Pereira Maintains

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I liked this passage: “Philosophy appears to concern itself only with the truth, but perhaps expresses only fantasies, while literature appears to concern itself only with fantasies, but perhaps it expresses the truth.” Pereira is an unusual hero: an overweight man of advanced age, a lonely widower whose dreams he never reveals, a man who talks to the portrait of his deceased wife. Pereira works as head of the Cultural Section in the local newspaper Lisboa at the period of increasing oppression of the Salazar regime in the Portugal of the late 30s, and despite the obvious internal repression in fascist Europe, he is not interested in politics. T)he presence of the political element affects the content as well as the structure and language." - Anthony Costantini, World Literature Today La scrittura, impeccabile e scorrevole, è sobria e registra unicamente i fatti minimizzando sensazioni o commenti.

Young people: they can be a real pain when they play Daft Punk - and that is not a randomly capitalized qualifying adjective, I mean Daft Punk - at a volume level that stuns the snoozing song thrush out the tree, or when they turn the night time inner city streets into alcohol fuelled yodelling and technicolour burping festivals. Nevertheless they are our stake in the future, the next generation that will have to deal with what the previous one left behind, whatever kind of a mess that is. Pereira es un periodista que por algún evento desafortunado ha quedado como anclado al pasado y su personalidad se ha visto afectada casi sin que él se diera cuenta, pero de repente su tranquila y rutinaria vida se va a ver sacudida por un acontecimiento que de alguna manera le abre una ventana para salir de esa somnolencia en la que estaba viviendo. La novela gira sobre una lucha interna de Pereira muy interesante que Tabucchi trabaja con mucha sutileza; pero asimismo, esta el tema del contexto político de la novela, que también juega un papel muy importante en el proceso que atraviesa Pereira, porque todo se da en la Portugal de 1938 gobernada por la dictadura Salazarista y una situación general de Europa marcada por la dictadura de Mussolini en Italia, la guerra civil española, y la creciente fortaleza del nacional socialismo en Alemania.

The Sydney Morning Herald

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Eu afirmo que é o próprio passado que nos edifica, que permite encarar o presente e que nos garante as pedras necessárias para construir a estrada do futuro. Dictator holds utter power over the country… Portugal turned into the authoritarian state… Everyone exists in constant fear… The nation is immersed in total deceit and lies… Eu afirmo que ele, sem o admitir, era um revolucionário em potência, numa luta permanente contra ele próprio, mas sempre em busca de ideais que incutem prurido político. Escrita de manera muy sencilla y con muchos toques de humor, Tabucchi encuentra en Pereira un personaje realmente entrañable. The effect of these two words is incredibly interesting. Although the novel is narrated in the third person, these two oft-repeated words make it clear that this is Pereira’s own testimony – in that way it becomes similar to a first-person account, with all the issues of limited perspective and potential unreliability that go along with that. It also raises the question of who the narrator is – who did Pereira tell his story to, and who is now telling it to us, and why?The Reviewer maintains she took a sip of honey-sweetened lemonade, as she doesn’t drink alcohol and has abandoned refined sugar, adding that she thought those words spoke of the fleeting nature of life, the elusiveness of happiness and the need to seize those special moments before they get lost in the midst of the ordinary, the humdrum routine, the minutiae of everyday life. Moments that urge us to regard the past as a collection of memories and nothing but memories so it won't tyrannize so violently over our present. The Reviewer maintains she dreamed a lovely dream about one of such moments that are worth seizing. A dream which made her feel nostalgia for things that never existed, the kind of nostalgia discussed decades ago in a book filled with disquiet to which she had referred recently. It was a long dream. But the Reviewer prefers not to say how it went on because her dream has nothing to do with these events, she maintains.

As is the narration by Derek Jacobi. Absolutely fantastic narration. It couldn't be better. Women sound like women. Derek Jacobi is the most talented male narrator of women that I have ever come across. He does secretaries and bitchy caretakers and attractive women, each and every one is pitch-perfect. All the different characters have their own intonation. Each sentence has the perfect inflection to say what the author wants said. I cannot praise the narration enough. Cosa c'è di più eroico nell'abbandonare la sicurezza del nostro angolino, colmo di ricordi e tanti compromessi, più o meno grandi, per combattere battaglie che non sono le proprie?

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Trey Graham suggests (in Salon) that "gradually, it becomes clear that this narrative is some Salazarist bureaucrat's report on the Pereira-Monteiro Rossi affair, the distillation of an interview (interrogation?) that must perforce have occurred after the events it describes." Philosophy appears to concern itself only with the truth, but perhaps expresses only fantasies, while literature appears to concern itself only with fantasies, but perhaps it expresses the truth.

La faccenda, ridotta all’osso, è la seguente: come tutti gli scrittori, anche Pereira, che pure non è uno scrittore, ha bisogno di un personaggio che abbia il coraggio di fare quello che non sa fare lui. E quel personaggio è Monteiro Rossi. Antonio Tabucchi, in fondo dice questo: i personaggi vanno in territori che agli scrittori, per i limiti che ciascuno si trova nel proprio corredo esistenziale, sono preclusi. Il personaggio va. È un fatto infrastrutturale: perché ci sia letteratura bisogna che i collegamenti tra la morte e la vita siano funzionanti. Senza quel pendolarismo è vita dimidiata. Venticinque brevi capitoli punteggiati da quel salmodiante “ Sostiene Pereira” che ci ricorda il linguaggio di una cosa raccontata, come una testimonianza resa al narratore.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special. In the sweltering summer of 1938, with Lisbon in the grip of Portugal's dictatorship of António Salazar, a journalist is coming to terms with the rise of fascism around him and its insidious impact on his work. Consumed by the passing of his wife and the child he never had, Pereira lives a quiet and lonely existence. One day, the young and charismatic Monteiro Rossi enters his life, changing everything. A man who once shied away from criticizing Portugal's authoritarian regime finds himself unable to stay quiet any longer, resulting in his political awakening and a devastating act of rebellion. The title refers to a recurring feature of the book: it is presented as a series of declarations by Pereira. The end is not as clear as either of these two reviewers suggest -- possibly they are correct, but there seems no certainty either way (or some other way).