This novel, set in nineteenth century Portugal, transports one back to a different age at the tail end of nobility, chivalry, and honor. It is a tale of three generations of one of the richest families in Portugal, the Maias. The grandfather, Afonso, represents the old aristocracy: learned, simple, honorable, pious, and noble. The son is a romantic, who commits to a tragic marriage, and, finally, commits suicide in a valiant display of despair and honor. He leaves Afonso to raise a grandson, Carlos, who grows up educated, modern, athletic, literary, scientific, cosmopolitan, but above all, a dandy. The novel depicts scenes of upperclass life in Portugal from the artistic, political, religious, and landed classes. There is a bit of philosophy, a bit of poetry, and social commentary in general. The plot is at turns humorous, romantic, tragic, and didactic. The author leads one gently along, showing off a Portugal that is at once modernizing and in moral decline. The age is both one of urgency and flippancy. Contradictions abound. Tragedy is all but inevitable for both the family of the Maias and for Portugese society at large.
Boom, I was interested in seeing your review of books by Fernando Pessoa. I read them in the original Portuguese, and they were recommended to me by a good friend who teaches Latin American and African History at Colorado College. He did his first overseas research in Lisbon at the time of the 1975 Carnation Revolution.
ReplyDeleteThe other thought I had was what an interesting thing it is to see Pessoa's work and Galsworthy's work as well as Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan Quartet referenced in the same email. All three are intergenerational and deal with class conflict and mobility.
There was a common theme, particularly in “The Maias” and “The Forsyte Saga”, of aristocratic decay and the rot of societal bonds and noblesse oblige. Reading both I was also reminded of Lampedusa’s “The Leopard.”
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