The Sin of Father Amaro     by Eça de Queirós, Translated by Nan Flanagan Original title: O Crime do Padre Amaro Original language: Portuguese Country: Portugal   Published by Carcanet Pub. Date: 1994 Pub. Place: UK Format: Hardcover List Price: £14.95 Not available for ordering Published by Carcanet Pub. Place: USA Format: Hardcover Not available for ordering Published by St.Martin'sPress, New York Pub. Date: 1963 Pub. Place: USA Format: Hardcover Not available for ordering

Zola said this Portuguese writer, who, to be honest, has been barely heard of in Britain, was ‘greater than Flaubert’. One could look for the truth of that in The Sin of Father Amaro, his first published novel, and it is certainly a jolt to read it, to stumble upon the great Eça unawares. For one thing there’s the ‘shock of the modern’ here; Eça’s uninhibited eroticism, his hostility to religion, his cynicism about human nature might come as a surprise in a nineteenth-century novel.

Eça is famous for creating a world within his books and here it is the world of a small provincial town where the clergy have a lot of influence, an influence the rationalist Eça shows them misusing in the most appalling ways. Much of the book is a long dissection of the psychology of the celibate priesthood as we follow Father Amaro (Amaro means ‘bitter’ in Portuguese) from youth through to cynical middle age. In a nutshell the story of the book is of a series of women being exploited sexually, financially or emotionally by a collection of avaricious and rapacious priests.

His main characters, Amaro included, are created however with understanding; the origins of their villainy and cynicism are revealed. The reader can make his or her own judgement; Eça provides the evidence for both the prosecution and the defence. Here is part perhaps of his ‘naturalist’ method, making an effort to give a rounded, total view. The citizen-reader is enabled to think the world through for him or herself and this is the alternative to running to the shelter of handed-down moral certainties. Amaro in fact is shown as a weak and put-upon youth who grows up into an immoral, selfish man; who exactly is to blame for that?

While the trip around Eça’s moral maze is important, the joy of the book is the observation of a certain moment of life in provincial Portugal, re-created in a way that is both detailed and enveloping — Eça knew the town and the story he tells in reality and they both become very real to the reader. A great, utterly enjoyable work of art.

‘It was now the end of August. In the macadamized path which stretched along the river one caught a glimpse of the bright-coloured clothes of the women as they walked to and fro between the two rows of old poplars. In the row of poor dwellings at the side of the Archway, the old women sat at their doors, spinning; the dirty, ill-nourished children played on the ground, showing their nude, swollen bellies; and the hens went round voraciously picking among the dirt and filth. Round the fountain all was noise; vessels were dragged over the stones, servants abused one another, soldiers in dirty uniforms and enormous laced down-at-heel boots waved their malacca canes and made love; girls with fat-paunched pitchers on their heads walked in pairs swinging their hips; two lazy officers, with their uniforms unbuttoned and hanging loose over their stomachs, chatted together as they waited to see who might arrive. The coach was late. When twilight descended a flame from the lamp in the saint’s niche over the archway became visible. From the hospital windows in front lights appeared one by one, throwing out a dull glow.’ p13