Jose Maria Eca de Queiros (1845-1900) was a Portuguese author in
the realist style, whose work has been translated into 20
languages. The Count of Abranhos was published posthumously, and
this is the first time it has been translated into English. Alipio
Severo Abranhos, born to poor parents in a small town in the north
of Portugal, goes off to spend his boyhood and adolescence with an
aunt whose material well-being constitutes, for him, the lap of
luxury. And he likes and becomes accustomed to luxury. As he
follows a course of study for his bacharel at the University of
Coimbra, certain negative character traits come to the fore, and
upon completion of his degree he leaves behind a pregnant maid to
take up residence in Lisbon. In the capital, he calculates-as a
young man with neither position, nor fortune, nor social
standing-how to get ahead in life. And the path is through marriage
to a young woman of social status and promise of a sizable dowry,
both of which can facilitate his rise in politics and government.
Alipio's weapons, his means, are various modes of hypocrisy-social
hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy, filial hypocrisy, and political
hypocrisy, with dishonesty, cowardice, and a farcical duel thrown
in for good measure. Eca, like all accomplished novelists, does not
tell us what Alipio becomes, rather he lets us see what he becomes,
for with his unerring sense of satire, of character portrayal, and
plot movement he lets the Count of Abranhos, with his steps and
missteps, inform us himself of what he becomes. And with his
actions, Alipio Severo Abranhos emerges as the personification, the
very epitome, of the grim state of politics in nineteenth-century
Portugal, a state engendered by the dogged pursuit of power. And
through the obsequious eyes of Alipio's biographer and the
sycophantic hangers-on who wish to glory in his orbit, readers have
a clear picture of the "great" man-a type who exhibits universal
characteristics not confined to Eca de Queiros's native country,
nor to his time.
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