In his hands, this becomes darkly absurd, and for a tiny little work, there are several reversals and more plot than you would expect, more plot than many authors could have delivered. Machado wrote this in 1881, and the field of psychotherapy still had a ways to go, and i swear this man had some robert johnson thing going on, because his prescience, in all of his works, is so keen. He has a huge madhouse, and many rooms to fill.Īnd fill it he shall, using the 'i don't know what it is, but i know it when i see it' argument. this is a man who needs distractions.Īlas, instead of enjoying marital bliss with a fascinating woman, bacamarte instead sets out to single-mindedly diagnose the citizens of itaguai with their heretofore unrecognized mental disorders, and to open the first asylum in brazil. and by the end, you will be wishing he had just married a hotter wife.

If, in addition to her physiological accomplishments, Dona Evarista possessed a face composed of features neither individually pretty nor mutually compatible, he thanked God for it, for he would not be tempted to sacrifice his scientific pursuits for the contemplation of his wife's attractions.īecause any man who is that clinical and impassive, that removed from ordinary human sentiment, is not the person i want telling me what sanity is. It was likely she would give him healthy, robust children. The doctor replied that Dona Evarista enjoyed perfect digestion, excellent eyesight, and normal blood pressure she had had no serious illnesses and her urinalysis was negative. One of his uncles, an outspoken man, asked him why he had not selected a more attractive woman. Her name was Dona Evarista da Costa e Mascarenhas, and she was neither beautiful nor charming. In his fortieth year Bacamarte married the widow of a circuit judge. and how you don't want one person in charge of determining who is crazy and who is not. This is just a short little work, part of melville house's wonderful 'art of the novella' series, but it is machado, so you know it is going to be wholly satisfying, despite being only 86 pages.

The alienist by machado de assis