The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881)

This low-key charming and very odd novel by the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis came to my attention, perhaps appropriately enough, via circuitous and random circumstances, i.e., booktube. It is confounding in many little ways—labeled archly as a memoir, it is a novel. Published in 1881, it is strikingly modern. As a “memoir” (better use the scare quotes) it is further archly written from beyond the grave (a phrase everyone uses in regard to it and I’m not about to do any differently). Emphasizing the point, it is dedicated “To the Worm Who Gnawed the Cold Flesh of My Corpse”—meaning, as someone more astute than me mentioned somewhere, no one mattered very much to him in his life. It is about 240 pages long, with 160 chapters. I like this kind of approach as much as the next guy—hello, Moby-Dick, hello, Cat’s Cradle, hello, As I Lay Dying—but I must say they can be a little exhausting, with all the stopping and going, and I never seemed to settle in for long reading sessions with this. It took me a week when it should have taken two or three days max. Still, I enjoyed it and think I might like to try it again. John Barth and Donald Barthelme claim it as an influence, along with a host of Latin American writers. In 2011 fucking Woody Allen claimed it as one of his five favorite books. This many-chaptered tale starts with the death of Brás Cubas, lightly hitting the surreal tone that is maintained throughout. There is a 16th-century historical figure with that name, who is also a Brazilian colonialist, but the novel appears to be set in the 18th century if not the 19th. Perhaps he's a kind of wastrel descendant. Certainly he is privileged and his family is wealthy. From the death we take “the greatest leap in this story” to his birth and childhood. There is nothing remarkable in his life and Cubas never really distinguishes himself either. It is mostly concerned with his comically inept romantic life. He falls in love with a prostitute when he is a teen, which results in being sent abroad by his family for an education. His father intends him to marry a woman named Virgilia. They’re not much into each other and she marries another. Later they meet again and fall in love and carry on an affair for years. Brás Cubas is a bit of a wastrel, as I say, but he is charming and a pleasure to read and in all ways this is just a fun one—as novel, as memoir, and as landmark of Latin American literature.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.