The Mandarin and Other Stories (Dedalus European Classics) [Paperback]

In the Western canon of great books there are not many, if any, entries from Portugal. We read Rabelais, Cervantes, and of course the great nineteenth-century monuments of Spain, France and England, but nothing from little Portugal. I happened upon the name Eca de Queiroz in a biography of a Russian scholar who translated from Spanish and Portuguese; he treated Queiroz as one of the greats. Rushing to Amazon to repair my ignorance, I happily discovered several works newly translated by Margaret Jull Costa. On the off-chance that it might be interesting, but fearing that it would be dated and dull, I purchased the collection of stories, THE MANDARIN.

What a surprise! Queiroz is one of those geniuses whose attitude toward his time is never completely committed, always faintly or openly mocking, and therefore freed of its conventions. He jumps from the late nineteenth century over the twentieth and speaks to us as a contemporary, a trickster, a humorist with a savage smile. His sentences bump and bristle with off-beat reflections, ironic characterizations, outrageous sacrileges. Always in the background of scenes of noble lovers there are clumps of wretched rabble, sitting and picking bugs off themselves.

Here is a notable passage: "Ah, however much one may consider Life to be but banal transmutations of Matter, it is still terrifying to think that one has made warm blood freeze and living muscle grow still. After supper, with the smell of good coffee beside me, I had only to stretch out on a sofa, lauguid and replete, for a murmur of accusing voices to rise up inside me, as melancholy as the chorus of cries from a prison."

The collection contains four stories: "The Mandarin," "The Idiosyncracies of a Young Blonde Woman," "The Hanged Man" and "Jose Matias." The first is an incredible romp through literary and social conventions. The hero, suddenly acquiring great wealth (I am not giving the story away, only one theme), discovers the baneful effects of money on the entire city of Lisbon, discovers that every woman can be bought, "regardless of whether she is someone's wife or a prostitute," discovers that his occasional utterances are trumpeted in the press as the witticisms of the age. All rush to him: beggars, clerks, priests, presidents. And so he learns to despise humanity! The moral story, the adventure, the travelogue--all are treated as a burlesque, a hurly-burly of crazy turns, attitudes and passions as comical as Gogol's "The Nose," only more ornate and sustained. The second story is slight, but takes the cliche of idealized love where it normally never goes. The third, also a love story, brings in a bit of horror, and love, horror and satire combined drive the story forward at a furious pace. The last is an absolute masterpiece of psychological analysis, worthy of Kierkegaard and his study of anxiety and despair. Again there are the conventions--the garden, the beautiful lady, the wall, the distant admirer, the purest love from afar. And yet it is entirely fresh, unexpected and modern. You wonder why no one else ever treated the theme this way before.

The reason is that Queiroz is one of the masters. His name must be added to the canon, the lifetime reading list, along with the other geniuses and madmen of Europe. In his work you see a foreshadowing of some of the fantastic literature of Latin America, Argentina, Girondo and Borges. No doubt readers and writers of Spanish have known him all along, as there have probably been many Spanish translations. Thanks to the spirited translation of Costas, we readers in English can catch up.

PS/ The back cover of the book gives an important detail of "The Mandarin" away. Read the story first.