Eca De Queiros

Dragon's teeth: A novel from the Portuguese explores the delicate balance between marriage, societal pressures, and personal desires within a Portuguese domestic setting. The story centers on a married couple whose seemingly peaceful life is overshadowed by the anticipated return of a cousin whose presence could unravel their harmony. As the husband departs on a work trip, the wife grapples with memories of past affection and the tension between loyalty and temptation. The narrative vividly contrasts moments of intimacy with underlying unease, highlighting themes of infidelity, social constraint, and the fragile nature of happiness. Through the portrayal of their home and relationships, the story reveals the complexities of human emotions shaped by cultural expectations. The looming threat posed by the cousin introduces conflict, poised to challenge the characters' values and the stability of their lives. Themes of trust, betrayal, and moral struggle permeate the narrative, promising a nuanced exploration of personal and societal conflict within a tightly woven domestic drama.

Gloriously translated by Margaret Jull Costa, Adam and Eve in Paradise by Eça de Queirósis not the rosy prelapsarian tale of your childhood Bible: yellow-eyed Adam is a slope-browed Neanderthal all alone and panicked, and Paradise is abominable (seethingly alive with vicious insects and roving primordial carnivores). Luckily for Adam, Eve appears: “O wonder, there before Adam, as if it were both him and not him, was another Being very similar to him, only more slender and covered with a more silken down, and who was regarding him with wide, lustrous, liquid eyes… And slowly, gently rubbing its bare knees together, the whole of this silken, tender Being was offering itself up in astonished, lascivious submission. It was Eve… It was you, O Venerable Mother!” But still we must pity poor Adam and Eve: “Our Parents’ tireless, desperate efforts were devoted entirely to surviving in the midst of a Nature that was ceaselessly, furiously plotting their destruction. And Adam and Eve spent those days—which Semitic texts celebrate as delightful—always trembling, always whimpering, always fleeing!” Eça de Queirós’s pleasure in the glories of language and his delight in skewering all complacencies are richly palpable, leaving the reader smiling and sighing: Ahhh, those Genesiac days…