Dom Casmurro 9.78 · 9.78

A new fault: obscurities, where the maestro 'abusa das massas choraes,' drowning sense under piled voices. The composer — Satan, in the parable — overwhelms clarity with mass, sheer volume standing in for meaning.

It is a fair charge against providence and against memoir alike. Bento often buries the plain fact under an orchestrated crowd of impressions, letting the swell of feeling obscure what actually happened. The technique names itself: a narrator who prefers atmosphere to evidence, and who lets the massed chorus of his suspicion cover the silence where a proof should be standing and is not.

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