Quincas Borba, Gregory Rabassa (review)

Abstract

of the obvious in the two workstreated:fictionpresented as fact, and factpresented as fiction. The documentarynarrativeof the shipwrecktestimonio has an interesting political dimension, since it also representsa rareattackon the dictatorialregime of Rojas Pinilla.What the two texts have in common is the postmodernphenomenon of blurringthe boundariesbetween fact and fiction, as Clarkastutelyrecognizes. One is reluctantto criticize any seriouswork of scholarship,but to complete my opening elliptical misgivings, there are far too many defects, both of content and form, in this brief study. Notwithstanding the little nuggets of illumination on fact as fiction and vice versa, the presentation lacks control and mastery. There is a certainnaivetyand ingenuousnessin thepresentationofplot summaries,undigested repetition of fact and theory, stating the obvious as if it were new, blocks of quotations, the introduction of extraneous material, not to mention occasional stylisticand formalinfelicities,likebrieflaconic paragraphs.I find the formatof the work odd too. The notes are really no more than translationsof quotations in the text, the bibliographystrangelyold-fashionedin many ways, despitethe presence of some new theorists,and the Index is a mess. Some authorswho figureprominently (and are quoted) in the text do not appear in the Index, or receive only one page citation (the bibliography).To compound this shambles, the page numbers in the Index do not correspond to the text. It is a pity that these formal and mechanical defectsvitiate even more the qualityof this study,which does have some interesting points to make about GarciaMarquez. QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, ONTARIO JOHN WALKER Quincas Borba. By JOAQUIMMARIA MACHADODE ASSIS. Trans. by GREGORY RABASSA. Oxford: Oxford University Press. I998. 290 pp. ?20.00 (paperbound 10.99). With Gregory Rabassa'selegant translationof Quincas Borba by Machado de Assis, the Library of Latin America of the Oxford University Press has completed publicationof the successfulrenderinginto Englishof the threemasterpiecesamong the five novels of the author's 'mature'phase: that is, from 1879 until his death in 1908. The othertwo were DomCasmurro (thetranslationof which, byJohn Gledson, appearedin 1997)and Memorias Pdstumas deBrasCubas (againtranslatedby Rabassa and publishedin 1998).Rabassa, indeed, has a very solid reputationas a translator of LatinAmerican (includingBrazilian)literature,most notably of texts by Gabriel GarciaMarquez,Julio Cortazarand Mario VargasLlosa. PreviousEnglishversions of Machado's three great novels appeared in the early 1950s, publishedrespectivelyby the Noonday Pressin the United States(New York, I952-54) and by W. H. Allen in the United Kingdom (London, I953-54). Though the translation of Mem6rias Postumas deBras Cubasappeared in Penguin Modern Classicsin 1968, it is a sad fact that these earlierrenderingsmade little substantial impact. Despite fairly adequate translation(varyingfrom the able to the cumbersome ), theywere received by a largelyuncomprehendingreadingpublic;introductory essays (where they existed) were superficial and brief. Even British critical acclaim (notablyfromAngusWilson, S. P. B. Mais, L. A. G. Strong,Julian Symons and Geoffrey Bullough) was based on bedazzlement, rather than on the sound foundations that subsequent scholarshiphas provided. Pride of place among such elucubrationsmust go to John Gledson's two provocative and seminal studies The Deceptive Realism ofMachado deAssis(Liverpool:FrancisCairns, I984) and Machado de Assis:FicfaoeHistdria (Rio deJaneiro: Paz e Terra, I986). It is a matterfor rejoicing and optimism, therefore, that the translationsmade by Rabassa and Gledson are of the obvious in the two workstreated:fictionpresented as fact, and factpresented as fiction. The documentarynarrativeof the shipwrecktestimonio has an interesting political dimension, since it also representsa rareattackon the dictatorialregime of Rojas Pinilla.What the two texts have in common is the postmodernphenomenon of blurringthe boundariesbetween fact and fiction, as Clarkastutelyrecognizes. One is reluctantto criticize any seriouswork of scholarship,but to complete my opening elliptical misgivings, there are far too many defects, both of content and form, in this brief study. Notwithstanding the little nuggets of illumination on fact as fiction and vice versa, the presentation lacks control and mastery. There is a certainnaivetyand ingenuousnessin thepresentationofplot summaries,undigested repetition of fact and theory, stating the obvious as if it were new, blocks of quotations, the introduction of extraneous material, not to mention occasional stylisticand formalinfelicities,likebrieflaconic paragraphs.I find the formatof the work odd too. The notes are really no more than translationsof quotations in the text, the bibliographystrangelyold-fashionedin many ways, despitethe presence of some new theorists,and the Index is a mess. Some authorswho figureprominently...