It was the first book of Lidia Jorge published in 1980, which has been reissued recently by its 30th anniversary.
It is a book filled with symbolism reflecting the interior country with a double meaning. Describes the daily life of Vilamaninhos in the deep Portugal, shaken by a series of miraculous events that will be in the collective memory of the villagers while deftly portrays the mood of the characters and turns out to be a mirror of the idiosyncrasies of the Portuguese in those times. The magical world of Lidia Jorge confronted with yet another event that heralds a change in the world, the revolution of the carnations, but this historic moment in the village does not shake their day to day, since everything is moving in the same way, almost unchanged, without the so-called metamorphosis. The village just remembers the day that a serpent flew before the incredulous eyes of Jesuina Palha and the other witnesses, the mule of Joseph Pássaro Volante fled and a young man left the bus asking for Carma Prada, these were the unprecedented events that actually mark the lives of the people of Vilamaninhos and cause a change. But what? You will have read the book to know how, but I leave a warning, this reading is demanding, because of its linguistic wealth and the way it is written. Some chapters have unusual narrative, i.e., has a different structure which aims to highlight the mythic personalities of some of the characters and their magical experiences. At the time, "the days of prodigy" was considered one of the new literary revelations of the Portuguese language. A title well deserved it is worth recalling that, thirty years later. Happy reading!
