Currently considered to be one of the great milestones of Brazilian literature, the novel Serafim Ponte Grande was, for many years, met with an apathetic, if not frankly disapproving, reception. Its formal composition, marked by discontinuity between its parts and by its fragmented features, was repeatedly criticized. If, on the one hand, the formal structure appeared to be a simplistic device and, on the other hand, the result was an obfuscating idealization of the contradictions of the society portrayed, the present article proposes that its literary use of the montage technique is, by contrast, a critical resource. Based on the analysis of scenes from the novel and a discussion of the montage concept, we intend to argue that the production of Serafim Ponte Grande critically outlines the limits and aspirations of the esthetic proposals that marked Sao Paulo's modernism in the 1920s.