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As Machado de Assis' global reception grows, and as he becomes a staple of what Damrosch describes as the World Literature movement, several issues about his work come to the fore (4-5; 15-16; 110-144). Among them are Machado's striking originality (both formally and thematically), his trenchant use of irony, his cultivation of ambiguity, and his skepticism. To be sure, all of these issues affect how people respond to his poems, his theatrical writing, and his famous stories and novels. For some, he is a dark cynic; for others, he is an idealist, albeit a gimlet-eyed one. And for still others, he is a complete anomaly. Some consider him to be a realist, while others prefer to rank him as a modernist. More recently, and in both Brazil and the United States, Machado is being reevaluated not merely as a writer but as a Black writer (see Valdės and Fitz). The late Yale professor of English, Harold Bloom, for example, declares that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date" (674). In the United States, far too many readers simply assume Machado must be yet another "Latin American" writer whose work bulges with magical realism. Such gross misunderstanding must be corrected.
This point brings me to the subject of this essay. I will argue in the pages that follow that Machado's texts invite the reader to ponder and then put into action what we think of today as civic virtue. This proposition runs counter to traditional readings of the Brazilian master. But, I contend, it is an entirely viable response to his oeuvre. And if we consider it seriously, then it may help explain why Machado is gaining an international importance he has not hitherto been recognized as having. The texts themselves bear out my thesis. Today, in societies around the world, the people who read books are often the people who vote. This, the vital connection between the reader and the citizen, is the crucial nexus. And Machado's work brims with examples that give us every opportunity to use the act of reading to become better citizens. It is for us, Machado's readers, to take the step from literature to life.
I do not argue that what I propose is the only way to...