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luli_to's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
colinlusk's review against another edition
4.0
Li este livro com os meus olhos e os meus ouvidos. Tentei lê-lo há alguns meses mas não consegui. Desta vez, experimentei uma versão traduzida em inglês e, de vez em quando, fez uma pausa e escutei um audiolivro lido por um brasileiro. De forma geral, evito sotaques brasileiros porque estou a estudar português europeu mas claro está que esta história é um clássico da literatura brasileira e é melhor ouvir no seu sotaque nativo, acho eu.
A pergunta incontornável é esta: será que a mulher do narrador, Capitu, traiu Bentinho ou não? Cá para mim, acredito que não. Há uma altura, muito cedo no enredo, em que eu reparei numa inconsistência no discurso dela que pode ser uma mentira, mas além disso, não parece provável. A ideia da infidelidade dela era uma preocupação dele logo no início, e acho que precisou pouco para se tornar obsessão.
Depois da "descoberta" da traição, a personalidade do Bentinho mudou, e tornou-se ainda mais "casmurro". Recusou escrever o nome da sua mãe no túmulo dele, e justificou esta decisão duma maneira inchada. Não queria ter nada a ver com Capitu. Quando ela faleceu, Bentinho mal a mencionou, e até a morte do seu filho deu em alívio em vez de tristeza. Isso, sobretudo, chateou-me porque, mesmo que eu não tenha razão sobre a traição, o rapaz é uma criança que não merece nada de mal. No final, o narrador pareceu-me menos simpático do que anteriormente. Porém, adorei a "maquinaria" da história, o estilo e a maluquice deste homem insólito que estragou a sua própria vida por causa da teimosia.
A pergunta incontornável é esta: será que a mulher do narrador, Capitu, traiu Bentinho ou não? Cá para mim, acredito que não. Há uma altura, muito cedo no enredo, em que eu reparei numa inconsistência no discurso dela que pode ser uma mentira, mas além disso, não parece provável. A ideia da infidelidade dela era uma preocupação dele logo no início, e acho que precisou pouco para se tornar obsessão.
Depois da "descoberta" da traição, a personalidade do Bentinho mudou, e tornou-se ainda mais "casmurro". Recusou escrever o nome da sua mãe no túmulo dele, e justificou esta decisão duma maneira inchada. Não queria ter nada a ver com Capitu. Quando ela faleceu, Bentinho mal a mencionou, e até a morte do seu filho deu em alívio em vez de tristeza. Isso, sobretudo, chateou-me porque, mesmo que eu não tenha razão sobre a traição, o rapaz é uma criança que não merece nada de mal. No final, o narrador pareceu-me menos simpático do que anteriormente. Porém, adorei a "maquinaria" da história, o estilo e a maluquice deste homem insólito que estragou a sua própria vida por causa da teimosia.
colinlusk's review against another edition
4.0
Simultaneous reading of this (English) copy, given to me by a Portuguese friend, in tandem with a Portuguese audiobook. It's a classic Brazilian story in the mould of "Tristram Shandy", with a playful edge. The way the author addresses his reader reminds me of the way painters on TV (let's say Bob Ross because I'm imagining Rolf Harris and nobody wants to be compared to him) explain what they're doing as they fill out the canvass with blocks of colour that gradually cohere into a picture. It's really nicely done, feels like a breeze to read and even manages to raise a laugh or two.
Shakespearean Tragedy is explicitly present too, especially Othello, with its themes of jealousy. Jealousy is what finally destroys Bentinho, and the question you're left with is, was he right to suspect his wife or not? I have to say not. He seems an unreliable narrator, in fact quite daft by the end, wrapped up in this idea, not listening to anyone, talking utter nonsense about his mum after her death, barely noticing his wife's and being rather pleased when his son dies. Its easy to believe he just imagined the whole idea.
I need to listen to some Brazilians reviewing this stat, especially people who think Capitu really did have an affair. I'd love to know why.
Shakespearean Tragedy is explicitly present too, especially Othello, with its themes of jealousy. Jealousy is what finally destroys Bentinho, and the question you're left with is, was he right to suspect his wife or not? I have to say not. He seems an unreliable narrator, in fact quite daft by the end, wrapped up in this idea, not listening to anyone, talking utter nonsense about his mum after her death, barely noticing his wife's and being rather pleased when his son dies. Its easy to believe he just imagined the whole idea.
I need to listen to some Brazilians reviewing this stat, especially people who think Capitu really did have an affair. I'd love to know why.
melyndaann's review against another edition
5.0
"[...] hearts cannot be navigated as easily as the oceans of this world."
An interesting life told by an unreliable narrator with dark humor and amazing lines.
The tale and the guilt is all questionable and fluid due to the open ended and almost frantic nature of the writing. Leaving so much interpretation up to the reader. Also a great piece to consider the times in which it was written.
Enjoyable and thought provoking!
An interesting life told by an unreliable narrator with dark humor and amazing lines.
The tale and the guilt is all questionable and fluid due to the open ended and almost frantic nature of the writing. Leaving so much interpretation up to the reader. Also a great piece to consider the times in which it was written.
Enjoyable and thought provoking!
prolixity's review against another edition
2.0
This book was so tragically boring that it took me four months to read it.
I find this tragic because on the back of my copy it is described as “Machado’s masterpiece” and I loved The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by the same author, but good god Dom Casmurro fails in every way to live up to it. Machado de Assis still uses all his literary and rhetorical tricks, his meta references and his asides to the reader, but unfortunately they’re all in service of a story that is mediocre in every way. The characters are indistinct, the plot only gains impetus in the final ten pages, the narrator’s voice is less wry and unique than the late Bras Cubas’ was.
Rarely have I experienced such a distinction between the style of a story and its content—I loved the way this was told but absolutely could not care less about what it was telling.
____________________
Global Challenge: Brazil
I find this tragic because on the back of my copy it is described as “Machado’s masterpiece” and I loved The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by the same author, but good god Dom Casmurro fails in every way to live up to it. Machado de Assis still uses all his literary and rhetorical tricks, his meta references and his asides to the reader, but unfortunately they’re all in service of a story that is mediocre in every way. The characters are indistinct, the plot only gains impetus in the final ten pages, the narrator’s voice is less wry and unique than the late Bras Cubas’ was.
Rarely have I experienced such a distinction between the style of a story and its content—I loved the way this was told but absolutely could not care less about what it was telling.
____________________
Global Challenge: Brazil
isbelzhou's review against another edition
dark
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
3.5
Drags; but the author's way of telling the story is novel
korrick's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5
Whatever the case, unlike EoaSW, this did not prove a favorite. To be fair, I would likely have had to dedicate myself to fin de siècle and older literature for some time before picking this up to appreciate it, as much of the turns and tricks it espouses have become borderline conventional today unless your world is composed solely of Tristram Shandy and epistolary novels, of course). As such, I did not, and despite doing my best to put myself in the mindset of past me encountering de Assis' earlier work, the first of this purported trilogy which DC is the last, I still found myself less than titillated. This can be conjectured from the fact that all the quotes I found worthwhile are nearly pure authorial digression and have little or nothing to do with the text that supposedly birthed them. Admittedly, there's a particular chunk of text that is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing I've ever come across, but as it is another nearly stand alone thought exercise rather than an integral part of gunpowder, treason and plot, I feel comfortable treating with it separately.
Somewhere down the line I heard that DC is a text taught in Brazilian schools of the pre-collegiate levels. I haven't bothered to fact check this, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true, as for all of de Assis' eccentricities, he does in fact deliver a cohesive plot that, as it occurs for the most part in the mind and heart of an imagined fifteen year old boy, would have a strong appeal to that portion of the classroom which usually dominates the discourse. However, despite how much of a theoretical benefit of a doubt the afterword's author insists on giving de Assis', the thematic focus is, stripped of its fripperies, a mere repetition of toxic masculine mundanities, and all the tension promised in the beginning by a sensitive and inquisitive young boy peters out in the solidness of paranoia, possessiveness, and funerals overseas. I could bend over backwards and into that untrustworthy narrator guise, but it'd still be less interesting than the dead nobleman in this work's predecessor.
I'm going to leave off on a positive note, cause seriously, how many black writers writing in translation in the 19th century do you know off the top of your head? Alexandre Dumas is one, Alexander Pushkin another to a degree (what is with all these Alexanders I wonder), and I'm going to have to keep digging from here on out. The foreword even states that de Assis took especial pride in his black ancestry during a time when antiblack slavery still existed in his homeland, which is just fucking fabulous. There's also that God and Satan opera business I referred to, which if I was less tired and more careless about copyrights and such I'd type out right here, but seeing as both characteristics are holding in place, I'll simply let interested parties know that the sequence may be found on the eighteenth through the twentieth pages of this particular edition. Apparently this is an unabridged type, so be careful that your chosen copy hasn't chopped out a redeeming feature or two.
There might be some exaggeration in this; but that's the way with human discourse, a mixture of the overblown and the undersized, which make up for each other, and in the end level out.It's fitting that a review of a book whose overarching theme is of fickle memory must also do battle with that particularly slippery titan of an abstract concept. On the one hand, who knows how long it would have taken me to come across this work had the splendorifous skull of [b:Epitaph of a Small Winner|909746|Epitaph of a Small Winner|Machado de Assis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1311991278s/909746.jpg|605176], or Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas if you prefer, not caught my heart. On the other is the double edged sword of inspired completionism, for I gave as much benefit of the doubt to this piece due to its favorable predecessor as I unfavorably compared it to said former and the same. It doesn't help that my average reviewer persona emulates de Assis' narrator to such an incessant degree (albeit with more cursing on my part), so the bias, whichever direction it runs, is there.
Whatever the case, unlike EoaSW, this did not prove a favorite. To be fair, I would likely have had to dedicate myself to fin de siècle and older literature for some time before picking this up to appreciate it, as much of the turns and tricks it espouses have become borderline conventional today unless your world is composed solely of Tristram Shandy and epistolary novels, of course). As such, I did not, and despite doing my best to put myself in the mindset of past me encountering de Assis' earlier work, the first of this purported trilogy which DC is the last, I still found myself less than titillated. This can be conjectured from the fact that all the quotes I found worthwhile are nearly pure authorial digression and have little or nothing to do with the text that supposedly birthed them. Admittedly, there's a particular chunk of text that is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing I've ever come across, but as it is another nearly stand alone thought exercise rather than an integral part of gunpowder, treason and plot, I feel comfortable treating with it separately.
Somewhere down the line I heard that DC is a text taught in Brazilian schools of the pre-collegiate levels. I haven't bothered to fact check this, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true, as for all of de Assis' eccentricities, he does in fact deliver a cohesive plot that, as it occurs for the most part in the mind and heart of an imagined fifteen year old boy, would have a strong appeal to that portion of the classroom which usually dominates the discourse. However, despite how much of a theoretical benefit of a doubt the afterword's author insists on giving de Assis', the thematic focus is, stripped of its fripperies, a mere repetition of toxic masculine mundanities, and all the tension promised in the beginning by a sensitive and inquisitive young boy peters out in the solidness of paranoia, possessiveness, and funerals overseas. I could bend over backwards and into that untrustworthy narrator guise, but it'd still be less interesting than the dead nobleman in this work's predecessor.
I'm going to leave off on a positive note, cause seriously, how many black writers writing in translation in the 19th century do you know off the top of your head? Alexandre Dumas is one, Alexander Pushkin another to a degree (what is with all these Alexanders I wonder), and I'm going to have to keep digging from here on out. The foreword even states that de Assis took especial pride in his black ancestry during a time when antiblack slavery still existed in his homeland, which is just fucking fabulous. There's also that God and Satan opera business I referred to, which if I was less tired and more careless about copyrights and such I'd type out right here, but seeing as both characteristics are holding in place, I'll simply let interested parties know that the sequence may be found on the eighteenth through the twentieth pages of this particular edition. Apparently this is an unabridged type, so be careful that your chosen copy hasn't chopped out a redeeming feature or two.
If you find anything similar in this book, dear reader, let me know, so that I can correct it in the second edition: there's nothing worse than giving the longest of legs to the shortest of ideas.
andreaportugaldeveza's review against another edition
3.0
ufa... já não me custava ler um livro há imenso tempo.
dom casmurro não me conquistou, uma escrita difícil de ler e uma história difícil de seguir... a sinopse em três linhas é muito mais interessante do que o livro em si, porque não percebi de todo o enredo e nem as ligações. a revisitar talvez daqui a uns anos...
dom casmurro não me conquistou, uma escrita difícil de ler e uma história difícil de seguir... a sinopse em três linhas é muito mais interessante do que o livro em si, porque não percebi de todo o enredo e nem as ligações. a revisitar talvez daqui a uns anos...
bpyritz's review against another edition
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
markin_books's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0