The Maias

01-10-2007, Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Massachusetts
staff recommendation

I jumped the gun at this one. Encouraged by reports that Eça de Queirós was Portugal's Dickens-Balzac-Tolstoy, I read the translation of The Maias that preceded this one. I really liked it (I'm a fan of dense novels of late-19th-century decadence), but I did find it a bit clunky. Having read a few chapters of Margaret Jull Costa's new translation, I finally feel confident recommending what was, even in a less elegant translation, a splendid novel. (…)