<DIV>This book offers an alternative explanation for one of the core dilemmas of Brazilian literary criticism: the “midlife crisis” Machado de Assis underwent from 1878 to 1880, the result of which was the writing of <I>The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas</I>, as well as the remarkable production of his mature years—with an emphasis on his masterpiece, <I>Dom Casmurro</I>.<BR /><BR /> At the center of this alternative explanation, Castro Rocha situates the fallout from the success enjoyed by Eça de Queirós with the publication of <I>Cousin Basílio </I>and Machado’s two long texts condemning the author and his work. Literary and aesthetic rivalries come to the fore, allowing for a new theoretical framework based on a literary appropriation of “thick description, ” the method proposed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz. From this method, Castro Rocha derives his key hypothesis: an unforeseen consequence of Machado’s reaction to Eça’s novel was a return to the classical notion of <I>aemulatio</I>, which led Machado to develop a “poetics of emulation.”</DIV>