A review by sherbertwells
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis

adventurous funny reflective fast-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

“Believe me, remembrance is the lesser evil; let none place their faith in present happiness...when given a choice between two illusions, the better is that which may be enjoyed without pain” (16).

Highlighting your own flaws does not turn them into virtues—at least, not automatically.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, written in 1881 by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, is the half-edited reminiscence of a mediocre man with literary pretensions, and its flaws are the key to its charm. Cubas, the deceased narrator of an underwhelming pre-mortem existence, is no better than the men and women he disparages: He does not entertain a serious career, marry or produce children. He owns and abuses slaves. He bribes his way into a love affair. He violates the trust of a marriage.

He is also an incompetant writer.

The Posthumous Memoirs is full of tangents, which Cubas admits are prone to “veer right and left, stop and go, grumble, bellow, cackle, threaten the skies, slip and fall” (153). Depending on your stylistic preferences, this disclaimer is either a warning or an advertisement. While de Assis edited the book extensively (my copy includes several deleted lines in its annotations), the manuscript appears unrevised. The beginning of one chapter instructs the reader to place its text between the first and second sentences of the previous one. Another chapter is a single sentence lamenting its own uselessness, and several are interludes composed solely of punctuation marks. It is as if de Assis has stripped away the skin of “finished” books and revealed the grinning skull underneath.

But for a book about a dead man, dedicated “to the worm that first gnawed at the cold flesh of my cadaver,” The Posthumous Memoirs is surprisingly snappy. In imitation of 18th-century classics like Candide, chapters are very short and usually last only a page. Perhaps the use of a medium associated with a bygone era reflects the title characters’ milieu; Brazil endures many political changes over the course of Cubas’ lifetime, but the glittering world of balls and governorships that surround him manage to remain as spotless (and as hollow) as ever. 

The writing itself, however, shows a few signs of decay. The translator, Flora Thomson-DeVeaux, does an admirable job of providing cultural context to a non-Brazilian audience through her many annotations, and she details Cubas’ existential monologues very deftly, but the development of the plot itself is a little clunky. This is a shame because Machado de Assis’ fame suggests that he is a good author in his native language. It’s not out of the question that Brás Cubas himself is to blame, but another translation might do his language justice.

I would not be averse to reading translations by William L. Grossman or Gregory Rabassa, or the 2020 translation by Jull Costa and Robin Patterson. Though (like its narrator) this book is not spectacular, I feel a little affection for it, and perhaps even for the man who wrote it.

Whichever man that is.

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