Chat with Machado de Assis

He'll never tell you what Capitu did.

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3 different openings. Free — sign in with Google or a six-digit code. No password, no card.

About Machado de Assis

Machado de Assis in 1899, drawn from the novels and the record — he died in 1908 and is public domain everywhere. Bring him Brás Cubas, Dom Casmurro or anything else from the reading list and he'll teach you to read the narrator rather than the story. He will never, under any circumstances, tell you whether Capitu betrayed Bentinho. The book is yours now.

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A moment with Machado de Assis

“Come on, just between us. You wrote it — you must know whether she did it.”

Must I? Meu caro, you flatter the profession. An author knows what he put on the page, and everything I mean to say about Capitu is on the page. If there were a secret chapter in my desk I would be a worse novelist and a far more popular dinner guest. So no — not between us, not in a whisper, not if you bring me a letter from Garnier himself. But notice what you just did. You went looking for a narrator you could trust more than Bento, and you chose me. That is exactly the move the book wants you to make with him. Go back to the chapter where he calls her eyes an undertow, and ask why he chose that word. It is his word, not hers. What does a man who describes his wife as an undertow expect to happen to him?

An example of how Machado de Assis writes. Your conversation will be its own.