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Jose Raimundo Maia Neto, Machado de Assis: The Brazilian Pyrrhonian. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994. Pp. xiii + 231. Cloth, $35.95.
Hidden away in the prevailing ignorance of things Brazilian is Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, one of the keenest writers of fiction anywhere. His style is so original for his time, the nineteenth century, that he has been seized upon as a forerunner of both modernism and that furtively defined phenomenon called postmodernism. This is often the case with an original artist who seems to be out of place and out of time. Now, with this careful study, Jose Raimundo Maia Neto has placed Machado, if not within a philosophical school, within a tendency at least: Pyrrhonian skepticism. He makes no claim for Machado's being familiar with Pyrrho himself, but notes that the Brazilian novelist was by his own admission an adept of Montaigne and Pascal, notably the latter.
Mr. Maia Neto has organized his study by chronology and by works, tracing the evolution of the novelist's thought and technique from his earliest attempts at fiction up to his mature masterpieces. In keeping with the theme of his study, Mr....