Dom Casmurro 3.7 · 3.7

The sentence lands on a small manifesto. He writes for those who love 'historias velhas', old stories — and quietly dismisses those who don't. It is Machado, through Bento, defending the long backward look of the whole book against a reader who wants only what is new. There is charm and defiance in it, and also a trap: the man asking us to love his old story is the same one shaping how we receive it. To love the tale is halfway to believing the teller.

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