Headed to Lisbon in a few weeks, and would appreciate any tips re novels or films set in Lisbon. Subtitled films preferable to dubbed.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110361/

Lisbon Story (1994) by Win Wnders, with beautiful songs of Madredeus

Some scenes in Lisbon are in "RUSSIA HOUSE", and,
"THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS"

Oh, if you like mysteries, read on the plane, Robert Wilson's "A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON."

Great suggestions all. Unfortunately Wim Wenders' Lisbon Story is not available from NetFlix (though a lot of his other films are), so I'll check with the local art film rental place.

The only contemporary Portuguese writer with which I'm familiar is Saramago. Great writer, but not necessarily evocative insofar as travel is concerned.

Additional ideas welcome.

If you like historical romances and you are a marathon reader I recommend "The Maias" by Eca de Queiros. It contains lots of descriptions of 19th century Lisbon, mostly Chiado. There are revisions about "The Maias" in amazon.com

Some of the places described still exist like S. Carlos Opera or Tavares Restaurant and other are gone forever.

As it happens I am a marathon reader, so will track down "The Maias" (and probably some others by the same author, as they look interesting as well).

Do the Portuguese have much of a tradition of cartoons or comic strips, along the lines of the Belgian and French? I find them a great way to get familiar with a language as well a culture. The on-line version of Diario de Noticias has one that's good.

Almost all of the works of fiction about Portugal recommended by Longitude Books (http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/d...gal)/mcms.html) are by Saramago, but there's one called Requiem: A Hallucination, by Antonio Tabucchi, which sounds kind of intriguing. Longitude describes it as "Tabucchi's fever-dream tour of a vanishing Lisbon. The narrator, an 'adopted Portuguese,' returns after many years and visits cemeteries, brothels and gentlemen's clubs, in an ambiguous search for the ghosts of his past."

I know nothing else about the book or its author, but Longitude's recommendations are usually pretty reliable (and, according to Amazon, it's only 107 pages long, so a marathon reader like yourself could probably knock it off in an evening).

Finally tracked down "Lisbon Story" at a shop here in Atlanta called Movies Worth Watching. It's apparently available only on VHS, not DVD, so that explains it's being unavailable on NetFlix. Fortunately we still had a VHS player that I could use, though I did have to use the head cleaner first (after finding it, of course).

The movie's interesting (in a Wim Wenders way) and the plot offers lots of opportunity to look very closely at some parts of Lisbon. And the music by Madredeus is absolutely lovely.

As a nice piece of trivia: the casino gambling scene and title for the Ian Fleming novel "Casino Royale", which was the first of eleven Iam Flemming's James Bond book, was based on the Casino Estoril of Lisbon, Portugal.

Amazon delivered "The Maias" and "Cousin Bazilio" yesterday. I'm starting with the latter: very dishy, very Madame Bovary.

So, I've finished "Cousin Bazilio" and am now about halfway through "The Maias". The two books were translated by different people, so the style varies a little bit, but not so much that it's jarring. Queiros clearly writes about a social milieu with which he's very familiar, and there's so much detail about Lisbon (including streets, shops, parks, and restaurants) that you could just about use either book as a tour guide all by itself. Lots of "insider" jokes about the politics and artists of the day, so it helps if you're familiar with some of it, or have read other authors from the period. Characters really well-drawn.

Finished "The Maias" yesterday. Absolutely fantastic story. Highly recomended even if you're not going to Lisbon in the near future, and required reading if you are and like to read books that evoke the place that you'll be visiting.

Funny that no one mentioned Pessoa, THE Lisboet writer. Try "The Book of Intranquillity" for instance. Riding tram 28 will never feel the same after that read...

I'm very happy to know you enjoyed "The Maias". It is the most known novel of Portuguese Literature.
I'm reading the "Cousin Bazilio" for the 1st time and after finishing it, I'll refresh "the Maias", so we can discuss them both in the forecoming month.
While reading it in Portuguese, my admiration goes to the huge task performed by the translators, apparently with success.
A work like "The Maias" could be easily ruined by a less brilliant translation. The translators must, not only master the language, but must be at the same time historical researchers, since many designations don't even exist anylonger after an 100 years time span, or even worst, they exist with a different meaning.
I think there is no rival to "The Maias" in it's style. To find rivalry in other styles, we must go to Fernando Pessoa (as referred in another post) or to the big epic work Lusiads of Camoes (16th century).

Translation is an art all in itself, one that's difficult to appreciate if you've never had to do it. When possible I read works in the original language and it's always interesting to go back and see what a translator (often more than one if the book's been around for a while and the author is famous) has done with a particularly difficult passage.

I'm not sure that some authors can really be read in translation, and that's my impression of both Pessoa and Camoes, though I may be incorrect. I've never quite understood reading poetry in translation, for instance.

As for the difficulties of details specific to time and place, the best example in "The Maias" was repeated refence to a type of fabric, "rep." From the context it was clearly a very sturdy, inexpensive, not too attractive fabric used to upholster furniture, possibly a heavy twill. A search of the web confirms the impression, along with the alternate spelling, "repp."

I wonder if the corresponding word in Portuguese is still used. Given that Queiros probably also used the term in "Cousin Bazilio" I could probably figure out what the more recent translator used instead.

Anyway, at this rate we'll be able to start a subset of the LDC, the Lisbon Literary Club. Maybe we could arrange a special meeting at the Gremio. ;-)

Therese... I think I'll have a surprise for you in Lisbon

And now I'm simply going to be eaten up with anticipation.

I love surprises.

Didn't have a chance to go looking in "Cousin Bazilio" for upholstery references, but did realize that I already did know what rep (or repp, as it's usually spelled) is: it's the fabric used to make repp ties. Repp actually refers to the weave, not the fiber, so the expensive silk repp is presumably replaced by a more serviceable cotton or wool blend repp in Queiros' context.

So I imagine we might see some repp at Adega das Gravatas.

Another interesting aspect of the translation of "The Maias" was that the original French and Spanish texts are preserved. Queiros uses other languages to tell the reader a lot about the social milieu and the characters' backgrounds, etc., and some of the passages are quite funny. There are no translations of these conversations, so if you don't understand them you miss out on that part of it.

OK, you got me interested. I've ordered a copy of "The Maias" and if the Lisbon Literary Club ever gets started, I'll try to have it read in time.