Lídia Jorge

An interestingly bifurcated story: the first one tells the tale of the wedding between a young Portuguese ensign and his bride during the colonial war in Mozambique, and the second tells the continuation of the tale from a very different angle, which reveals dark truths about the events told in the first part. This is one of those tricky books where the reading part isn't necessarily very enjoyable, but there is something that pulls you in, something eerie that keeps you reading, and at the show more end you come out with a richer understanding of a place, a people, or a feeling. A little hard going, but worth the effort, for sure. show less

A young woman tries to piece together a coherent picture of her father from two childhood visits, other people's stories, and the few mementos he left behind. This is a very slow read with a plethora of threads from different time periods woven together in a less than direct manner to form a nebulous whole. It's interesting to see how the narrator's mind moves and how she folds events together to match some previously undiscovered fact, but it's sometimes difficult to follow along in the show more flow. What I'm mainly left with after reading is a profound understanding of "Saudade," the melancholic longing that so defines the Portuguese people and even if I am not a huge fan of the work itself, I am very grateful to have gotten such an insight into a mood that was previously a mere dictionary definition for me, especially since I read a lot of Portuguese fiction that tends to include at least some of this (for me) peculiar nostalgia. show less

Excelente autora portuguesa em uma boa antologia de contos. Lidia tem um estilo muito visual que permite entrar na estória como se fosse um filme. Por outro lado a construção dos personagens e a subjetividade da narrativa levam a várias camadas de leitura mais sofisticadas. Foi o primeiro livro que li da autora e com essa amostra me interessei em ler algum dos seus romances.

Old-fashioned language (supposedly authentic and rustical) and too many platitudes around village life to arouse my interest. I fell asleep after less than 10 pages and just gave up.