Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Product Description
Machado de Assis is considered the pre-eminent writer of Brazil. Quincas Borba is one of his four most important novels and features some of the same characters as Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas. The main character of this novel is a well-meaning country fellow who moves to the city with his dog, Quincas Borba, named after the mad philosopher who was his previous owner. As the dog's new owner explores the social, political, and commercial world of the city, he also tries to come to grips with the motives that lie behind every human action and begins to ponder what madness really is. Despite the "heavy" messages behind this book, the narration is light-hearted, allowing readers to laugh both at the foibles of society and at themselves.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Rubiao was staring at the cove-it was eight o'clock in the morning. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Rubiao was staring at the cove-it was eight o'clock in the morning. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Even if you never heard of him, it would take you just a look at the reviews of "Dom Casmurro" and "Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas" at Amazon to see that Machado de Assis leaves a lasting impression in his readers. He is certainly the best Brazilian writer ever, a universal master really. In this book, we never get to know if the name Quincas Borba refers to the philosopher or to his dog, yet it hardly matters: this is a book about ambiguity, after all. It is centered in the life of Rube (Rubiao), who inherits a fortune from the philosopher Quincas Borba, who dies at the beggining of the novel. However, even with all that money, he never manages to be happy - only starts to plunge deeper and deeper into madness. This book, together with the other two mentioned before, represents the best work of Machado de Assis. It's funny, it's clever, and it's beautifully written.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
A poignant satire of 19th century Brazil
9 Feb 2001
Format:Hardcover
"Quincas Borba" is one of a series of fine novels by Brazilian author Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. The author, who died in 1908, is one of the major figures of 19th century South American literature. "Quincas Borba" is a sort of companion volume to another of the author's novels, "The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas." While "Quincas Borba" does not, in my opinion, attain the level of literary inventiveness of its companion novel, it is still a fascinating, and ultimately moving, piece of fiction. It has been translated into a smooth English by Gregory Rabassa.
"Quincas Borba" tells the story of Rubiao, who inherits a fortune, as well as a pet dog, from the eccentric philosopher Quincas Borba. Curiously, the dog is also named Quincas Borba. The novel follows Rubiao as he attempts to find love and fulfillment in 19th century Brazil.
The novel contains many ironic comments on the craft of writing itself, and examines the political, sexual, and economic complexities of Rubiao's world. The author's writing is peppered with intriguing cultural allusions: Poe, Shakespeare's "Othello," Homer, Mozart, Kant, Dante's "Inferno," and more.
"Quincas Borba" is an effective mix of comedy and tragedy. Machado de Assis writes with both insight into and compassion for the human condition. Those interested in 19th century literature, Latin American studies, or the development of the novel should definitely read this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Tristram Shandy at the Beach in Rio de Janeiro
18 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Most readers and reviewers of the works of Joachim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) lay emphasis on the 'modernity' of his writing: the playfulness of his narrative structure, the psychological insights he tosses off without the benefit of living after Freud or Lacan, the whimsical diversions and parenthetical fancies. There's nothing wrong with that interpretation; Machado is clearly unlike any other writer in any language in his half of the 19th C. But he had a model, an obvious influence whom he acknowledges in his books: Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), the Emglish author of Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey. The linkage between Sterne and Machado is more than stylistic. It's the centrality of "sentiment" in their narratives. I don't mean "sentimentality" in the current sense of excessively sloppy emotion. In the literature of the 18th C, "sentiment" referred to an heightened sensitivity, a keen aesthetic sympathy, a 'feminine' receptivity to experience, and among English writers like Sterne and Fielding, a disposition toward mockery of conventions. Goethe was a 'sentimental' writer in extremis, but without that fine sense of mockery. Rather than being a modernist, to my mind, Machado de Assis was the last 18th C sentimentalist. That doesn't preclude the fact that his influence on later Brazilian and Hispanic-American writers was modernizing. It was. Machado can legitimately be regarded as the founder of Latin American literature, the first world classic of his whole continent.
Quincas Borba hasn't found a niche in the 'canon' of classics for most anglophone readers, despite the efforts of Harold Bloom, the great canonizer. This recent translation by Gregory Rabassa should open the way to greater recognition. It's fluid and idiomatic in English, and it captures much of the quirky originality of Machado's prose style. Don't look for a well-ordered logical narrative. The author hops in and out of the narrative frame at will. If there's a convention of story-telling, Machado aims to break it. He's sly, elusive/allusive, satirical/sardonic, and insistently mocking, both of his fictive characters and of you the reader. He dances circles around us, sticks out his tongue at our expectations, yet remains as endearing as a mischievous street urchin.
And in fact he was born a mischievous street urchin, a colored child in the slums of a Brazilian city. His life was a unpredictable, almost fanciful, as the tale of Rubião, the chief character of this novel. Rubião has reached early middle age as a lackadaisical school teacher in the province of Minas. By chance, he befriends an eccentric 'philosopher' named Quincas Borba, who instructs him that "to the victor belong the potatoes." When Borba dies, Rubião inherits a vast fortune and a dog, also named Quincas Borba, who may or may not possess the spirit of the philosopher. The new millionaire moves to Rio, falls absurdly in love, suffers obsessions, innocently squanders his wealth with the help of friends ...
... and no one he meets fares much better in terms of rational self interest. Humans delude themselves if they think they are more sensible than dogs. They're whimsical victims of their own sentiments.
Quincas Borba hasn't found a niche in the 'canon' of classics for most anglophone readers, despite the efforts of Harold Bloom, the great canonizer. This recent translation by Gregory Rabassa should open the way to greater recognition. It's fluid and idiomatic in English, and it captures much of the quirky originality of Machado's prose style. Don't look for a well-ordered logical narrative. The author hops in and out of the narrative frame at will. If there's a convention of story-telling, Machado aims to break it. He's sly, elusive/allusive, satirical/sardonic, and insistently mocking, both of his fictive characters and of you the reader. He dances circles around us, sticks out his tongue at our expectations, yet remains as endearing as a mischievous street urchin.
And in fact he was born a mischievous street urchin, a colored child in the slums of a Brazilian city. His life was a unpredictable, almost fanciful, as the tale of Rubião, the chief character of this novel. Rubião has reached early middle age as a lackadaisical school teacher in the province of Minas. By chance, he befriends an eccentric 'philosopher' named Quincas Borba, who instructs him that "to the victor belong the potatoes." When Borba dies, Rubião inherits a vast fortune and a dog, also named Quincas Borba, who may or may not possess the spirit of the philosopher. The new millionaire moves to Rio, falls absurdly in love, suffers obsessions, innocently squanders his wealth with the help of friends ...
... and no one he meets fares much better in terms of rational self interest. Humans delude themselves if they think they are more sensible than dogs. They're whimsical victims of their own sentiments.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A masterpiece of world literature!
17 Feb 2000
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the best books I've ever read! The story of the ascencion and fall of a man, his sanity and madness, make us think about our human condition. Machado de Assis is undobted the best Brazilian writer.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
