The hectic digressions, ellipses and gaps frustrate the flow, so it’s hard to keep a handle on the characters that buzz in and out yet leave Cubas in solitude. In his introduction, Dave Eggers calls the book “an unmitigated joy to read”, but “mitigated” might be better. Cubas keeps digressing – being dead, he’s in no hurry to complete his story – and his condition, with nobody left to impress, offers the advantage of honesty. Posthumous Memoirs contains the whole human comedy in 160 very short chapters (“long chapters are better suited for ponderous readers”). But there is lots going on, from attempts to make his fortune by inventing a plaster to “alleviate… melancholy”, to a rocky political career, and above all a love triangle.
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