Successful Writer Blog

The book Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas by J.M. Machado de Assis is a wonderful book that very much reminds me of Stern’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman but instead of trying to tell the story of his life and failing in birth, this story begins with death. How could it be that a story is being written after death? There is no explanation and this book, like Tristram Shandy, pushes the boundaries of literature of its time and has a fine mixture of acute self awareness and even science fiction. Death causes one to take another look at one’s life, and this book tells the story of great missed opportunities and high expectations, but finally results in disappointment for the hero.

Karl Marx once said that history repeats itself twice, as a comedy and then as a tragedy. The first book, The Death of Artemio Cruz, was the tragedy and Memorias Posthumas is the comedy because this book is filled with humor in its depiction of life in the second half of the 19^th century. In this case, like the first novel that we discussed this week, we learnt something about the nature of human life, which is the most important thing of all. This book, like every masterpiece, is ever fresh, and as the editor of the Hebrew edition says, “It gives a deeper humanistic meaning to the biblical saying, ‘All is vanity and a striving after wind.’”

Next week we shall deal with English satires with the hope of showing how they influenced their time and what they are based on.

You live without choice and you die without choice, according to an old Hebrew idiom. It seems that anything I can say about death would be a cliché. I believe I chose death or several aspects of death as a topic this week because it creates instant drama and can open up a range of possibilities for representation and morals. In La Muerte de Artemio Cruz (The Death of Artemio Cruz) by Carlos Fuentes, the death has some sort of a surplus. This is not only because its hero is larger than life like Kane in Citizen Kane – and there are many points of similarity between the two protagonists – but also because, like Perry commented about the book, it’s “several alternative books” – the story is told in three voices that are all connected to the protagonist. Like Falkner’s style of writing, this book doesn’t give details too soon and forces you to read it again and again, and every time you find new sides to the story. The thing that I like the most is the way that it tells the history of modern Mexico through the life of this one person, which is an idea that one can adopt and use, as was famously executed on screen in films like Forest Gump.

Wan can’t really hate the protagonist of the book, but you can’t like him either. The ambivalence is all over this book and this is its true force. The fundamental question for me in this book is about the freedom of choice and what seemed free is actually decided in advance. This book has also a refreshing point of view towards Americans by showing that they are not the smart and sharp businessmen they would like to consider themselves, as they are easily fooled by Cruz. I wish I could have quoted several lines here so you could see the beauty of the language of the book but I couldn’t find an English translation. No wonder it was an international bestseller in the 20^th century and, in my opinion, is well worth discovering.