The Collected Stories of Machado de Assis by Machado de Assis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I've rated this book 5 stars, how else would you rate Brazil's greatest writer? Assis is to Brazil as Borges is to Argentina and Marquez to Columbia. You can find evidence of the fabulist and the beginnings of magical realism in his work (publishing 1870 - 1906). Not only a medical doctor, he was a highly literate man, fluent in a number of languages and widely read. Literary references abound, and I find influences ranging from Dickens to Poe, if not in subject manner then surely in his narrative voice.

The edition of his work that I've read is a handsome, sewn, hardbound book, and a good thing, for I've taken nearly eight months to read it. There are some 74 stories, plus two excellent introductions by the translators. The stories range in length from a handful of pages to nearly 50 pages.

For the most part, the stories feature middle or upper class characters, preoccupied with romance and their social position. Be forewarned that slaves appear frequently in the stories as minor characters, and Assis treats with them with a casualness that one should expect from a writer from this period.



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