Re-reads

Dom Casmurro – Machado de Assis (Portuguese)

This novel, published in Brazil in 1900 and written by a grandson of a slave, is strange in both its approach and its construction. Machado first tries to make it seem that Bento, the main character, is speaking to the reader. All first-person novels take this tack, but not with the insistence found here. Bento often comments on what he’s telling us. One example, from the second page: when explaining how he got the nickname of Casmurro, he tells us, “Don’t look it up in the dictionary,” for the definition there, he finds, is not fitting. He explains what it means in his case, which is “a quiet person who keeps himself to himself.” This quiet person, a man in his sixties who lives alone, is going to tell us the story of his life solely because he wants to relive the past. Or, more specifically, to evoke “a celebrated November afternoon that I have never forgotten.” Then he adds, “Read on and you will understand what I mean.” So I read on and was soon introduced to Capitu, a neighbor girl he had known and played with since childhood. But he has reached the age of fifteen, she fourteen, and feelings change. He combs her hair on that celebrated November afternoon, and a kiss follows. A kiss he will never forget. Capitu is a very strong character. She seems, from what she says and by her actions, to be intelligent, determined and manipulative. More of a woman than a girl. The two vow to get married, but there’s a hitch: his widowed mother’s first child, a boy, had been born dead, and she had made an oath to God that if her second child were a boy, and lived, she would destine him for the priesthood. Since Bento is an obedient and loving son, there’s that dilemma to be solved. It is, eventually, and he and Capitu get married. But I wondered, from the beginning, how Bento reached old age alone and isolated. The answer emerges late in the narrative; in between there are many digressions, side issues – too many. And there’s a skipping of huge gaps of time; an abruptness sets into the narrative. Capitu largely disappears as the vibrant presence she was for that one scene (a fact which may have significance). The novel is considered to be a masterpiece of Brazilian literature. I found it original and engaging, but in some vital way frustratingly inexplicable. In the end I didn’t understand Bento – the man “speaking” to me. 3

A Member of the Wedding – Carson McCullers

It took McCullers five years to write Member. In a letter she told her husband “It’s one of those works that the least slip could ruin,” and that she had worked over some parts “as many as twenty times.” In my opinion, she should have spent another month working to delete whole sections. All of Frankie’s ultra-sensitive musings needed to go. No human being ever indulged in such delusional thinking. Even the whole premise of the book – Frankie’s intention to live with her newly married brother and his bride, for them to be a threesome – is such a silly idea that I can’t believe any twelve-year-old girl would ever entertain it. Also needing deletion is the whole business with the soldier – again, no twelve -year-old girl would act so stupidly (nor would the soldier). Lastly, delete the entire final Part Three, all twenty-some pages. It wraps things up in a highly unsatisfying way (and does so by using the gratuitous death of one of the characters). What is left after all these deletions? There’s the kitchen where Frankie and Bernice and John Henry sit and talk and interact. This is wonderful. Bernice (the Black cook) serves to blunt Frankie’s extreme words and actions. Bernice is by far the strongest character in the novel, and McCullers should be given credit for creating her. There’s not much to John Henry, except a sweet, unformed little boy (he’s the one who gets sacrificed in Part Three). The atmosphere of a small Southern town is nicely evoked. So there are pluses. The book didn’t get much of an audience, but the play and the film (which I saw, and liked very much) and the TV version made the story famous. I won’t delete this novel, due to its strengths. 2

A Member of the Wedding: A Play – Carson McCullers

This play version happened to be available at my local library. Reading it was quite a surprise. McCullers pretty much fixed all the problems I noted in my review of the novel. Did she see the light? Did someone give her guidance? (The primary candidate is Tennessee Williams, who encouraged her to do a play version and who helped her in writing the beginning.) Did the restrictions of staging benefit in not allowing all that indulgence in Frankie’s musings? The set keeps us in a single location: the kitchen, where the novel was at its strongest, and where we only get to hear what Frankie says and see what she does. Bernice is given the major role she deserves; John Henry is more developed; the soldier is eliminated entirely. The premise – wanting to be a member of the wedding – is presented in a more reasonable way. In other words, there’s an overall toning down of the extravagances. A few characters that were only referred to in the novel make brief appearances – mainly Frankie’s brother and the bride-to-be. This was a stabilizing element, because in the novel they came across as mythical figures. Three good actors could do something with this material, and Ethel Waters, Julie Harris and Brandon de Wilde (at age seven!) surely carried it off admirably. The play ran for 501 performances and won the New York Drama Critics Award. My only gripe (one I had with the novel) was the death of John Henry. When a character in a movie or play mentions in passing that they have a headache, you know that they’re doomed in the last act. But, probably, when Bernice talks of his death, there must have been a ripple of shock throughout the audience. What?! John Henry died? That lovable kid?