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Three Brazilian Tales by Machado de Assis: The Attendant's Confession / The Fortune Teller / Life
One of the best novels of Machado de Assis. In 1879 he began a long phase of Machado de Assis' maturity that was to last for thirty years. It was during this fruitful period that Memorias Postumas de Braz Cubas, Quincas Borbas, Historias Sem Data, Dom Casmurro, Varias Historias and other notable works were produced. The three tales by Machado de Assis in this volume are translated from his Varias Historias. That same bitter-sweet philosophy and gracious, if penetrating, irony which inform these tales are characteristic of his larger romances. He took little delight in nature and lacked the passionate, robust temperament that projects itself upon pages of ardent beauty. In the best of his prose works, however, he penetrates as deep as any of his countrymen into the abyss of the human soul. The reader will certainly love reading this amazing book! Enjoy reading Machado de Assis! Almost all sudents in Brazil had read this author in basic schools. See others books from the Editor and Author Samuel Rocha too!
34 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 12, 2015
13 people want to read
About the author
Machado de Assis
1,150 books2,469 followersJoaquim Maria Machado de Assis, often known as Machado de Assis, Machado, or Bruxo do Cosme Velho, (June 21, 1839, Rio de Janeiro—September 29, 1908, Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as the most important writer of Brazilian literature. However, he did not gain widespread popularity outside Brazil in his own lifetime.
Machado's works had a great influence on Brazilian literary schools of the late 19th century and 20th century. José Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom are among his admirers and Bloom calls him "the supreme black literary artist to date."
Machado's works had a great influence on Brazilian literary schools of the late 19th century and 20th century. José Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom are among his admirers and Bloom calls him "the supreme black literary artist to date."
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April 29, 2019:The Attendant's Confession, The Fortuneteller and Life is available free online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21040...
What can I say? I read the first story. Sure, it was OK, but nothing special and so predictable. One was enough.
Procopio takes on the job of caring for an irascible, old and ailing invalid in a small village of the Brazilian interior.
What can I say? I read the first story. Sure, it was OK, but nothing special and so predictable. One was enough.
Procopio takes on the job of caring for an irascible, old and ailing invalid in a small village of the Brazilian interior.
December 19, 2020
"I could have told you the story of my whole life, which holds many other interesting details: but for that there would be needed time, courage and paper. There is plenty of paper, indeed, but my courage is at low ebb, and as to the time that is yet left me, it may be compared to the life of a candle-flame." –The Attendant's Confession
I picked this collection up on the recommedation of Seji (The Artisan Geek). I adore her channel and she's always an amazing source of new books that are diverse and rare. This was in a list of books that are like Poe. And I definitely get full Poe vibes. With the intense, and introspective prose. The stories that look at people at the end of their sanity. I am so excited to read more of Machado de Assis' work. His indirect sarcastic, ironic narration made me laugh even as it was incredibly insightful and had references from all over literature, tradition and mythology.
Ahasversus: Are these your chains? I see upon them no trace of your tears
Prometheus. I wept them for your humankind.
Ahasverus. And humanity wept far more because of your crime.
Life was very different from The Attendant's Confession and The Fortune Teller but I really loved this short play exploring a conversation between the Wandering Jew (cursed to wander the earth eternally for lack of compassion) and Prometheus (cursed for creating humans and in compassion giving fire). Our backdrop is a world extinct of humans save Ahasverus who finally seeks rest and he finds Prometheus.
I really loved this. I loved how many different things were referenced, the dawn of the modern society and science, with tradition, religion, mythology and discussion. I want more, more of these desperate ideas colliding and discussing.
Quotes:
"Hamlet observes to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. This was the selfsame explanation that was given by beautiful Rita to her lover, Camillo, on a certain Friday of November, 1869, when Camillo laughed at her for having gone, the previous evening, to consult a fortune-teller. The only difference is that she made her explanation in other words." –The Fortune Teller
"He, too, when a child, and even later, had been superstitious, filled with an arsenal of beliefs which his mother had instilled, and which had disappeared by the time he reached twenty. The day on which he rid himself of all this parasitic vegetation, leaving behind only the trunk of religion, he wrapped his superstition and his religion (which had both been inculcated by his mother) in the same doubt, and soon arrived at a single, total negation. Camillo believed in nothing. Why? He could not have answered; he had not a solitary reason; he was content simply to deny everything. But I express myself ill, for to deny is in a sense to affirm, and he did not formulate his unbelief. Before the great mystery he simply shrugged his shoulders and went on."
"The old chaise in which for the first time you rode with your beloved, snuggled together, is as good as the chariot of Apollo. Such is man, and such are the circumstances that surround him."
"then I may die; for I am the last and I close the gate of life."–Life
"Evil will end; the winds will thenceforth scatter neither the germs of death nor the clamor of the oppressed, but only the song of love everlasting and the benediction of universal justice."
"The other men read but a chapter of life; you have read the whole book. What does one chapter know of the other chapter? Nothing. But he who has read them all, connects them and concludes. Are there melancholy pages? There are merry and happy ones, too."
"Eternal justice knew what it was doing: it added idleness to eternity. One generation bequeathed me to the other. The languages, as they died, preserved my name like a fossil. With the passing of time all was forgotten; the heroes faded into myths, into shadow, and history crumbled to fragments, only two or three vague, remote characteristics remaining to it. And I saw them in changing aspect. You spoke of a chapter? Happy are those who read only one chapter of life. Those who depart at the birth of empires bear with them the impression of their perpetuity; those who die at their fall, are buried in the hope of their restoration; but do you not realize what it is to see the same things unceasingly,—the same alternation of prosperity and desolation, desolation and prosperity, eternal obsequies and eternal halleluiahs, dawn upon dawn, sunset upon sunset?"
Are these your chains? I see upon them no trace of your tears
"The description of life is not worth the sensation of life; you shall experience it deeply"
I picked this collection up on the recommedation of Seji (The Artisan Geek). I adore her channel and she's always an amazing source of new books that are diverse and rare. This was in a list of books that are like Poe. And I definitely get full Poe vibes. With the intense, and introspective prose. The stories that look at people at the end of their sanity. I am so excited to read more of Machado de Assis' work. His indirect sarcastic, ironic narration made me laugh even as it was incredibly insightful and had references from all over literature, tradition and mythology.
Ahasversus: Are these your chains? I see upon them no trace of your tears
Prometheus. I wept them for your humankind.
Ahasverus. And humanity wept far more because of your crime.
Life was very different from The Attendant's Confession and The Fortune Teller but I really loved this short play exploring a conversation between the Wandering Jew (cursed to wander the earth eternally for lack of compassion) and Prometheus (cursed for creating humans and in compassion giving fire). Our backdrop is a world extinct of humans save Ahasverus who finally seeks rest and he finds Prometheus.
I really loved this. I loved how many different things were referenced, the dawn of the modern society and science, with tradition, religion, mythology and discussion. I want more, more of these desperate ideas colliding and discussing.
Quotes:
"Hamlet observes to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. This was the selfsame explanation that was given by beautiful Rita to her lover, Camillo, on a certain Friday of November, 1869, when Camillo laughed at her for having gone, the previous evening, to consult a fortune-teller. The only difference is that she made her explanation in other words." –The Fortune Teller
"He, too, when a child, and even later, had been superstitious, filled with an arsenal of beliefs which his mother had instilled, and which had disappeared by the time he reached twenty. The day on which he rid himself of all this parasitic vegetation, leaving behind only the trunk of religion, he wrapped his superstition and his religion (which had both been inculcated by his mother) in the same doubt, and soon arrived at a single, total negation. Camillo believed in nothing. Why? He could not have answered; he had not a solitary reason; he was content simply to deny everything. But I express myself ill, for to deny is in a sense to affirm, and he did not formulate his unbelief. Before the great mystery he simply shrugged his shoulders and went on."
"The old chaise in which for the first time you rode with your beloved, snuggled together, is as good as the chariot of Apollo. Such is man, and such are the circumstances that surround him."
"then I may die; for I am the last and I close the gate of life."–Life
"Evil will end; the winds will thenceforth scatter neither the germs of death nor the clamor of the oppressed, but only the song of love everlasting and the benediction of universal justice."
"The other men read but a chapter of life; you have read the whole book. What does one chapter know of the other chapter? Nothing. But he who has read them all, connects them and concludes. Are there melancholy pages? There are merry and happy ones, too."
"Eternal justice knew what it was doing: it added idleness to eternity. One generation bequeathed me to the other. The languages, as they died, preserved my name like a fossil. With the passing of time all was forgotten; the heroes faded into myths, into shadow, and history crumbled to fragments, only two or three vague, remote characteristics remaining to it. And I saw them in changing aspect. You spoke of a chapter? Happy are those who read only one chapter of life. Those who depart at the birth of empires bear with them the impression of their perpetuity; those who die at their fall, are buried in the hope of their restoration; but do you not realize what it is to see the same things unceasingly,—the same alternation of prosperity and desolation, desolation and prosperity, eternal obsequies and eternal halleluiahs, dawn upon dawn, sunset upon sunset?"
Are these your chains? I see upon them no trace of your tears
"The description of life is not worth the sensation of life; you shall experience it deeply"
June 17, 2018
“Whenever zealotry penetrated into a submissive soul, it became cruel or ridiculous.” The wisdom expressed 150 years ago is no less true in this era of demagogues and their proudly unsympathetic followers (2018). The classic short stories of Machado de Assis are so tuned in to human emotions that they will never be dated. Like Ahasverus , they endure.
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