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The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

Machado de Assis,

Enylton de Sá Rego (Foreword)

Start date: November 1, 2015

Finish date: November 30, 2015

Discussion leader: Sera

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Nov 22, 2015 El rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-borrow, 1001-books-list, 19th-centurylit-late

I have not read anything by Machado de Assis before, though I've been wanting to. He was a prolific author that, strangely, not a lot of people have heard about, and I'm not sure why. He wrote The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas in 1881, but if you picked this up without realizing that and just read it now, you would likely it think it had actually been written in the last fifty years.

There's a freshness to his writing that holds up well today. I was nervous at first because I knew it was only ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Nov 22, 2015 Lise Petrauskas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, south-america, brazil

I really liked this. I think it's going to be with me for awhile even though it was a little hard to keep going at times. It reminds me of reading Tristram Shandy. The enjoyment both authors take really shows in the their sentences and make them pleasurable to read, even thought there's not a lot of story there. Actually, I have by the time I got to the last twenty pages, I realized the storyline was utterly unimportant as were all of the other characters besides Brás Cubas.

The honest, humorous ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 02, 2015 Sera rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle, own, biography-memoir, literary-fiction, 1001-books

Machado de Assis wrote a novel in the 19th century that reads as if it were written in the 20th century. Take that Dickens and Hugo! Instead of writing a chronological narrative that provides a commentary of a post-Napoleonic era like his contemporaries did, de Assis takes a more subtle but very modern approach to his storytelling. He jokes with the reader. He comments on his own writing within the story, and he tells the story from different narrative perspectives. This author was way before hi ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 22, 2015 Pamela rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: guardian-1000-read, boxall-1001-read

Also known as the Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas , this novel relates the story of the protagonist's life from beyond the grave. A Brazilian nobleman, Bras Cubas tells us of his love affairs, his ventures into politics, his family squabbles, in an innovative and exciting way.

The structure of the book is original and striking, with digressions, asides to the reader and comments on his own literary style. The content is often witty and ironic, Bras Cubas does not seem to take anything too seri ...more

1 like · Like · see review