I have read a novel by Machado de Assis, “Dom Casmurro”. ‘Dom Casmurro’ means ‘Lord of Eccentricity’ in Portuguese. It is one of the two best novels of the author, together with “Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas”. It is for people who are fond of delicate emotions during loving affairs of young and what would happen afterward. It is a melancholic story, however, the surprising ending due to ‘eccentricity’ invests a certain strength to the story. There are many foreshadows for the ending, however, one may lose the trace of them easily. This eccentricity is a timeless theme for human beings. Socio-politically it is a story in Brazil in the 19th century, and literary-historically it is one of the best literatures in Latin American history together with “Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas”. What is really interesting is that all the delicate emotions are finally converted to the eccentricity of the story. The organization of the story is simple, but sometimes inserted with daydreaming and nightdreaming, compared to magic realism of the later ages. One of the main points is that the story is demonstrated by a subjective view of the main character, not objective. This potential insincerity is one of the tricks of this story. Although the main character does not mention anything, the silent showing of the eccentricity is the main theme of the story and what are not described are the most important matters.
From the viewpoint of structuralism it is well ordered, and from the viewpoint of post-structuralism the omissions of directly referred theme is the important subject. There are a lot of intertextual elements for European classics.
Overall, this is a masterpiece of Latin American literatures and Machado de Assis is definitely the greatest writer so far in Latin American history.
