tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post8252699903172289100..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: This is true Civilization! - Eça de Queirós on information technology and molecular gastronomyAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26778720937797518952012-03-18T21:37:08.723-05:002012-03-18T21:37:08.723-05:00I spent a week in the Algarve. We ate so well, so...I spent a week in the Algarve. We ate so well, so so well, at every meal. The seafood was spectacular, but the mountain cooking in Monchique was at least as good.<br /><br />Eça could have sent his over-refined characters to the stunning country food of the French countryside, to Normandy or Burgundy, just to mirror my own experiences, and made the exact same points. But I do not believe he could have sent them to rural Yorkshire. He would have had to modify his argument.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-36869550753052603802012-03-17T12:50:03.255-05:002012-03-17T12:50:03.255-05:00Portuguese food is certainly not healthful, with a...Portuguese food is certainly not healthful, with all that greasy meat roasting slowly (hmmmm), but it's glorious! But perhaps Eça is being unfair: according to Virginia Nicholson's <i>Among the Bohemians,</i> British artists fled to France because food was not only cheaper but better than the joyless, frugal dishes they ate at home. Also according to her, it was the importing of French cuisine that improved British food.<br /><br />What are your experiences with Portuguese food, Tom?LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-58378201692213634782012-03-14T17:39:14.631-05:002012-03-14T17:39:14.631-05:00Those quotes are still good. Barely used at all.
...Those quotes are still good. Barely used at all.<br /><br />The rippling fingers - that is good, good stuff.<br /><br />The techno-satire is excellent, and also includes a lot of marvelous nonsense about books, since Jacinto of course also has to have a gigantic <i>au courant</i> library. Everything culminates, as it so often does with Eça, in a party scene. At this one an expensive fish becomes stuck in a heated dumbwaiter.<br /><br />That kind of gag is one reason I think of Tati, but another reason I invoke light comedy or cartoons is that the characters are just not as "real" or plump or breathing or whatever the word is as they are in <i>Cousin Basilio</i> or <i>The Maias</i>. So one of the greatest pleasures of Eça's fiction is muted in this book.<br /><br />This novel is <i>Le Million</i>, not <i>The Rules of the Game</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-79345412614720697282012-03-14T13:56:19.409-05:002012-03-14T13:56:19.409-05:00I picked up The City and the Mountains recently be...I picked up <i>The City and the Mountains</i> recently because it was just sitting there (really - just sitting there for the taking). Even given your and Miguel's suggestions that it doesn't live up to EdQ's best work, I'm now keen to read it if only for the Villa Arpel aspects like those you cite above. I'm also, for various unrelated reasons, very much looking forward to your forthcoming "cartoon" comments.seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10566049726271760362012-03-14T12:11:28.742-05:002012-03-14T12:11:28.742-05:00Two of the quotes I was going to use! I'll ha...Two of the quotes I was going to use! I'll have to start writing.Sparkling Squirrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10899640164757220074noreply@blogger.com