The Count of Abranhos

The Count of Abranhos PDF Author: José Maria Eça de Queriós
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
ISBN: 0813233038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
José Maria Eça de Queirós (1845-1900) was a Portuguese author in the realist style, whose work has been translated into 20 languages. The Count of Abranhos was published posthumously, and this is the first time it has been translated into English. Alípio Severo Abranhos, born to poor parents in a small town in the north of Portugal, goes off to spend his boyhood and adolescence with an aunt whose material well-being constitutes, for him, the lap of luxury. And he likes and becomes accustomed to luxury. As he follows a course of study for his bacharel at the University of Coimbra, certain negative character traits come to the fore, and upon completion of his degree he leaves behind a pregnant maid to take up residence in Lisbon. In the capital, he calculates—as a young man with neither position, nor fortune, nor social standing—how to get ahead in life. And the path is through marriage to a young woman of social status and promise of a sizable dowry, both of which can facilitate his rise in politics and government. Alípio’s weapons, his means, are various modes of hypocrisy—social hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy, filial hypocrisy, and political hypocrisy, with dishonesty, cowardice, and a farcical duel thrown in for good measure. Eça, like all accomplished novelists, does not tell us what Alípio becomes, rather he lets us see what he becomes, for with his unerring sense of satire, of character portrayal, and plot movement he lets the Count of Abranhos, with his steps and missteps, inform us himself of what he becomes. And with his actions, Alípio Severo Abranhos emerges as the personification, the very epitome, of the grim state of politics in nineteenth-century Portugal, a state engendered by the dogged pursuit of power. And through the obsequious eyes of Alípio’s biographer and the sycophantic hangers-on who wish to glory in his orbit, readers have a clear picture of the “great” man—a type who exhibits universal characteristics not confined to Eça de Queirós’s native country, nor to his time.

The Count of Abranhos

The Count of Abranhos PDF Author: José Maria Eça de Queriós
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
ISBN: 0813233038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
José Maria Eça de Queirós (1845-1900) was a Portuguese author in the realist style, whose work has been translated into 20 languages. The Count of Abranhos was published posthumously, and this is the first time it has been translated into English. Alípio Severo Abranhos, born to poor parents in a small town in the north of Portugal, goes off to spend his boyhood and adolescence with an aunt whose material well-being constitutes, for him, the lap of luxury. And he likes and becomes accustomed to luxury. As he follows a course of study for his bacharel at the University of Coimbra, certain negative character traits come to the fore, and upon completion of his degree he leaves behind a pregnant maid to take up residence in Lisbon. In the capital, he calculates—as a young man with neither position, nor fortune, nor social standing—how to get ahead in life. And the path is through marriage to a young woman of social status and promise of a sizable dowry, both of which can facilitate his rise in politics and government. Alípio’s weapons, his means, are various modes of hypocrisy—social hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy, filial hypocrisy, and political hypocrisy, with dishonesty, cowardice, and a farcical duel thrown in for good measure. Eça, like all accomplished novelists, does not tell us what Alípio becomes, rather he lets us see what he becomes, for with his unerring sense of satire, of character portrayal, and plot movement he lets the Count of Abranhos, with his steps and missteps, inform us himself of what he becomes. And with his actions, Alípio Severo Abranhos emerges as the personification, the very epitome, of the grim state of politics in nineteenth-century Portugal, a state engendered by the dogged pursuit of power. And through the obsequious eyes of Alípio’s biographer and the sycophantic hangers-on who wish to glory in his orbit, readers have a clear picture of the “great” man—a type who exhibits universal characteristics not confined to Eça de Queirós’s native country, nor to his time.

Eça de Queiroz

Eça de Queiroz PDF Author: Maria Filomena Mónica
Publisher: Tamesis Books
ISBN: 9781855661158
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
The first literary biography in English of Eça de Queiroz, the Portuguese Dickens.

Eça de Queiroz

Eça de Queiroz PDF Author: Paulo Cavalcanti
Publisher: Companhia Editora de Pernambuco (CEPE)
ISBN: 8578582861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Rescues the libertarian sentiment of the late 19th century , when addressing the last rebellion in Goiana , Pernambuco province. Paulo Cavalcanti examines how the Pernambuco reacted against the will and the Portuguese rule , and his report addresses the crucial moment in 1871, marked by political crises and the great dissatisfaction with the Portuguese monopoly on trade, which has remained unchanged even after several insurgent movements.

The Falling Snow and Other Stories

The Falling Snow and Other Stories PDF Author: José Maria Eça de Queirós
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813235049
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
"Short stories (fiction) by the great nineteenth-century Portuguese author Jose Maria Eca de Queiros; a variety of themes characterize the stories: love, greed, obsession, country life; patriotism"--

The Relic

The Relic PDF Author: Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813236592
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
The Relic tells the story of an orphaned young man, Teodorico Raposo, who is brought to Lisbon from a provincial town in Portugal to live with his aunt, a rigid, stern—and oftentimes—forbidding Catholic. Her devout circle of acquaintances is made up almost entirely of priests, many of whom are more concerned with appearances than spirituality, and seeking her and their approval, Teodorico is driven to attend Mass, say rosaries, and frequent churches, all the while awakening to sensuality, women, and the material life in conflict with “Auntie’s” devotions, which are—inwardly—devoid of the charity preached by Christ. When Teodorico obtains a degree from the University of Coimbra, Auntie sends him to the Holy Land to search for a relic to cure her ills. He meets up with a learned German author and, after a sojourn to Egypt, the two make their way to the land trod by Jesus. It is there that Teodorico has the dream that takes up nearly one third of the novel: he witnesses the travails that lead to the Passion and Crucifixion, as well as the aftermath of Christ’s death. Faced now with his mission, Teodorico embarks on a search. He soon comes upon an item, a “true” relic authenticated by his German friend, the sanctity of which will send Auntie to the heights of spiritual bliss, so much so that she will make him her heir. But when Teodorico returns to Lisbon with it, deception awaits her as the result of a simple mistake that had been made, and disinheritance awaits him as a result of Auntie’s anger and vindictiveness.

The Illustrious House of Ramires

The Illustrious House of Ramires PDF Author: José Maria de Eça de Queirós
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811226980
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
In a brilliant new translation, the wonderful penultimate novel by Eça de Queirós: “Portugal's greatest novelist” (José Saramago) The Illustrious House of Ramires, presented here in a sparkling new translation by Margaret Jull Costa, is the favorite novel of many Eça de Queirós aficionados. This late masterpiece, wickedly funny and yet profoundly tender, centers on Gonçalo Ramires, heir to a family so aristocratic that it predates even the kings of Portugal. Gonçalo—charming but disastrously effete, idealistic but hopelessly weak—muddles through his pampered life, burdened by a grand ambition. He is determined to write a great historical novel based on the heroic deeds of his fierce medieval ancestors. But “the record of their valor,” as The London Spectator remarked, “is ironically counterpointed by his own chicanery. A combination of Don Quixote and Walter Mitty, Ramires is continually humiliated but at the same time kindhearted. Ironic comedy is the keynote of the novel. Eça de Queirós has justly been compared with Flaubert and Stendhal."

The Mandarin(and other stories)

The Mandarin(and other stories) PDF Author: Jose Maria Eca de Queiroz
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 1907650342
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Eça de Queiroz (1845-1900) is considered to be Portugal�s greatest novelist and one of its finest prose writers. In The Mandarin he turns his satirical eye on the sin of avarice and asks the following question: ‘In the depths of China there lives a mandarin who is richer than any king spoken of in fable or in history. You know nothing about him, not his name, his face or the silks that he wears. In order for you to inherit his limitless wealth, all you have to do is to ring the bell placed on a book by your side. In that remote corner of Mongolia, he will utter a single sigh. He will then be a corpse, and at your feet you will see gold beyond the dreams of avarice. Mortal reader, will you ring the bell?� When Teodoro, our timid, lowly narrator, says ‘Yes�, he finds that fabulous wealth brings with it unexpected problems. The three very different stories that complete the collection � ‘The Idiosyncrasies of a Young Blonde Woman�, ‘The Hanged Man� and ‘José Matías� � are all tales of obsessive love, each told with Eça�s irrepressible wit and originality. �A brilliant mischievous essay in fantasy chinoiserie, irreverently subverting the trope, created half a century earlier by Balzac in La Peau de chagrin, of the Oriental curse masquerading as a blessing. In the same Dedalus collection of Eca's short fiction lies a late gem,'Jose Matias', a love story told at a funeral by a Hegelian philosopher, in which the issue of the narrator's own relationship with reality adds a comically ambiguous layer to the tale." Jonathan Keates in The Times Literary Supplement

The Crime of Father Amaro

The Crime of Father Amaro PDF Author: Eça de Queirós
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811215329
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Set in Leira, Portugal in the 1870s, follows the love affair of young Father Amaro with nubile Am elia, and their interactions with Am elia's mother, her atheist suitor, and her mother's lover, the priest Canon Dias.

John and Mary

John and Mary PDF Author: Robert Fedorchek
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663239207
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
It’s a mother and a father who have lost their two sons. It’s a sister who has lost her two brothers. It’s loss and devastation. Acute pain—made more palpable on a day of worldwide, historical significance—brings to the fore the emotional wedge driven between a husband and a wife. And since the reason has them at loggerheads and creates such a strain in their marriage, they openly drift apart. John, the husband, at bottom a good man, finds release with another woman, a wholly unexpected encounter which he will rationalize to convince himself it is a chance occurrence; Mary, the wife, at bottom a good woman, turns to faith in the person of a Catholic priest, a priest who doubts his ability to guide her. He will, though, through prayer and steadfast support, get her to engage in search of self and see the futility of blame. Ultimately, a willingness to admit fault and to forgive will come into play. It must: a critical event will demand no less. But as they grapple with their needs as husband and wife, Doro, their thirteen-year-old daughter, finds herself left adrift ... until John, first, brings her into his embrace, and Mary, second, enfolds Doro in the love she had buried. John and Mary shows how the ache of loss can ebb and, with love in our hearts, transform into the good of life, allowing us to let go of the grief of death.

Acts of Faith and Imagination

Acts of Faith and Imagination PDF Author: Brent Little
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813236657
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Acts of Faith and Imagination wagers that fiction written by Catholic authors assists readers to reflect critically on the question: "what is faith?" To speak of a person's "faith-life" is to speak of change and development. As a narrative form, literature can illustrate the dynamics of faith, which remains in flux over the course of one's life. Because human beings must possess faith in something (whether religious or not), it inevitably has a narrative structure?faith ebbs and flows, flourishes and decays, develops and stagnates. Through an exploration of more than a dozen Catholic authors' novels and short stories, Brent Little argues that Catholic fiction encourages the reader to reflect upon their faith holistically, that is, the way faith informs one's affections, and how a person conceives and interacts with the world as embodied beings. Amidst the diverse stories of modern and contemporary fiction, a consistent pattern emerges: Catholic fiction portrays faith?at its most fundamental, often unconscious, level?as an act of the imagination. Faith is the way one imagines themselves, others, and creation. A person's primary faith conditions how they live in the world, regardless of the level of conscious reflection, and regardless of whether this is a "religious" faith. Acts of Faith and Imagination investigates the creative depth and vitality of the Catholic literary imagination by bringing late modern Catholic authors into dialogue with more contemporary ones. Readers will then consider well-known works, such as those by Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, and Muriel Spark in the fresh light of contemporary stories by Toni Morrison, Alice McDermott, Uwem Akpan, and several others.