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Perhaps due to its negative reception by prominent scholars, Helena (1876) remains one of the least studied and appreciated novels by J. M. Machado de Assis. Roberto Schwarz, one of the most influential commentators on Machado, has dismissed the novel as a poorly written effort, even for the author's so-called first phase, that attempts to salvage the paternalistic structure of Brazilian society by appeal to Christian morality-a project the critic calls ideologically insipid (Schwarz, Ao vencedor as batatas 90). Taking somewhat more interest in the narrative, Regina Zilberman joins Schwarz in condemning the book's ideology as unacceptably "conformista, conservadora e moralista" (Zilberman 98). Even critics who defend the novel against such severe attacks and find value in its realism (Chalhoub 18), style and psychological depth (Fitz 49), or intertextual richness (Durand 2526), typically concede that Helena is no masterpiece. Although the traditional division of Machado's works into two distinct phases is not universally emphasized, lingering orthodoxy relegates Helena to the pile of aesthetic disappointments that mar the early career of Brazil's foremost novelist.
I will argue here for a new reading of the novel, one that may allow us to take greater interest in the text and to rethink its place among Machado's writings, based on a recent innovation in the theory of fictional narrative. Joshua Landy has argued that certain works of fiction are best understood as formative, in the sense that they offer opportunities for (suitably disposed) readers to engage in specific kinds of intellectual or mental training. This approach draws on the work of philosophers such as J. L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein who call attention to language use as an action of social consequence (and not merely a transparent means of reference or representation) and that of literary theorists who stress the active participation of the reader in producing or completing the value of the text (such as Wolfgang Iser and the later Roland Barthes). Disputing the pervasive idea that the point of literary writing and reading is the transmission of propositional messages, while distinguishing his theory from a number of alternative views of the value and nature of fiction, Landy identifies a number of
texts whose function it is to fine-tune our mental capacities. Rather than providing knowledge per se-whether...