![]() ![]() Borba has created a woolly philosophical concept called Humanitas, a parody of the philosophical ideas of the day. Towards the end of the book after a number of unsuccessful careers, Brás Cubas falls under the spell of Quincas Borba, a beggar become cod philosopher. It is touches like these that help the book feel so modern and make it an exhilarating read. And while he’s lying on his deathbed speaking to her, a talking hippopotamus bursts into the room and takes him through a snow-covered landscape to the “origin of the centuries” to meet Pandora and have his life (and the whole of human history) flash before his eyes. Within the first ten pages, Brás Cubas introduces us to his former mistress, who only has a few grey hairs because “she’s one of those stubborn types”. Even the basics suggest this: the narrator, Brás Cubas (a writing dead man rather than a dead writer), is telling his life story from his coffin and the novel is dedicated to “ the first worm to gnaw the cold flesh of my corpse”.īut the story isn’t morbid the narrative is playful in a style of ironic distance, and in parts feels very much surrealist. The book-also Epitaph of a Small Winner in English-feels far more modern, and modernist, than its age would suggest. While reading Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas ( Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas) by Machado de Assis (1839-1908), I constantly had to remind myself that it was written in 1881. "Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas" by Machado de Assis ![]()
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