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Source A few online resources for the next book on my list (many, alas, have fallen to web erosion over time and have been deleted). I listed a few general resources on James Joyce in this post A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man text at Project Gutenberg There are numerous audible versions […]
I finally got a chance to see the recent adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and I wanted to add a note since I had reviewed the 1986 version. I just noticed that I had originally commented on the (then) upcoming version and hoped that it would succeed…and indeed it did. My comments have to […]
I found George Orwell’s essay on Rudyard Kipling recently. It appears Orwell was responding to a T.S. Eliot essay that prefaced selections of Kipling’s poetry as well as an essay by Edmund Wilson. While much of the review is about the poetry itself (Orwell’s take in a nutshell—third-rate, but a guilty pleasure that speaks to […]
A summary of the posts on The Maias by Eça de Queirós, as well as some additional notes. José Maria Eça de Queirós online resources The Maias: resources The Maias discussion: Chapters 1 – 6 The Maias discussion: Chapters 7 – 10 The Maias discussion: Chapters 11 – 14 The Maias discussion: Chapters 15 – […]
Os Vencidos da Vida (Those Defeated by Life)Eça de Queirós in front row with walking stickPhoto from www.arqnet.pt The end of the book comes with mixed feelings: satisfaction from reading such a wonderful novel, dissatisfaction with many characters that cannot develop, and reevaluation of everything that has happened to date. The generational differences are still […]
The melodrama continues… The plot of The Maias is rather thin, standard soap opera fare, but the richness of the telling is the reason to read the book. Not just the characters, but 1880s Portugal comes to life. The relationships between the male characters develop and seem truer to life than most novels. Rarely do […]
One thing that stood out for me in this section is the use of parallels or comparisons, where events echo a previous occurrence or current situation. Some examples: Carlos’ first viewing of Maria Eduara Gomes echoes that of his father, Pedro, seeing Maria Monforte for the first time. Not only their reaction, but their language […]
Eça de Queirós’ novel is a chronicle of the Maia family and, to some extent, of Portugal in the 19th century. While I’m only a quarter of the way through the book, it reminds me of a Benito Pérez Galdós novel I’ve read (which is a good thing). The first six chapters give a quick […]