Here in a deeply charming elderly edition is a book that assumes a lot of background knowledge about Brazilian land ownership in the 1930s. Lacking this, it was slightly puzzling. But I can say it was bleak. Apparently a classic in Brazil, it tells about a man who pulls himself up from poverty to ownership of a large rural estate. He marries a woman who he thinks is too good for him, and proceeds to make her life hell. She kills herself. Then he feels sort of bad but not that bad and keeps building his estate. Not sure what the political context was in Brazil at the time, but I can say that this was probably not intended as a ringing endorsement of landowners.
SAO BERNARDO by Graciliano Ramos
