This is an excellent example of why A. Lobo Antunes should win the Nobel Prize. The book is built around a once healthy family with a very peculiar group of members. Each one will give you is view of the family in is strange vision of the world. Amazing book.

The author is a MD shrink And we feel that very well on the way he draws his characters on this book. Very well written. One of the Nobel prize nominees this year, last year and next year. Until he finally wons it.

One of the best contemporary portuguese novelists! The reading of this book, or any other of the same author for that matter, is both compelling and envolving! For those who are strangers to portuguese fiction I strongly recommend this book.

This book is a amazing voyage to the most deepest places of the mind. Here you live, and on this book you will really live, the life after the african colonial war of four portuguese veteran. Their most inner desires, feelings and thoughts are exposed in a really vivid picture. You almost see them in a Lisbon City long lost.

I agree with the previous reviewer. Antunes is a marvellous writer. Once you get into his way of writing it is hard to put the book down. His poetic language is so filled with images that you could actually feel the smell of Lisbon. In this story we follow the life stories of a couple of war veterans before, during and after the revolution in 1974. They come from different social backgrounds, so Antunes succeeds in portraying many aspects of his society. But to me is that not the main issue, no it is the moving life-stories of his characters. It is not an easy read but he can also be very amusing in a rather absurd way. Antunes has bee critizised for writing the same book over and over again. This is the second novel I read. His style is very similar but once I get into it I'm moved by the beauty and captivated by the energy of his prose.

Anyone interested in modern fiction must have a go at Antunes.

Secker published a couple of Antunes' books in the UK in the late eighties, but then they dropped him. On a trip to the US I found Fado Alexandrino. I was astonished. It is rare that you come across an experimental novel which is a page turner too. It is the story of a handful of army vets who have a reunion. The narrative weaves from one man's disturbed thoughts to the next man's. This creates a confusion in who is speaking, but - like I say - this is not off putting: it adds to the effect of the novel. The book looks daunting, but I unreservedly recommend it. It is moving. It is well written. It is thought provoking. Antunes is a devastating writer.

Antunes book is not an easy read, but once you get started it is impossible to put down. His poetic style is intoxicating. Read him before the recieves the Nobel prize!

In The Natural Order Of Things, Antonio Lobo Antunes tells the story of two families and the secrets that inextricably bind them. The finely tuned, vividly articulate voices and memories of his characters present a dreamlike reality that resonates in the mind and imagination of the reader: an army officer tortured in prison on charges of conspiracy; an elderly man, once a miner in Mozambique, now reduced to dreams of "flying underground"; a diabetic teenage girl and the middle-aged husband she despises. These and other elements combine to create a portrait of a disintegrating society and the history of Portugal as a family history. The Natural Order Of Things is ably translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith.

This is Antunes' second book in his so-called "Benfica trilogy". It is a strange and haunting story about a family and their surroundings during three generations, and Antunes tells us about their inner lives and their deepest feelings. Despite the surreal and tragic settings of his characters, the author manages to convey a genuine feeling of compassion in his story (or rather, stories). This is truly a tragedy in a dark landscape. But it is all so beautifully told! A wonderful book it is, and I recommend it to all book lovers who are willing to put in an effort. I believe this is one of this century's great books. It may seem confusing at times - Antunes uses parallel monologues and stories throughout the book - but it all adds up, as they say. Read it, and you'll see - it really is strange to be so happy after reading such a sad story!

This book is built as a memoir of the narrator of his life on the war of Angola, circa 1972/3. Thw colonial war against the portuguese army and the dictorship of the Portuguese goverment ended with the revolution in Portugal. Here the author tells in an almost biographic way the life on a camp on the south of Angola.

As Rui S., 33 year old professor of political science and failed husband, son, and lover, looks back on his limited accomplishments, he contemplates his future and finds it particularly bleak. The son of a powerful and wealthy industrialist, Rui turned his back on the family business, studied the liberal arts, and joined the Communist Party. He married Tucha, a beautiful shrew, and fathered two children. We spend the entire book following a torrent of memories that washes over and around and through glimpses of the present. What distinguishes An Explanation of the Birds from other novels of its type is the manner of the telling. Past and present inter-mingle on the page with no markings or divisions acting as cues to the reader. Scenes from the past share space with scenes from the present within the same paragraph. It's a remarkable strategy that demands the reader remain ever attentive, but the effect is mesmerizing and works in a manner reminiscent of the magic realism of Garcia Marquez or Donoso. The novel is also cynically critical of modern Portugal, and of politics in general. Rui S. emerges as pathetic, his female companions as heartless, and his family as emotionally vapid and effete. Not a pretty picture. It is a novel worth reading for its brilliant technique, not necessarily for the warmth of its characterizations.

This is a ironic tale of a ordinay fellow on a particular situation. The life of Rui is a very ordinary one, divorced and married again, college professor, communist or maybe not, an ordinay wife. Rich son married with a communist lower-class wife. Now he tries to change this. Get a new life but how?