The Maias

Carlos is the talented heir to a notable family in fin-de-siecle Lisbon. He aspires to serve his fellow man in his chosen profession of medicine, in the arts and in politics. But he enters a society affected by powerful international influences - French intellectual developments, English trading practices - that trouble and frustrate him and in the end he is reduced to a kind of spiritual helplessness. Carlos' good intentions decline, amiably, into dilettantism; his passionate love affair itself begins to suffer a devastating constraint. The Maias tells a compelling story of characters whose lives become as real and engrossing as any in Flaubert, Balzac or Dickens. This is his masterpiece, a novel of intellectual depth, historical compassion and great wit. Hailed as a masterpiece in the Paris of Flaubert, Balzac and Zola, this remains Eca's most popular novel.