num_pages: 320
description: The Natural Order of Things is a tale of two families and the secrets that bind them. The voices of Antunes' characters -- an army officer being 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; the officer's illegitimate sister, locked away to haunt the house like Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre -- create a portrait of a disintegrating Portugal, a personal political history that attains the brilliance and surreality of Elias Canetti and Nikolai Gogol.
language: English
title: The Natural Order of Things
titlecomplete: The Natural Order of Things
genres: 20th Century, Portugal, Literary Fiction, Novels, Portuguese Literature, Literature, Psychology, Romance, Fiction
ratings_count: 582
series: Benfica
publisher: Grove Press