| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
Synopsis
Eca de Queiroz (1845-1900) is rightly considered to be Portugal's greatest nineteenth-century novelist. This, his undoubted masterpiece, published in 1888, is a tragi-comedy, offering the reader Eca's characteristic blend of barbed humour, lyricism and sprightly dialogue, as well as a marvellously diverse gallery of characters - absurd, touching, tragic, vain. Carlos is the grandson of Afonso da Maia, the last surviving member of one of Lisbon's wealthiest and most illustrious families. Carlos is good, handsome, clever, eager to contribute something to society, and yet he appears, as he himself puts it, 'to be one of those weak hearts, soft and flaccid, incapable of preserving any true emotion'. Then, one day, walking along Lisbon's grubby streets, he sees a woman who seems to him like a goddess who has just stepped down from the clouds. When he finally meets the beautiful Maria Eduarda, the attraction proves to be as mutual as it is profound. In the plenitude of that love, Carlos seems, in his best friend Ega's words, 'a truly fortunate being', until Fate steps in - in the form of a grizzled, left-wing newspaper hack from Paris - and everything unravels.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Buida's `TZT' is a harrowing and moving novella concerning the effects of Stalinism on the lives of ordinary Russians. It follows the lives of a group of volunteers who man Station Number 9 of the track which the Zero Train runs along once a day. Nobody knows the purpose of the train, where it is going or what it is carrying, but they all know that they must keep it running smoothly. Initially they embrace their jobs with enthusiasm, willingly accepting their parts in the running of the train. As time goes on, they start to question their roles, and the point of the train. Disillusionment sets in, but they cannot stop the train. Where initially they had been willing to do their jobs, the sinister presence of an NKVD colonel is eventually required to keep them going. All of the inhabitants of Station Number 9 eventually succumb, in one way or another, to the oppression of the Zero Train.
`TZT' is obviously an allegory for Stalinism, which began with the will of the people and ended by bewildering and frightening them. The communist revolution thundered on both with or without the support of the Russian people, and eventually without their understanding, becoming an oppressive presence in their lives. The allegory is obvious, but not laboured, and the story actually becomes rather subtle in the telling. Despite being relatively short, `TZT' has some wonderfully fleshed out characters, especially Ivan Ardabyev, the closest thing the book has to a hero. The lives of all the characters at Station Number 9 are movingly recounted, so much so that the fates of all of them left a moving impression. That is no mean feat in a book of scarcely more than 100 pages, but Buida does it excellently. Although `TZT' is undoubtedly a political book, its strength lies in its characters, not in its politics. `TZT' is moving and enthralling, and a great example of modern Russian writing.
`TZT' is obviously an allegory for Stalinism, which began with the will of the people and ended by bewildering and frightening them. The communist revolution thundered on both with or without the support of the Russian people, and eventually without their understanding, becoming an oppressive presence in their lives. The allegory is obvious, but not laboured, and the story actually becomes rather subtle in the telling. Despite being relatively short, `TZT' has some wonderfully fleshed out characters, especially Ivan Ardabyev, the closest thing the book has to a hero. The lives of all the characters at Station Number 9 are movingly recounted, so much so that the fates of all of them left a moving impression. That is no mean feat in a book of scarcely more than 100 pages, but Buida does it excellently. Although `TZT' is undoubtedly a political book, its strength lies in its characters, not in its politics. `TZT' is moving and enthralling, and a great example of modern Russian writing.
10 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Few, if any, contemporary Russian writers have explored the legacy of Stalinism with Buida's emotional and imagainative intensity.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
