{"product_id":"dom-casmurro-paperback","title":"Dom Casmurro - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJoaquim Maria Machado De Assis\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eJohn A. Gledson\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator), \u003cb\u003eJoão Adolfo Hansen\u003c\/b\u003e (With)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A palm tree, seeing me troubled and divining the cause, murmured in its branches that there was nothing wrong with fifteen-year old boys getting into corners with girls of fourteen; quite the contrary, youths of that age have no other function, and corners were made for that very purpose. It\u003cbr\u003ewas an old palm-tree, and I believed in old palm-trees even more than in old books. Birds, butterflies, a cricket trying out its summer song, all the living things of the air were of the same opinion.\" So begins this extraordinary love story between Bento and Capitu, childhood sweethearts who grow\u003cbr\u003eup next door to each other in Rio de Janeiro in the 1850s. \u003cbr\u003e Like other great nineteenth century novels--\u003cem\u003eThe Scarlet Letter, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary\u003c\/em\u003e--Machado de Assis's \u003cem\u003eDom Casmurro\u003c\/em\u003e explores the themes of marriage and adultery. But what distinguishes Machado's novel from the realism of its contemporaries, and what makes it such a delightful\u003cbr\u003ediscovery for English-speaking readers, is its eccentric and wildly unpredictable narrative style. Far from creating the illusion of an orderly fictional \"reality,\" \u003cem\u003eDom Casmurro\u003c\/em\u003e is told by a narrator who is disruptively self-conscious, deeply subjective, and prone to all manner of marvelous\u003cbr\u003edigression. As he recounts the events of his life from the vantage of a lonely old age, Bento continually interrupts his story to reflect on the writing of it: he examines the aptness of an image or analogy, considers cutting out certain scenes before taking the manuscript to the printer, and\u003cbr\u003eengages in a running, and often hilarious, dialogue with the reader. \"If all this seems a little emphatic, irritating reader,\" he says, \"it's because you have never combed a girl's hair, you've never put your adolescent hands on the young head of a nymph...\" But the novel is more than a performance\u003cbr\u003eof stylistic acrobatics. It is an ironic critique of Catholicism, in which God appears as a kind of divine accountant whose ledgers may be balanced in devious as well as pious ways. It is also a story about love and its obstacles, about deception and self-deception, and about the failure of memory\u003cbr\u003eto make life's beginning fit neatly into its end. First published in 1900, \u003cem\u003eDom Casmurro\u003c\/em\u003e is one of the great unrecognized classics of the turn of the century by one of Brazil's greatest writers. The popularity of Machado de Assis in Latin America has never been in doubt and now, with the acclaim of\u003cbr\u003esuch critics and writers as Susan Sontag, John Barth, and Tony Tanner, his work is finally receiving the worldwide attention it deserves.\u003cbr\u003e Newly translated and edited by John Gledson, with an afterword by Joao Adolfo Hansen, this Library of Latin America edition is the only complete, unabridged, and annotated translation of the novel available. It offers English-speaking readers a literary genius of the rarest kind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eAbout the Translator and Editor: \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eJohn Gledson\u003c\/strong\u003e is Professor Emeritus, Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Liverpool. He has written two books and numerous articles on Machado de Assis. \u003cem\u003eJoao Adolfo Hansen\u003c\/em\u003e is a highly-regarded Brazilian literary critic.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 288\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 7.9 x 5.3 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e December 10, 1998\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42684765012031,"sku":"9780195103090","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0105\/8226\/1823\/files\/6e66945ac90530b5488badeb1ee1ec01.webp?v=1764968553","url":"https:\/\/dhl-adrianne.myshopify.com\/products\/dom-casmurro-paperback","provider":"BBB","version":"1.0","type":"link"}