Novel
The Athenaeum
O Ateneu
Raul Pompeia · 1888
Synopsis
Sérgio, eleven, enters the Athenaeum as a boarder, a boarding school in Rio de Janeiro; at the door, his father tells him he is going to find the world. There he discovers the rigorous discipline of the headmaster, Aristarco, meets dona Ema, the headmaster's wife, becomes friends with Sanches, a good pupil, then with Bento Alves, the school's librarian. As an adult, he remembers those two years, the humiliations, the bullying and the power struggles between pupils.
Context
The novel appeared as a serial in the Gazeta de Notícias from January to March 1888, then in volume the same year, subtitled “chronicle of nostalgias”. Inspired in part by its author's time at a boarding school, it departs from the mechanics of the serial to follow the memory and reflections of its narrator, observes the journal Metamorfoses. Critics hesitate to place it in naturalism or in symbolism, and Infopédia sees in Pompeia one of the first impressionist prose writers of Brazil. Its 2015 English translation reads in it a reflection of the hierarchies of Brazilian society.
Who it is for
A novel in twelve chapters, in a dense prose laden with descriptions, which follows the narrator's memory rather than a plot.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's major work, it was translated into French in 1980 and into English in 2015, and adapted as a comic book in 2017.
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