It is a novel written by J.Rentes Carvalho that touches several lives.
The story unlike what you may think does not begin in Amsterdam, but in the womb of Tras-os-Montes, a remote village somewhere in the interior of Portugal. It's the story dreamed or not, (the reader decides) of the love between a Dutch woman descent of a progressive, advanced and open society and a Portuguese illiterate man from a closed country in itself, isolated and uninformed. It's not your ordinary romance, there is a bitter tone in this story that ends in a very unusual way, surprising to say the least, well a bit unusual in the national literature. It is a fable, let us says it like that, told by Amadeu, best known as cat, to his childhood friend from which we never got to know the name, among the recesses of the mountain, where both are lost in this joint oblivious reverie of their unbearable everyday life that they lurk for different reasons. It is disturbing in the sense in which twenty years later, these two men reencounter again in this account comfort, which it is not strange since they both have dysfunctional personalities that motivate the contempt and disgust of the microcosm of society where they move, the village and the city of Braganza. The Dutch Lover is just the lifting of the veil of something much more disconcerting, vile, violent and insidious that turns out to be a reflection of the society we live in, although I find it hard to admit it, perhaps because it is a very crude description, without any kind of subterfuge. To thicken a certain mystery about this narrative, I only advance that contrary to what is stated repeatedly, many times that it became almost an absolute truth when it is not, we are not a people of mild manners, quite the contrary. But do not rely on my perception about this book, read and think about it. Good reading.
