O Alienista cover

O Alienista

by Machado de Assis

Who's crazy? This is the question proposed in this book. In this narrative, Machado de Assis tells the story of the eminent Dr. Simão Bacamarte. Dedicated scholar of the human mind, the doctor decides to build a ' Green House '-a mental hospital to treat the mentally ill in the small town of Itaguaí. Machado leads to its history and maintains that everything is relative and that normality is not always what the science and the facts attest to absolute form.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?