The Ateneu

Ateneu, published in installments in Gazeta de Notícias from January to March 1888, retains little or nothing of the more overt characteristics of that medium, as the book's interest lies not in the plot, but in the memories and reflections of the narrator-character Sérgio about his two years as a boarder at the school that gives the novel its name. Although chronologically organized, the work lacks a central narrative axis: it records, in a somewhat sparse manner, the protagonist's episodes, thoughts, and intuitions, presenting itself as a "chronicle of longing," not as a novel, since the focus shifts from the plot to the enunciator, susceptible to the effects of time."