The Crime of Father Amaro [Paperback]

Jose Maria Eca De Queiros (Author), Margaret Jull Costa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

An unflinching portrait of a priest who seduces his landlady's daughter, made into an acclaimed and controversial motion picture.

Eça de Queirós''s novel The Crime of Father Amaro is a lurid satire of clerical corruption in a town in Portugal (Leira) during the period before and after the 1871 Paris Commune. At the start, a priest physically explodes after a fish supper while guests at a birthday celebration are "wildly dancing a polka." Young Father Amaro (whose name means "bitter" in Portuguese) arrives in Leira and soon lusts after—and is lusted after by—budding Amelia, dewy-lipped, devout daughter of Sao Joaneira who has taken in Father Amaro as a lodger. What ensues is a secret love affair amidst a host of compelling minor characters: Canon Dias, glutton and Sao Joaneira's lover; Dona Maria da Assuncao, a wealthy widow with a roomful of religious images, agog at any hint of sex; Joao Eduardo, repressed atheist, free-thinker and suitor to Amelia; Father Brito, "the strongest and most stupid priest in the diocese;" the administrator of the municipal council who spies at a neighbor's wife through binoculars for hours every day. Eça's incisive critique flies like a shattering mirror, jabbing everything from the hypocrisy of a rich and powerful Church, to the provincialism of men and women in Portuguese society of the time, to the ineptness of politics or science as antidotes to the town's ills. What lurks within Eça's narrative is a religion of tolerance, wisdom, and equality nearly forgotten. Margaret Jull Costa has rendered an exquisite translation and provides an informative introduction to a story that truly spans all ages.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A terrific novel....a work of mesmerizing literary power....We should be grateful for such blessings. -- Washington Post Book World, Michael Dirda, 1 June 2003

Among the darkest and most biting of religious satires. -- Austin Chronicle, Barbara Strickland, 6 June 2003

In this blackest of comedies, de Quieros depicts the destructive effects of celibacy on a priest lacking any true vocation. -- Translation Review, 1 June 2003

Mordantly funny, tragic, and, above all, humane....Costa's brilliant translation preserves Eca's sharp, ironic prose....not to be missed. -- Historical Novels Review, Adelaida Lower, August 2003

The zeal...of Zola, the narrative command of Balzac, and the elegance of Flaubert...[a] slyly witty and engrossing novel. -- Trenton Times, Nagle Jackson, 31 August 2003

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Portugese

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811215326
• ISBN-13: 978-0811215329
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Binding with Briars my Joys and Desires, April 29, 2010

By 

Kevin Maynard (ST ALBANS, Hertfordshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Crime of Father Amaro (Paperback)

The Crime of Father Amaro was a revelation to this reader. It's not just breathtakingly satirical and (as other readers have noted) cynical, but it manages to combine this with real wisdom and compassion (a difficult trick to pull off, since cynicism is so often heartless); and (in this superb translation by Margaret Jull Costa) comes across as wickedly stylish and inventive in terms of its language. The range of characterization is masterly; and what I particularly liked was the way in which our sympathies change as we read on. Father Amaro appears more sinned against than sinning for about the first half of the book: we feel genuinely sorry for his social isolation and angry at the injustice of his enforced celibacy. But then, when we discover how selfish and corrupt he has become, while still acknowledging that society IS at least partly to blame, we gradually stop feeling that his actions are in any way justifiable. The tragic consequences of his behaviour come with a chilling suddenness and savagery, and there is a wonderfully ironic final section set some years later, which ferociously condemns not just Father Amaro himself but the whole of Portuguese society at this time. And how topical this book seems at a time when the Catholic Church is rent by scandals of a related kind!

This is a truly great novel: it's up there with Crime and Punishment, Madame Bovary, and Anna Karenina as one of the titanic masterpieces of world fiction, and deserves to be much more widely known. I can't wait to read more of de Queiroz's fiction.