Customer Reviews

The illustrious house of Ramires

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The books of Eca De Queiros are not easy to find. I read about him a long time ago and then slowly began picking the books up as I found them one by one. Three so far but there are others. This is the most polished of the three but the other two I have, The Relic(now available)& The City and the Mountains(availability uncertain), are really good too. I have to say my favorite is The City and the Mountains because it so funny. This novelist is funny & not many 19th century novelists are. In The City and the Mountains those two locations are compared by the wealthy protaganist to see which one suits him better, neither location is spared this novelists eye for comedy which one can tell gave him a lot of pleasure, the laughs in this book make you glad to be human. The Illustrious House of Ramirez is a more serious work. It has some funny parts but the comedy is of a higher nature. Since HISTORY is one of its topics both national identity and personal identity are subjected to this fine writers sympathetic ridicule but you feel the tragedy of those topics too while you are laughing at how clever the whole plot is. It is a grander work, further reaching than the one I mentioned as my favorite, and will probably appeal to more readers who want significant, not just hilarious, fare. However, if you read Illustrious House and still want more find the others too. Eca De Queiroz writes as well as any other 19th century writer judging by the translations I've read. Of them I think he is most often compared to Flaubert, he certainly sees through all the passing fads and illusions of the day in the way that one did. As for the Relic it is a very clever plot which hinges on a find which draws into question our religious heritage. More HISTORY but unless you can enjoy the opulent prose for its own sake its kind of a one idea book. Clever idea though it is. I think it said above that this novelist was for people with large foreign lit. collections. I will agree with that. But if you've read all the big names at least once you will just appreciate this rare find all the more.

The books of Eca De Queiros are not easy to find. I read about him a long time ago and then slowly began picking the books up as I found them one by one. Three so far but there are others. This is the most polished of the three but the other two I have, The Relic(now available)& The City and the Mountains(availability uncertain), are really good too. I have to say my favorite is The City and the Mountains because it so funny. This novelist is funny & not many 19th century novelists are. In The City and the Mountains those two locations are compared by the wealthy protaganist to see which one suits him better, neither location is spared this novelists eye for comedy which one can tell gave him a lot of pleasure, the laughs in this book make you glad to be human. The Illustrious House of Ramirez is a more serious work. It has some funny parts but the comedy is of a higher nature. Since HISTORY is one of its topics both national identity and personal identity are subjected to this fine writers sympathetic ridicule but you feel the tragedy of those topics too while you are laughing at how clever the whole plot is. It is a grander work, further reaching than the one I mentioned as my favorite, and will probably appeal to more readers who want significant, not just hilarious, fare. However, if you read Illustrious House and still want more find the others too. Eca De Queiroz writes as well as any other 19th century writer judging by the translations I've read. Of them I think he is most often compared to Flaubert, he certainly sees through all the passing fads and illusions of the day in the way that one did. As for the Relic it is a very clever plot which hinges on a find which draws into question our religious heritage. More HISTORY but unless you can enjoy the opulent prose for its own sake its kind of a one idea book. Clever idea though it is. I think it said above that this novelist was for people with large foreign lit. collections. I will agree with that. But if you've read all the big names at least once you will just appreciate this rare find all the more.

This is a classical case of "anguish of influence" as Eça is attempting, above all,when portraying the chief character, to write an ersatz Mediaeval historical novel in the manner of his great predecessor and adversary, the great Romantic writer Alexandre Herculano. One could say that Eça had, late in life, made peace with something he had spend all his adult life refusing to admit as deserving of praise, and when he finally surrendered, to have done so by means of a kind of "fanfic". However, this fanfic was rendered by Eça in his costomary -and wonderful - ironic manner, as the glories of the Portuguese past portrayed in the short novel written by the hero are each moment contrasted to the pettiness and mediocrity of the present. Neverthless, Eça closes the novel by meking peace with the Portuguese bourgeois society of his day, ultimately proposing a kind of future Portuguese "Manifest Destiny", consisting in the making of a Portuguese African Empire (anyway, one can say that his support of such Portuguese colonial adventures is half-hearted, to say the least). Despite this obvious political blunder - even at the time - Eça as always excels in his usual ironic qualities, tempered in this late novel by a quality of kindness not to be found so easily in his previous novels. Deserves to be read and known in English grab.

Just a brief note to concur with the high opinions of Eca de Quieros of those who have reviewed his novels on Amazon. This is a writer more English speaking readers should know. The English translations currently available are good according to my Portuguese wife.

All of the books I have read (The Maias, The Crime of Father Amaro, The Illustrious House of Ramires, The City and the Mountains, and The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers) are compelling stories. Whether the novel is comical/satirical or tragic, de Quiroz is keenly observant of such matters as history, social class, the passing styles and fads of the 19th century, the subtlties of human character, and the ironic twists of life.

These books have stayed with me long after reading them, more than many novels of other 19th century European masters I have read. Start with Ramires or the City and the Mountains, then try the Maias, Quieros' masterpiece. I have bought Cousin Basilio and look forward to reading it soon. Happy to see that his major works are now available in English.