I have read that this is his best work, his masterpiece. I hope not. To be clear: I enjoyed it, it was well-written, and it’s a very good book. But it will depress me if this is his very best. The story of Bento Santiago (aka Dom Casmurro) told as he reflects on his life. According to the introduction, his nickname can mean stubborn or wrong-headed (among other things) and indeed, the book bears this out. Santiago avoids the seminary (his mother’s pre-natal promise to God) because he is determined to marry his childhood sweetheart. It’s all about relationships (both within and without the family) and about friend from the seminary carried through their middle age. It’s about love, about jealousy, and about betrayal and, in the end, about where Dom Casmurro “is” as he narrates the story. ( )

I took 1/2 star off my rating for this Kindle edition due to formatting problems (such as it not keeping words intact - for example, the word not might have the no at the end of a line and the t at the beginning of the next line!) & there were some strange translation choices as well. I was glad to be able to get this Brazilian classic (in English) for free from www.ebook.visitbrasil.com but had to chuckle at times to the blatant tourism propaganda in some of the notes included. For example,

"Butterflies
Butterflies are one of the most enchanting parts of Brazilian wildlife. In Brazil, there is an impressive variety of 3,500 species, the majority of which are found in the Amazon.
   Some zoos (for example, the Brasília Zoo) spread throughout Brazil have butterfly gardens that show some of the species' diversity.
   At the butterfly garden in Campos de Jordão, São Paulo, you can learn about the butterflies and walk among them as well. You get the chance to see their delicate flight, the designs on their wings and even their mating rituals."

Despite the sometimes strange translations (Caputa's eyes were describes as "obliquos" and José Dias is repeatedly referred to as an "aggregate" -- perhaps they meant factor?), Machado de Assis' writing still contained some wonderful images and phrases. One I particularly liked was when Bentinho is describing when he and Caputa first realized that they were in love:

"Do not criticize us, unfortunate captain, hearts aren't sailed like the other seas in this world."

I liked the story (which is quite sad towards the end) & found this an interesting contrast to my beloved English Victorian classics which are from the same time. The basic plot could have been written by Hardy or Gaskell but the flavor would have been completely different. ( )

Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy proceeds to enact tragicomic variations on Othello.

My family is officially sick of me bursting into a room and saying, "Okay, wait, you've got to hear this bit, no, really, it's brilliant," and then reading chapters from Dom Casmurro. And even now, after I've finished the book, I am hard-pressed to select my favorite part. Is it the chapter where life is a libretto written by God and conducted by Satan? Is it the bit where the hero bemoans the inconvenience of a dead boy who blights an otherwise peerless day? Is it when he blithely endorses the benevolent prophecies of the witches from Macbeth? Is it when he sighs over the inability of ignorant people to commit suicide? Is it when he tries to poison his son?

No. No, I think my favorite part comes right after the hero has received an ambiguous signal from his best friend's wife (who is named Sancha). His mind busy cataloging possible interpretations (both innocent and adulterous), he talks to his best friend about swimming in the sea the next day. The best friend invites him to feel his biceps; the hero touches them tenderly: "I felt his arms as if I were feeling those of Sancha." [218] There is so much bundled up in that line -- his arousal, his guilt, and his reassignment of virtues -- but it is so dryly ironic and straight-faced. (People complain about the Helen Caldwell translation, but I found it very precise and cognizant of Machado de Assis' wide-ranging allusions. But then, I have not read the original Portuguese.) ( )

Dom Casmurro, obra realista de Machado de Assis, foi publicado em 1899 e conta a história do possível triângulo amoroso entre Bentinho, Capitu e Escobar. Dom Casmurro é o romance mais famoso de Machado de Assis.

Dom Casmurro is unusually modern storytelling for a book written at the end of the 1800's. You would never guess. It is written as a fictional memoir narrated by one character, Bentinho. Bentinho's mother promised to God that Bentinho would go to the seminary and become a priest, but he falls in love with the next door neighbor's daughter and is unwilling to fulfill his destiny as conceived by his mother.

The story is related in very, very short chapters, which I liked. In addition, Bentinho breaks the third wall, much like House of Cards, and talks to the reader from time to time. There is humor, but it is black.

It turns out that Bentinho is an unreliable narrator, and it also becomes apparent that he has a jealous streak. The author does a great job of keeping the reader's empathy with Bentinho for a great deal of the book.

To me, the brilliance of this book is mostly based on how cutting edge it must have been at the time of its writing. Unfortunately, I just wasn't ever completely engaged by the tale, and I didn't find the end to be satisfying because as the reader, we actually don't know the real truth. We only know Bentinho's truth. Is that clever? Yes. Is it satisfying? Not so much. All in all, I respect the work, but I can't say I enjoyed it.

( )