Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908)

Machado de Assis was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a house painter and a Portuguese woman. Machado received little formal education. He learned French from a neighboring baker. Machado worked as a printer's apprentice at the National Press, and later he was a salesman and a proof-reader in a bookshop. During these years he started to write stories, poems, and novels. He began to gain fame as a poet in his mid-twenties, and by the late 1860s he had become a successful Brazilian man of letters.

He is widely regarded as Brazil's greatest novelist. Machado wrote nine novels, eight short-story collections, four volumes of poetry, 13 plays, and numerous critical essays. He often satirized middle-class values and behavior. Machado de Assis was an astute 

His most famous novel, Dom Casmurro, is marvelously humorous, and sinister. Machado creates provoking unresolvable doubts in the reader's mind. It's no wonder that he is considered Brazil's greatest novelist and Capitu his most fascinating heroine; like the Mona Lisa, much lies hidden behind a superb portrait. If you've never heard of Machado de Assis, do yourself a favor and seek him out. He's well worth the effort. 

Disponível em: <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/machado.htm> (Adapted) <http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/266/Dom%20Casmurro.htm> (Adapted) Acesso em: 15 jun. 2006.

The following are comments about Machado and his literature. Select the proposition(s) in which both (a) and (b) can MEANINGFULLY COMPLETE the beginning of the sentence.

01. Machado de Assis is Brazil's greatest novelist,

(a) and ranks high among the most appealing writers in the world.

(b) one of the most distinctive novels of the turn of the century.

02. Machado offers the pleasures of a 19th-century writer

(a) who is more modern than some of our so-called moderns.

(b) and ranks high among the most appealing writers in the world.

04. Like Mozart in music, Machado was able to achieve

(a) who is more modern than some of our so-called moderns.

(b) great effects with the minimum of resources.

08. It took many years for the critics and the public to recognize Dom Casmurro as

(a) what today almost every critic considers to be Assis's masterpiece.

(b) one of the most distinctive novels of the turn of the century.

Adapted from: <http //www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0195103092> Acesso em: 15 jun. 2006.