O Chocalho de Brás Cubas: Uma leitura das Memórias Póstumas (review)

Brazilian author Machado de Assis is well known as one of the most important authors of the Portuguese-speaking world. Dixon's analysis of Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas is an excellent addition to the vast body of works that investigates Assis's intricate production. The book is divided into an introduction, eight chapters, an epilogue, and bibliography. The opening by Valentim Facioli states that the main goal of the book is to examine, analyze, and interpret Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas using phenomenology and a brief note on the author and his expertise.

On the "Introdução" (13), Dixon declares that his work is a reading of the book as a combination of subjectivity and empiric objectivity. He explains that his analysis will focus on the aesthetic aspects of the work without ignoring the historic, social, political, and cultural aspects of the text. Furthermore, he presents his method of study, the phenomenology, and clearly shows the central thesis, that a brief episode of the protagonist's childhood is a key to the whole book.

Chapter 1, "O Chocalho de Brás Cubas," brings the key to the whole analysis: the episode of the rattle, when baby Brás Cubas is learning how to walk, prompted by his mom's rattling a toy. For Dixon, this is the center of the whole book and the center of his whole phenomenological analysis that will influence the structure of the book, the discursive level, the narrator, the philosophies, the thematic level, the special dimension, the images, the pictographic strata, and the syntactic level.

In chapter 2, "O Narrador sem Fundamento," Dixon focuses on the narrator. He points out that the basic analysis of a narrator (reliable and unreliable) is not able to explain Brás Cubas. The impossibility of placing him in a neat analysis is one of the greatest accomplishments by Machado de Assis as he creates a new type of narrator.

The analysis of the function of nature is explored in Chapter 3, "Cubas e o Verme (Natureza e Intersubjetividade)." Reviewing other Brazilian canonical work of the time, Dixon is able to claim that Assis's use of nature is not a usual one. He argues that even though some critics claim that nature is not present in Assis's work, the fact is that nature is indeed present and in very important way, especially in the phenomenological analysis.

The main idea of Chapter 4, "V de Visão (o Princípio Óptico)," is the study of the ludic way in which Assis used the written word throughout the novel to create another level of meaning. Dixon shows that this visual impact is another function of the written word and that Assis anticipates tendencies that will only be fully explored later on. Dixon is able to connect the movement created with the playfulness of the words with the rattle as the key idea of his book as well as of Assis's novel.

The notion of nationalism and national identify is the center of Chapter 5, "Brás, Brasil e a Cultura Europeia." Dixon proves that, contrary to some views, Assis is indeed defending a literary nationalism but one that is based on a more psychological level.

Chapter 6, "O Delírio (Entre o Universo e a Ponta do Nariz)," is where Dixon presents his investigation of the formal aspect of the work. He argues that Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas is organized on a very elaborate level, constructed around an axis with alternation between two poles to imitate the idea of a zigzag, again relating to the rattle as the key factor of the narrator and of the book as a whole.

The different philosophies presented in Assis's work are the theme of chapter 7, "Falando Sério? (O Problema do 'Humanitismo')." Dixon's study assesses the satiric presentation of...