A Cidade e as Serras

I read this book in an English translation published by the Carcenet Press. If you read Portuguese and haven't read the book, or any of Eca de Queiroz's marvelous novels, I can heartily recommend it. It may not be Eca de Queiroz's masterpiece, but it is a charming tale of a wealthy young Portuguese land owner living for no particular purpouse in Paris at the height of its late nineteenth century splendor and decadence, and of the love for his native soil and its sturdy, honest, and hard working people that draws him home again.

The novel's characters are drawn with Eca's usual affectionate humor and irony. The scene in which the French count, anticipating dining on a marvelous fish dinner, is foiled by a malfunctioning dumb waiter elevator is very funny. I only wish I were able to read Portuguese well enough to read the original. If it was that good in translation, it must be even better in Portuguese!