CHRONICLES of MACHADO DE ASSIS (1888-1889) Bons Dias!
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB|MACHADO DE ASSIS| BONS DIAS! |GOOD DAYS! : THE BONS DIAS! CHRONICLES OF MACHADO DE ASSIS (1888-1889) 2021 Celebrating the Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures 20th MAY 2021, 18.30-21.00 Bons Dias! (1888-1889) by MACHADO DE ASSIS (1839-1908) translated as GOOD DAYS!: THE BONS DIAS! CHRONICLES OF MACHADO DE ASSIS (1888-1889) Bilingual edition (2018) 1 Machado de Assis was a polymath and a world man of genius. Our book club Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL @BrazilEmbassyUK VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures has been reading and discussing his oeuvre since its launch in January 2015. In addition to his extraordinary novels, short stories, plays, and poems, he wrote inspirational, terse, witty, and humorous chronicles in newspaper columns. Let’s travel back in time in the best possible company, and acquaint ourselves with the state of the world in 1888-1889 with plenty of the hot topics trending in one of the most beautiful capital cities in the world: Rio de Janeiro! You will find loads and loads of hashtags #imperialaffairs #constitutionaltheories #republicanism #federalism #PrincessIsabel #parliamentaryfreedoms #abolitionofslavery #serfs #Gogol #SaleofDeadSouls #slaves #amasdeleite #freedslaves #bonds #shareholders #debentures #assetownership #banks #buildingsocieties #cooperatives #liberalism #Senate #HouseofCommons -#Cradle of parliamentary freedoms #Bendegómeteorite #TheRoyalSociety #ParisExhibition #whounderstandpoliticians #almanacks #weatherforecasts #homeopathy #sciences #Shakespeare #Camoes #ConciliodosDeuses #Bible #coughmixtures #homeopathyprofitsgalore #curesforallmaladies #medicines #Theosophy #Spiritualism #mediums #conartists #internationalaffairs #diplomacy #polemics #SocietyfortheProtectionofAnimals #yellowfever #pandemics #panic #quackdoctors #healers #ScotlandYard #BrazilianPortuguese #Volapuk #theBeethovenClub #debates #Cruzeiro #NewcapitalBrazil #linguisticpurism #antropofagia #ethicsandsociety And a bonus with an insight into British life and institutions: discover what was discussed in the House of Commons in Westminster on19th March 1888 and reported in the Daily News ? The Bons Dias! series were written between 1888 and 1889 as momentous events unfolded in Brazil. 1888 was the year when the Abolition of Slavery in Brazil was finally concluded. These chronicles are an invaluable record often echoed in his fictional works. DETAILS OF AVAILABLE PUBLICATIONS: ENGLISH 2018 -Good Days!: The Bons Dias! Chronicles of Machado de Assis (1888-1889) - Bilingual edition. Translated by Ana Lessa-Schmidt and G. P. Bellin published by the New London Librarium. ISBN-13: 978-1947074217 ISBN-10: 1947074210 ASIN: B07G5NDBRD NB. This edition is also available as a Kindle version (through Amazon) free on your preferred device: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Days-Chronicles-Machado-1888-1889- ebook/dp/B07G5NDBRD/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= PORTUGUESE 2 Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL @BrazilEmbassyUK VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures An explanatory note: In addition to the original chronicles published under the pseudonym ‘BOAS NOITES’ in the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias (1888-9), there have been various editions of Bons Dias! since then. With the W. M. Jackson editions, originally printed in 1937 - Machado De Assis coleção complete, 31 Volumes in Rio de Janeiro (various reprints and re- editions of this complete works edition, 1937, 1944, 1946, 1955, 1957, 1959). In the 1955 W. M. Jackson edition, there are four volumes of chronicles and its volume 23 features Chronicas (1878-1888). The British Library holds the four volumes of chronicles of 1955 edition as well. In addition, they appear in the second part of the book edition Diálogos e Reflexões de Um Relojoeiro. Machado de Assis’s Complete works have also been published and reprinted for example by the following publishing houses: Garnier, Nova Agilar (from 1959 to1997), Globo (1997 and reprinted in 2001), mostly following the 1901 Machado de Assis Committee initiative. 1963 - Cronicas.̂ (Antologia.) [Selected, with an introduction, by Eugeniô Gomes. With a portrait.] Editora Agir – Nossos Clássicos series - Machado de Assis, 1839-1908. Rio de Janeiro. More recent Bons Dias! 1996 - (reprinted 2008) organised by J. Gledson; in the 1997 Globo Complete Works by Machado de Assis, in 2006, a 2006 edition organised by Gabriela Betella, and various other editions/publishers in Brazil. Free downloads: Original Portuguese http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/download/texto/bv000167.pdf http://machado.mec.gov.br/obra-completa-lista/itemlist/category/26-cronica?start=12 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND TRANSLATION The series of chronicles published under the heading Bons Dias! and signed with the 3 pseudonym ‘BOAS NOITES’ were published from 5th April 1888 to 29th August 1889. Various Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL @BrazilEmbassyUK VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures editions of this set of chronicles have a variable number of chronicles, and all recently published editions feature forty-nine chronicles, excepting that of the 2018 bilingual edition which contains fifty chronicles. The 2018 bilingual edition, Good Days!: The Bons Dias! Chronicles of Machado de Assis (1888-1889), brings an additional chronicle. It is that of 14th October 1888 (pages 184-193) which Ana Lessa-Schmidt found in the Brazilian National Library archives, in the original Gazeta de Notícias issues, during her research in preparing the first translation of this set of exceptional chronicles into English. This adds great value to this edition. Going back to the primary sources of extant archives is paramount in any case of reprinting any literary work. One should be aware that original works may have been subject to the author’s amendments, who may or may not have produced a definitive version, to ‘manipulations’ by editors and publishers, ideological governments censors, translators, and more often than contain typographical errors. Original, or primary, sources can also help resolve issues in translations where a misprint can lead to some misunderstanding, or misrepresentation. This is of essence in the case of Brazilian literature as there has long been a tendency to rehash earlier editions, including some forgotten publications with publishing houses claiming that they are ‘new’. In the history of the publications of the works by Machado de Assis, including the various ‘complete works’ sets, spanning three to thirty-two volumes, published in the 20th century in Brazil, most have followed either the initial recommendations of the 1901 Machado de Assis’s Committee, and/or its later format in 1958. The choice of works included in the sets have varying content and sequencing depending on the choices made by editors and publishers. Some were rushed to print exhibiting a variety of errors including avoidable typographical errors. Such editions also updated the orthography of the Brazilian Portuguese on successive occasions as various new orthographical rules were introduced. With some rare exceptions, there is a conspicuous lack of both proper literary concordance and textual harmonisation with the original manuscripts, therefore, a lack of ‘authorised’, definitive, or critical versions of Machado de Assis’s oeuvre. This lack has had consequences for the translations of his works in other languages as well. Various translated works do not indicate dates or editions from which the translation was made. According to research estimates, Machado de Assis wrote some 700 chronicles from 1859 to 1897. The chronicles appeared in various series under specific headings, and often signed using various pseudonyms, which were published mainly in the Rio de Janeiro newspapers, and some periodical journals/magazines. By using pseudonyms, by adopting a literary persona, Machado de Assis was able to comment on a vast array of topics, affairs, and fields of knowledge which circulated at the time, whilst he remained in employment as a dutiful civil servant. The following sets of chronicles have been converted into books posthumously: Diálogos e Reflexões de Um Relojoeiro, each under the heading ‘A+B’, Crônicas do Lélio, Bons Dias!, A Semana, Balas de Estalo, Comentários da Semana. Machado de Assis was not the first chronicler in Brazil. He acknowledged his intellectual debt to José de Alencar (1829-1877), who had written notable chronicles, referring to José de Alencar as the ‘Father’ of Brazilian literature. Mário de Andrade