The Illustrious House of Ramires, presented here in a sparkling new
translation by Margaret Jull Costa, is the favorite novel of many Eça de
Queirós aficionados. This late masterpiece, wickedly funny and yet
profoundly tender, centers on Gonçalo Ramires, heir to a family so
aristocratic that it predates even the kings of Portugal.
Gonçalo--charming but disastrously effete, idealistic but hopelessly
weak--muddles through his pampered life, burdened by a grand ambition.
He is determined to write a great historical novel based on the heroic
deeds of his fierce medieval ancestors. But "the record of their valor,"
as The London Spectator remarked, "is ironically counterpointed by his
own chicanery. A combination of Don Quixote and Walter Mitty, Ramires is
continually humiliated but at the same time kindhearted. Ironic comedy
is the keynote of the novel. Eça de Queirós has justly been compared
with Flaubert and Stendhal.