The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Read Free Page B

passages of Western literature and history from ancient times to his contemporaries, as if his book were in itself an intertextual library, or the result of an active dialogue with other books, an active dialogue in a very real sense, since most of these allusions to other texts are not accurate quotations. Instead, they frequently deviate slightly from the original text. Some literary critics have suggested that these deviations were the result of the alleged fact that Machado de Assis quoted from memory, not always remembering correctly the passage he was citing. The same argument—lack of memory—was used to explain Erasmus’ misquotations in his
Praise of Folly
and Robert Burton’s in his
Anatomy of Melancholy
, two books that belong in the same tradition of jestful encyclopedic erudition as these
Posthumous Memoirs
.
    It is not known whether Machado de Assis was acquainted with Burton’s book, but he certainly knew the
Praise of Folly
, since he makes Brás Cubas quote it in Chapter CXLIX , and since he even wrote a parody of it, his “Praise of Vanity.” Moreover, in one of his short stories Machado de Assis justified this practice of slightly misquoting, explaining the difference between literal quotations—which simply invoke someone else’s authority—and the really artistic quotations—which creatively rewrite the quoted authors.
    In one of his pieces of literary criticism, Machado de Assis also discussed the subtle interplay between originality and appropriation of other texts, making use of an interesting culinary allegory: any writer has the right to look for “spices” in the work of any other writer, but the “final sauce” has to be of his or her own making. In these
Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
Machado de Assis gives a good example of the banquet he can serve to the reader. If the reader does not suffer indigestionand survives this exuberant and ironic, display of encyclopedic erudition, he or she will be gratified, for the result is indeed humorous.
    These memoirs are humorous, but they are also serious, if we remember the seriocomic aspect: of this kind of satire. Brás Cubas himself describes his book in. Chapter IV as “a supinely philosophical work, of an unequal philosophy, now austere, now playful, something that neither builds nor destroys, neither inflames nor cools, and, yet, it is more than a pastime and less than an apostolate.” As a philosophy this does not seem to be very powerful, but it certainly is a good definition of art as practiced by Machado de Assis: more than mere pastime—since for him art is a serious human activity, but not so serious as to become preachy, since it should not be dogmatic.
    Some readers will identify in Machado de Assis’ unorthodox philosophy the old tradition of cynicism; others will probably see him as a radical skeptic; others still may recognize in his novels the presence of an old literary tradition called Menippean satire; some could even say that his novels, written in the nineteenth century, are more modern than many modern novels, and that they could even be considered postmodern. Whatever classification we choose, his is indisputably a position of unmitigated disbelief toward all philosophical systems and categorizations, some of which he deliberately mocks through one of this book’s characters, the philosophizing Quincas Borba. His medium, however, is not the well-reasoned philosophical or scientific treatise, but the lighter form of the novel. Since any novel presupposes a social context, other readers will probably enjoy what has been called Machado’s deceptive realism, a kind of realism that allegorically describes, in a very devious and disguised way, the social realities of nineteenth-century Brazil, or, in a still more indirect way, the reality of our own times.
    But who was this Machado de Assis, this strange nineteenth-century Brazilian writer? As I promised in my opening lines, this is the last surprise to the