Novel · A way to begin
The Alienist
O alienista
Opening lines
As chronicas da villa de Itaguahy dizem que em tempos remotos vivera alli um certo medico, o Dr. Simão Bacamarte, filho da nobreza da terra e o maior dos medicos do Brazil, de Portugal e das Hespanhas.
The chronicles of the town of Itaguaí record that in times long past a certain doctor lived there, Dr Simão Bacamarte, a son of the local nobility and the greatest of the doctors of Brazil, Portugal and the Spains.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from pt.wikisource.org
Synopsis
After a brilliant career as a physician in Europe and Brazil, Simão Bacamarte returns to his native town of Itaguaí. He marries dona Evarista, a widow he judges fit to give him fine children, then devotes himself to the study of the mind and has an asylum built, the Casa Verde, for the madmen of the region. Soon he sees madness everywhere and has inhabitants committed whose only oddity is surprising. The town grows uneasy, and the barber Porfírio, who dreams of power, takes advantage of this to rouse it.
Context
The story first appeared in the journal A Estação, from 15 October 1881 to 15 March 1882, then in the collection Papéis avulsos in 1882. Critics most often see in it a novela rather than a tale. Maryvonne Lapouge translated it into French for Métailié in 1984, and it has been constantly reissued since, and William L. Grossman, the author's first English translator, translated it into English. Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá adapted it as a graphic novel, translated into French in 2014.
Who it is for
About sixty pages, a single idea pushed all the way through and plenty of humour: an easy way into Machado's work.
Prizes and reception
The leading story of the collection Papéis avulsos, constantly reissued in France since its 1984 translation.
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