Naked in death (in death #1) (nudez mortal [Portuguese])

By Nora Roberts:

Images.gr-assets.com. (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1462140609l/30070295.jpg [Accessed 30 Dec. 2016].

Novel first published in July 1995. It was my first meeting with a crime novel by Nora Roberts. It's a very nice novel, because it mixes the typical police literature with a love story. But do not underestimate the author as police writer! Nora Roberts is very good at imagining crime scenes and suspense. The novel is written in a future age, but without eccentricities.
Some quotes from this first book of the «In death» series, preceding «Glory in death», by the pseudonym J. D. Robb:

• «"(...) She told me once she'd never planned on making a career out of professional sex. She'd only gotten into it to make her family crazy. But then, after she got into it, she decided she liked it." (...) "So she stayed in the life, and killed two birds with one fuck. (...)"»
• «Eve hated funerals. She detested the rite human beings insisted on giving death. (...). There might be a God. She hadn't completely ruled such things out. And if there were, she thought, It must have enjoyed a good laugh over Its creations' useless rituals and passages.»
• «I hate to wast time», Roarke said.
• «"(...) Some men find the cool, disinterested, and understated attractive. Makes them think you're deep. (...)"», Mavis said, Eve's friend.
• «"So how did you get rich?" She asked him./"Various ways." (...).», Roarke replied./«"Name one."», Eve requested./«"Desire" (...).», Roarcke said./«"Not good enough." (...) "Most people want to be rich."», Eve said.»/«"They do not want  it enough. To fight for it. To take risks for it."», he aswered.
• «(...) She didn't have your thoroughness, Eve, your control, nor your enviable concentration.», Roarke said.
• «And it was terrifying to realize she believed him, and not be sure, not be absolutely certain if she believed because she needed to.»
• «"(...) The most obvious would be the subject could find her self-worth only in sexual skill. She either enjoyed or detested the act."/(...). "If she detested it, why would she become a pro?"/"To punish."/"Herself?"/"Certainly, and those close to her."»
• «"Whatever we've done in genetic engineering, in vitro, with social programs, we still can't control basic human failings: violence, lust, envy."/"The seven deadly sins."»
• «That was the biggest problem with getting used to someone, she thought. You were lonely when they weren't there.»

Ghosts, appearances of the dead and cultural transformation (fantasmas, aparições dos mortos e transformação cultural [Portuguese])

By Ronald C. Finucane:

LX Portugal. (2016). Colecção Enigmas de Todos os Tempos (Bertrand Editora). [online] Available at: https://www.olx.pt/anuncio/coleco-enigmas-de-todos-os-tempos-bertrand-editora-IDzcYdx.html [Accessed 12 Nov. 2016].

It is a book of world history. It tells us many stories told in various parts of the world. The author seems impartial, but he tends not to believe in them. Hovewer, there are many inexplicable and terrifying facts. Nevertheless, the book is important for the historical wealth.

Some interesting passages:

• «(...) a moment of earthly life represents a very, very long time in purgatorio.» (in F.C. Tubach, Speculum Laicorum, Folklore fellow communications, 1969).
• «(...) Glanvill hoped that these apparitions of ghosts would confuse the materialistic atheists and the heretical sectarians of his time./Nonconformists were also interested in collecting and publishing examples of evidence of immortality.» (in Chapter 5 - Baroque hauntings of the seventeenth century).
• «(...) about half of the narratives deal with precautions about heirs, warnings to the living, and murders.» (in Chapter 5 - Baroque hauntings of the seventeenth century).
• «(...) poltergeists. (...) the name of two German words, which mean "creating a disturbance" (or, more specifically, producing deaf noises, rolling or blowing furiously), and "spirits." Although examples can be found in the early centuries, this form of spiritual persecution only becomes vulgar in the post-Reformation era.» (in Chapter 5 - Baroque hauntings of the seventeenth century).
• «(...) Flowers on the graves - originally a pagan custom (...).»
• «Nothing is more common, in rural areas, than an entire family on a winter night, sitting around the fire and telling stories of apparitions and ghosts. (...) this helps the fears of men and makes them often imagine that they see things, which in reality are no more than their imagination [said by Henry Bourne].» (in Chapter 6 - The Enlightenment and "Atheism").
• «As for the nature of legitimate appearances, Defoe believes that they are demonic agents or benevolent celestial beings, like the ethereal and astral spirits of previous generations, that occasionally provide men with warnings and advice [in Moreton/Defoe, Secrets, pp. 78 ff.].» (in Chapter 6 - The Enlightenment and "Atheism").
• «It is wonderful how it has been five thousand years since the creation of the world and it has not yet been decided whether or not the spirit of some person has ever appeared after death. All arguments are against; but faith is in favor.», said Dr. Johnson.
• «(...) funeral in life (...). (...) tafophobia (...). (...) premature funeral (...). (...) Edgar Allan Poe reproduced accurately the contemporary apprehensions in his "premature funeral" of the 40s.»
• «(...) Victorian interest in funerary things was also reflected in the way it was depicted and encouraged in the "Gothic" horror or ghost stories, that attracted the best authors in the second half of the nineteenth century. (...) products of the Romantic movement. (...), this movement was in itself a reaction to the scientific and agnostic tendencies of the time, (...).»
• «(...) mesmerism (...). The work of Anton Mesmer (...). Supposedly, the spirits of the dead used "animal magnetism" over certain living beings - "sensitives", or mediums - to carry out these interviews, (...). (...), the original idea of Mesmer, of channeling the animal magnetism for the accomplishment of cures, (...).»
• «(...) the famous case of the "Rochester Beats" of 1848. (...) it is said that the modern spiritualist movement dates from 1848, (...). (...) Rochester has captivated the imaginations of those seeking evidence of what they wanted to believe.»
• «(...) dead spoke (...) assuring that there is no pain on the Other Side and that the spirits ascended to various levels - current gnosticism - until all were finally saved (...).»
• «(...) these people wanted in such a way to communicate with spirits, that any approach to their expectations was accepted as reality. (...) the best results were achieved only with "believing" participants [nineteenth century].»

200 anos de Poe (Portuguese) (200 years of Poe)

By Edgar Allan Poe:

Source: Fnac.com. (2017). 200 Anos de Poe - Edgar Allan Poe em Fnac.pt. [online] Available at http://www.fnac.pt/200-Anos-de-Poe-Edgar-Allan-Poe/a201295 [Accessed 18 Jun. 2017].

A set of 7 short stories:

• «The purloined letter», 1845, «(...) in Paris (...), "au troisième, n.º 33, rue Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain."» It is a detective story.

• «The fall of the house of Usher», September 1839, a macabre horror story: «(...) with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium — the bitter lapse into everyday life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. (...) Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber.»

• «The gold-bug», June 1843, a suspense story: «(...) subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy [Sr. William Legrand]. (...) You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders.»

• «The tell - tale heart», January 1843. It is is a short story about crime and paranoia.

• «Berenice», March 1835, a horror and macabre story about obsession and mental illness: «The undue, earnest, and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, (...). (...) the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the incitamentum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten. (...) the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. (...) The meditations were never pleasurable; and, at the termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease.»

• «The masque of the red death», May 1842. It is a horror short story, a Gothic fiction.

• «The man of the crowd», December 1840. It is a short story about obsession.

The author has an excellent ability to describe the mind and mental states, especially the disturbed minds, with too much detail.

Histórias de um Portugal assombrado (Portuguese) (stories of a haunted Portugal)

By Vanessa Fidalgo:

A book that travels around Portugal and its history. I think it is worth reading the book, at least, by the historical and geographical information that it makes available. The author has compiled stories of haunted houses, the appearance of spirits and, in the end, tales told from north to south and islands. We get to know some mysteries that took place in Portugal.
Some quotes to think about:

• «"A call to pay attention and learn from everything that surrounds us materially and can be observed by the sensuousness." (...) "Ghosts, visions and the whole series of fantastic figures explored in literature, film and the arts in general, are attempts to materialize something that is in our minds and emotional experiences." (...) "extrasensorial stimuli (...) include integration of sensory data with not consciously or automatic perception dimensions, and that are also in the enlargement of sensory perception zones, ie the perception of sound or light frequencies below or above the normal sensory perception area." (...) "The nervous system has a normal operating state or excitement and differentiated states. These altered states (internal or external excitation of the person) can create conditions for changing states of consciousness." (...) our mind is prepared to work in cooperation or interaction with other minds (...). "(...) it is not acceptable for those who are not the same psychological 'wave'." (...) "A person only dies truly when the last who met them in life, died." (...) ghostly buildings (...) a role in the evolution of society: "they stimulate the minds and society for paths that are not known yet or are poorly explained and they lack of exploitation. (...) we can overcome us in building scenarios and unlimited spectra where we can give vent to emotions and desires that are close to the territories of our alter egos." (...) a mysterious and unknown world, which (...) attracts and seduces the man», by José Carlos Garrucho.
• «"(...) supernatural entities do not have a defined silhouette, often not even a form. They are almost always shadows of a translucent white, or black" (...)», by Joaquim Coelho.
• «(...) breaking barriers was never an easy task, and it is easy to guess that through the halls of the Faculdade de Belas-Artes [Fine Arts School] have spent many rebellious, avant-garde, revolutionary minds and not always understood by the rest of society.»
• «Even António de Oliveira Salazar has suffered from tuberculosis, having been isolated in a sanatorium at all equal to the Mon'Alto sanatorium, in the neighboring Caramulo mountains. (...) Winston Churchill, ranked Portugal with an unpleasant but illustrative epithet: "a country of tuberculosis, governed by a tuberculous".»
• «The hostel from Valongo (...). On April 25, 1974, it was plundered, occupied and vandalized and little else was remained to tell his story than its skeleton.»
• «"The memory effect is to take us to the missing people, so that we are with them, and bring them to us, to be with us."», by Father Antonio Vieira.
• «The places where we lived and grew up, where we loved and lost, (...). By way of memories, the mind easily gives them emotions, depending on the nature, positive or negative, of the experiences that experienced.»
• «(...) such myths arise from a 'creeping' of the susceptible human memory. "The crimes, especially the passion crimes, stir with our fundamental fears." (...) "we are fundamentally social beings, (...). When the supernatural intervenes, in particular, these reports become unusual, exciting, arouse our curiosity to learn more and awaken our imagination, reasons why are spread more widely in space and time".», by Maria Francisca Rebocho.
• «Errancy appears as a form of penitentiary for those who were not conspicuous by their virtue in life.»
• «"(...) only people who believe or who wish to have paranormal experiences to have them in fact because their energies attract certain types of sensory perception".», by João Pedro F.
• «(...): love is really blind and sometimes can lead to committing the worst atrocities...»
• «(...) man can not control himself when passion dominates him!»
• «"The study of world folklore - which reflects the activity, the thought of a time and of a people - is as the study of humanity. (...) the evocation of local values, private and human conceptions." (...) "the historical legend is based on real facts, but the narrator changes the truth in order to prove it.», by Jean-Pierre Bayard.
• «"The legends (...) are true mirrors of the mentality that created them." (...). "(...) myths that may possibly respond or explain their anxieties, their worries..."», by Manuela Mendonça.
• «The legends (...) are stories about (...) nobility of character (...).»
• «(...) the enchanted Moorish women (...), only in Portugal do not have the baleful feature attributed to them in other cultures. (...), some argue that they are the riches that the Arabs left behind in their flight.»
• «In general, the apparitions happen more often at 'midnight', at 'midday' or at the 'St. John evenings' - Solstice - which have a very old meaning and linked to pagan cults of ancestors. (...) St. John evening, that in which conventional wisdom said to be the evening that 'all spirits are let loose on earth' (...).»
• «In medieval times, as well as functioning as barracks, lookout post and residence of the lords of the nobility, castles were also true centers of promotion of village life, and so it was not by chance that most cities grew from these points (...). (...) cultural exchange circuit (...).»
• «In the old Quinta da Lagoa [farm of the pond], in Faia (...), (...) king Chiquito (...) loved sow discord and intrigue and had fun with the hassles of others, (...) he kept causing disparate disorders among friends, neighbors and even families with no guilty conscience.», by Fernanda Frazão.

High art (a grande arte [Portuguese])

By Rubem Fonseca:

The criticism of the corrupt Brazilian society. Ruben Fonseca leads us to the most representative Brazilian society of that country where corruption and crime still prevail. The language is strong, unfit for prudes; but, therefore, it is delicious and portrays perfectly that miserable, but majestic and precious, Brazil. It is a detective story that criticizes the society, and therefore it is very informative, current, recommended for those who want to be knowledgeable about the harsh realities of the world.

• The movie: