Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as myself

This narrator presides over a collection of comic anecdotes and dialogues, translating (or mistranslating) Portuguese wit into English of spectacular wrongness. The presiding tension is between earnest instructional intent and the accidental comedy that erupts from every sentence, as when a gout-ridden lord dismisses a physician for arriving on foot. The narrator's cheerful confidence in this broken medium is what makes the book's early arc so seductive: every page promises another collision between authority and absurdity.

Senhor Pedro Carolino

major

Also known as Pedro, Senhor Carolino, Pedro Carolino, hers, himself

Carolino presents himself in the preface as a careful pedagogue, offering dialogues, proverbs, and a vocabulary for Portuguese and Brazilian youth eager to master English. His flaw is magnificent: he cannot actually speak the language he is teaching, and his scrupulous exactness produces phrases like 'the blind saw clearer than this that may have two eyes.' He matters because his sincere ambition is the engine of the book's charm — the gap between his confidence and his results is the whole show.

Cuttler

supporting

Cuttler moves through the book's conversational set pieces as a man of trade — fitting coats, discussing cloth by the ell, haggling over twenty franks. His world is one of small frictions: a garment that pinches the stomach, a customer who won't cheapen, a barber who is also a newsmonger. He matters because his mundane transactions give the mangled English somewhere to land, turning everyday errands into quiet disasters of language.

Swiss

minor

A character referenced in the book's anecdotes.

John

minor

Also known as John - Meal

A character appearing in familiar dialogues and letters.

Plato

minor

A historical philosopher referenced in the book's proverbs.