“A brilliant and penetrating analysis of Machado’s Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas. This is the kind of reading that transforms one’s understanding of the novel. After reading Schwarz, it is impossible to see Machado in the same light as before. Exemplary of what literary analysis can and should be, this seminal study transcends its focus on Brazilian literature and becomes ... Read morea model for literary critics. “—Randal Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles “This is a masterpiece of criticism. The coherence of Schwarz’s perspective and the clarity with which he elaborates the economic and cultural insights that form his dialectical approach to literature make his study a paradigmatic one for theoretical enterprise. By concentrating his interpretive talents on Machado’s style, Schwarz also illuminates a question that has puzzled many present Machado readers: Why do we find him so satisfylingly contemporary?”—Leslie Damasceno, Duke University Show Less