the genius of this Brazilian who is already for us a universal genius! He is even better than Flaubert and Zola and we recommend all his books!
Luiz
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not even the dead escape jealousy 2005-08-16
Comment: After a slow start and a rather meek continuation, the last third of the book is dazzling, with jealousy running amok: 'wishing to know what might be in my wife's head'.
A woman promises God that if she has a son, he will become a priest. But the adolescent has absolutely no call to become a padre. On the contrary, he falls in love with a beauty.
In order to escape from the holy vow, the Church agrees in a most jesuitic way that if a substitute is found, the promise will be fulfilled.
The subsequent marriage turns out not to be the paradise hoped for.
This book contains some mild criticism of the Church with its paternosters and Ave Marias as penances for committed sins. The pact with God is treated as a commercial note: 'The Creditor (God) was a multimillionnaire; He was not dependent upon payment in order to eat, and consented to postponements without even increasing the rate of interest.'
'Jehovah is a Rothschild, only much more human: he does not make moratoriums, he pardons the debt in full, provided the debtor truly wished to mend his ways'.
The sex is also very innocent ('silk garters') compared to today's eccentricities.
The confession of the main character is not without some acrid self-mockery: 'The Church has established in the confessional the most authorative of legal services and in confession the most trustworthy of instruments for the adjustment of moral accounts between man and God. But my incorrigible timidity closed this sure door to me. How a man changes! Today I go so far as to publish it.'
The overall picture of Brazil at the end of the 19th century is appalling: poverty, leprosy, slavery, the all importance of the catholic Church. But for the author, this state of affairs is in no way exceptional.
This book is a worth-while read.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dom Casmurro - Coorection 2004-06-23
Comment: In my review about Machado de Assis I made a mistake. He's probably the most important writer in the 19th century and not 18th. Sorry about that.
1 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: review about "dom casmurro" 2003-09-29
Comment: I didn`t like that book very much because it is very bad to understand the story, it uses a formal language. But, the story is very nice and intersting.
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