"The novel begins with Brás Cubas recounting his own death-so, we quickly learn that these are not posthumous memoirs in the convention sense, but memoirs written, as it were, from the grave. It continues as absurdly as it begins, toggling effortlessly between literary, philosophical, historical, and sometimes wholly nonsensical digressions. He returns to his birth in 1805, and describes a childhood spent tormenting household slaves, succeeding and failing in love, finding friendship, obsessing over frivolities-a life of tedium and yet one that speaks to universal desires and aspirations. At the end of his life, he is proud of one thing: that he had no children to pass on his miserable legacy. Throughout, Bras Cubas' life is bolstered by the playfulness and black humor of Machado's prose, resulting in a work of uproarious mockery but also of great sympathy and melancholy-a tonal mix for which Machado is known and widely admired"--