Dom Casmurro (Library of Latin America)

All in all I thought this was an excellent novel. The first three quarters are an idyllic story of a boy's first love in late 19th century Brazil. The last part is how the marriage fell apart due to suspicions of adultery.

In regards to the debate on whether Capitu cheated, I must say that at first I was unsure also. The thing that swayed me into thinking that yes, she did cheat, was the part where Bentinho's mother was indifferent to his child. If you remember, Bentinho was confused by this since the child was her only grandson. I think she was indifferent because something led her to intuit that the child was not her son's. (Thus his mother knew Capitu was unfaithful long before he did. She never told him, but she knew). Add to this the circumstantial evidence that Bentinho pieced together on his own, and I have to say that in the end, he got it right. Capitu cheated on him.

Every Brazilian knows that Machado de Assis is among the top 5 writers in the world and now the world will discover the genius of this Brazilian who is already for us a universal genius! He is even better than Flaubert and Zola and we recommend all his books!

Luiz

After a slow start and a rather meek continuation, the last third of the book is dazzling, with jealousy running amok: 'wishing to know what might be in my wife's head'.

A woman promises God that if she has a son, he will become a priest. But the adolescent has absolutely no call to become a padre. On the contrary, he falls in love with a beauty.
In order to escape from the holy vow, the Church agrees in a most jesuitic way that if a substitute is found, the promise will be fulfilled.
The subsequent marriage turns out not to be the paradise hoped for.

This book contains some mild criticism of the Church with its paternosters and Ave Marias as penances for committed sins. The pact with God is treated as a commercial note: 'The Creditor (God) was a multimillionnaire; He was not dependent upon payment in order to eat, and consented to postponements without even increasing the rate of interest.'
'Jehovah is a Rothschild, only much more human: he does not make moratoriums, he pardons the debt in full, provided the debtor truly wished to mend his ways'.

The sex is also very innocent ('silk garters') compared to today's eccentricities.

The confession of the main character is not without some acrid self-mockery: 'The Church has established in the confessional the most authorative of legal services and in confession the most trustworthy of instruments for the adjustment of moral accounts between man and God. But my incorrigible timidity closed this sure door to me. How a man changes! Today I go so far as to publish it.'

The overall picture of Brazil at the end of the 19th century is appalling: poverty, leprosy, slavery, the all importance of the catholic Church. But for the author, this state of affairs is in no way exceptional.

This book is a worth-while read.

In my review about Machado de Assis I made a mistake. He's probably the most important writer in the 19th century and not 18th. Sorry about that.

I didn`t like that book very much because it is very bad to understand the story, it uses a formal language. But, the story is very nice and intersting.