finished reading Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Truly a landmark in the history of literature. This is a first crack in tainting the ideals of romanticism, using a dead narrator to excuse the grim and eschatological view of life and human struggles. The structure of the book, the whimsical choices, the events that transpire, they all conspire to a brilliant text.

The book is best enjoyed with a little bit of context on 1880's Rio & Brazil, but generous use of footnotes from the editor and a good deal of curiosity for research should suffice to get immersed.

The part of the book that I enjoyed the least was the middle of it, specifically the volume of attention dedicated to Virgília. But I also think that it is how it should be: so much time and energy and passion is dedicated to a romantic adventure that is ultimately unsatisfying and inconsequential, and the authors (the dead one and the real one) know this and decided for it, because that too is part of portraying a life.

It should go without saying but it's always worth repeating that readers should keep in mind that the story is immersed in the zeitgeist of the 1880's, so gender roles, slavery, social hierarchy are all described by someone who was living that reality without a contemporary lens of criticism.