The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

by Machado de Assis · 1881

Narrating from beyond the grave, the dead Brazilian gentleman Brás Cubas recounts his idle, self-deceiving life — a failed political career, a long affair with the married Virgília, and a crackpot friend's philosophy of 'Humanitism' — in 160 short, digressive, ironic chapters that made the novel a founding work of modern Latin American fiction.

Books mentioned in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (13)

• The Praise of Folly by Erasmus: “Erasmus, who wrote some good things in his In Praise of Folly, called attention to the complacency...”
• Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas: “Right after that I felt myself transformed into Aquinas' Summa Theologica, printed in one volume and morocco-bound...”
• A Thousand and One Nights: “Poor lover from The Arabian Nights!”
• The Lusiads by Luís de Camões: “some prefer to recite a stanza from the Lusiads, others adopt the recourse of whistling Norma.”
• Othello by William Shakespeare: “A blessed custom that gave us Othello and transatlantic packets.”
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “That was how I set out for Hamlet's undiscovered country without the anxieties or doubts of the young prince.”
• Le Cid by Pierre Corneille: “VI Chimène, Qui L'eût Dit? Rodrigue, Qui L'eût Cru? (chapter title adapting Corneille's Le Cid)”
• Candide by Voltaire: “Pangloss, he said to me as he closed the book, wasn't as dotty as Voltaire painted him.”
• The Aeneid by Virgil: “it was the virumque that made me get to the name of the poet himself; 'I put three lines from Virgil in my pocket.'”
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare: “I didn't want to be either Achilles or Lady Macbeth.”
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: “Fragile chains, my friends. I would break them with the action of a Gulliver.”
• The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius: “Suetonius gave us a Claudius who was a simpleton—or 'a pumpkinhead' as Seneca called him.”
• Pensées by Blaise Pascal: “Let Pascal say that man is a thinking reed. No. He's a thinking erratum.”