The single great work in Portuguese literature…at least according to Jose Saramago: “The greatest book by Portugal’s greatest novelist”! That’s a pretty heavy burden to place on any piece of literature. In fact, I have mingled feelings. Though I can appreciate the achievement, in the end I can’t avoid saying that I was a trifle disappointed. The story follows the rich aristocratic Maia family, primarily told through the lives of grandfather and grandson. The grandson’s (and, indeed, the society’s) dilettantish predilections are a wonderfully executed metaphor for the decline of Portugal in the second half of the 19th century, but the plot reminds me mostly of Sir Walter Scott: the book is just a little too “romantic”—the ups, the downs, the amazing coincidences, the incidents (especially the large cast falling into and out of love) that repeat over and over and over to characters who seem to spend their entire lives learning nothing. And de Queirós’s preoccupation with opera, clothing, and interior decoration (not to mention interminably long sentences) eventually becomes tedious. (I understand that this is how he chooses to invoke "society" and that he is skewering them but less is usually more and too often de Queirós beats his topics to death.) I was also disappointed that the end seemed rushed. All the loose ends are tied together in the last chapter or so, telling us what happened to every character and how their lives played out. The same explanations could—and should, I think—have been told over as many chapters as needed, not crammed into one tidy package. And this after 600+ pages. And so I’m left thinking that the book is either too short or too long.
(My other very sad comment: I read the translation by Margaret Jull Costa. Her work, as always, is impeccable. But her publisher—New Directions—did her and the readers a grave disservice by publishing the book with no supporting information. In some books, I would not need a glossary, but when an author describes his characters’ methods of transportation in excruciating detail (at least six different terms—I stopped counting—for their carriages: calèche, phaeton, dog-cart, four-in-hand…), when amounts of money are important and often used to make a point but the reader has no sense of relative value, the publisher owes it to readers to explain these things. This book had nothing: no notes, no glossary, no introduction (though a brief “appreciation” at the end by Jull Costa), nothing. De Queirós made these distinctions and wrote as he did with a purpose. But when the reader cannot decipher them, I think a publisher actually harms the work by not helping with notes or explanations. Too often I spent time hunting information down because it seemed too important to just pass by. And like War and Peace, a list of characters wouldn’t hurt.) ( )

“Porque não se deixaria o preto sossegado, na calma posse dos seus manipansos? Que mal fazia à ordem das coisas que houvesse selvagens? Pelo contrário, davam ao universo uma deliciosa quantidade de pitoresco”.

(My loose translation: “Why couldn't the Black be left alone, in the calm possession of his charms? What harm did it do to the order of things that there were savages? On the contrary, they gave the universe a delicious amount of the picturesque”)

In “Os Maias” by Eça de Queiroz

I’ve just re-read “Os Maias” because I read somewhere in the Portuguese press it had racist “undertones”.

Let me get this out of the way first: I have a personal moral obligation to not be racist, as well as a personal inclination. I do not have a moral obligation to erase history because someone says that they find it offensive. I'm not arguing that just because it happened a long time ago it is harmless or that I approve, just that history is there to be learned from and you cannot do that if you sanitize it into oblivion. I just believe that history and fiction in particular is a "warts and all" thing, you have to show the nasty stuff and doing so does not in any way imply that you agree with the opinions and mores of the time under study. Having said that, overreaction effectively gives genuine racists a get out, painting any one who complains about racism as hysterically oversensitive and prone to grandstanding. Moreover, free speech only needs to be defended when someone says something that is controversial, or offensive, or utterly disgusting. The fact that you personally find something offensive is not reason enough to ban it. And banning things has nothing to do with free speech. The principle of free speech is the bedrock of democracy, allowing criticism and new ideas to flourish in society, and it is far more important than any individual's sensibilities.

If you start to declare all literature depicting racism as racist, then you immediately include all anti-racist literature in that category- it's virtually impossible to condemn racism without depicting it. “To Kill a Mockingbird” depicts racism. Toni Morrison's Beloved depicts racism. Primo Levi's “If This Is a Man” depicts racism. Are these anti-racist works to be derided as racist for simply depicting the horrors they condemn?

Bottom-line: No, “Os Maias” is not a racist novel ffs! It's fiction, you stupid tossers! ( )

Os Maias é uma das obras mais conhecidas do escritor português Eça de Queiroz, publicado pela Livraria Lello & Irmão no Porto, em 1888. A obra ocupa-se da história de uma família ao longo de três gerações, centrando-se depois na última com a história de amor entre Carlos da Maia e Maria Eduarda.

Passa-se um drama familiar logo no comecinho. Depois disso nada acontece por umas seiscentas páginas - os personagens visitam-se, tomam chá, jogam cartas, ocasionalmente há um affair, mas nada de substantivo. Centenas de páginas de diálogos chatíssimos e descrições desnecessárias. Lá pelo final passa-se outro drama familiar. E é isso. ( )

Eça de Queiroz retrata-nos, nesta obra, um largo fresco da sociedade portuguesa.
Como observa lucidamente Helena Cidade Moura, em Carlos da Maia, «uma educação exemplar não o liberta do peso da hereditariedade social. Personagens de um grande mundo, os netos de Afonso da Maia, vivificados e alimentados pela "grande civilização europeia" caem, apesar de tudo, ali numa rua ao Chiado».