Hello Gentle Reader
In the Portuguese language there is a word called: ‘saudade,’ which has no immediate translation into English. However it best described as a desire for something in the past or the future – not a deep sadness, but rather a melancholic dreamy wistfulness. The English language with all its complexities of technical pyrotechnics and tyrannical rules and rebellious rule breakers, does not have a word that can translate or even compare to ‘saudade.’ Of course one could say that it could compare to nostalgia. However nostalgia is rooted in a past experience or in the past permanently. Such as one having nostalgia for childhood. A simpler time, is best described feeling of nostalgia. A time where everything made sense and where worldly worries and problems were solved, in less complex and adult fashions. Whereas ‘saudade,’ is ghostly in its definition: as being a vague longing or feeling for something that does not or cannot exist. This gives the Portuguese language a strange feeling. A language full of fantastical words of phantasmagoric meanings, even Fernando Pessoa, the enigmatic and almost schizophrenic author with his various different heteronyms is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century and one of the greatest poets that wrote in the Portuguese language. Antonio Tabucchi is a Italian author by birth. He however adopted Portugal as his homeland, and in turn Portugal had adopted him back. All of this because of the poet Fernando Pessoa, who in the nineteen-sixties had touched a young Antonio Tabucchi studying at the Sorbonne. Antonio Tabucchi was charmed so much that he even decided to learn the language for better appreciation of Pessoa’s work. In nineteen-sixty nine Antonio Tabucchi had written his thesis titled ‘Surrealism in Portugal,’ from there on out Tabucchi’s life took an intellectual turn of events. In nineteen-seventy three Tabucchi was appointed a teacher of the Portuguese language and Literature at Bologna. But his breakthroughs were to come in just a few short more years. In nineteen-seventy eight Tabucchi was appointed to the University of Genoa, and from there his writing career started, with his early published works, “The Little Canal,” followed by “The Game inside and out: and other stories,” as well as “The Women of Porto Pim,” – which interestingly enough will be published in twenty thirteen by Archipelago Books, a not-for profit publishing house that is devoted to publishing excellent translations of classic and contemporary world literature. Also interestingly enough in October of two thousand and twelve “The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico,” by Antonio Tabucchi will be published by Archipelago Books and will be translated by Tim Parks. It was not until nineteen-eighty four however that Antonio Tabucchi did not receive the recognition that he deserved. With “Indian Nocturne,” Antonio Tabucchi found his literary audience, and with it Tabucchi was awarded the Prix Medicis and award given to authors, whose fame does not yet match their talent. This novel was also made into a French language film, directed by Alain Corneau. It is from this first novel that others were to succeed it like “Pereira Declares,” “the missing head of damasceno monteiro,” “It’s Getting Later All The Time,” and “Requiem: A Hallucination.”
In his later years, Antonio Tabucchi was often a Nobel Contender for the Prize in Literature. He would have made a great Laureate in my opinion. Following in the cosmopolitan footsteps of previous winners like Herta Müller (though some would say she is a dissident writer) Jean Marie Gustav Le Clezio, Doris Lessing (who grew up in the failing days of a colonial world – and often primarily identified ‘English author,’) as well as others like Ivan Bunin who in his later life took up residency in France, like other writers to follow Ernest Hemmingway for example. Even Franz Kafka who had died before his literary achievements were noticed, is also such a writer who had transcended countries and borders and also languages – as Franz Kafka was Jewish and a Czech but wrote in German. Another such author is the Yugoslavian Ivo Andric who too this day is difficult to classify as a writer because of the turbulent time in which he was born. He was born in what is now known as Bosnia to Croatian parents, and then later lived and worked in what is now known as Serbia. Which places him a author in all three literary categories, which larger more detailed language cracks forming as well – causing further debate amongst the three, countries as to whom Ivo Andric belongs. In the end Antonio Tabucchi would have fit in perfectly with the other authors who, explore the freedom of human authorship and the ecstasy of the world and its varied cultures, how different languages offer different perspectives. However this achievement will never be realised. Antonio Tabucchi was one of the first names in the two thousand and twelve to have died, back in March. His death defeated his chances of winning one of the most prestigious prizes in Literature. His death also one of the many too come to leave a hallow void in the pit of my stomach. However his death pushed me to read whatever I could get my hands on.
“Requiem: A Hallucination,” is one of Tabucchi’s more interesting novels, because it was originally written in Portuguese rather than the mother tongue of the author Italian. This further intensifies the love story that the author has for the country of Portugal, and of course one of his most influential authors on Tabucchi and his work Fernando Pessoa, who interestingly enough makes a cameo in this novel (though not actually named) and who is also hinted at throughout the book. The first being hinted at, with the Lottery-Ticket Seller, being the most obvious and straightforward.
This novel however is rich with the main character not being the narrator himself, or the journey that moves like a wistful dream, but rather because of the characters that populate it. The nameless characters who with their distinct personal backgrounds and characteristics give the city its own charm and life of its own.
The sweet taxi driver who though does not have his actual taxi drivers license, continues to help the narrator find a place where he can get a clean shirt. To where he meets an old gypsy who in the baking heat underneath the unforgiving sun of Lisbon, is dressed in black and a yellow head scarf. There she reads the fortune of the narrator and sells him two ‘genuine,’ Lacoste polo shirts – where all you need to do is just stick the alligator onto to the shirt and ta-da it’s genuine. Other characters also come by like Tadeus who treats the narrator to new and exciting meals of Portugal. He meets his now dead father while having a sleep in a boarding house – where he explains his father death to his father’s younger self, who takes the future like a bitter pill that needs to be swallowed. Each of these shades of the past look towards the future. Much as the narrator himself looks toward the past for answers.
As one reviewer has stated “Requiem,” is not a novel that tries to pose itself as a novel that follows in the same merits and is by far a reflection of what it is passing itself off as one in some illusionary yet cheap trick. Instead Tabucchi takes what would be a cheap street parlour trick for most authors, and turns it into an act of magic itself. Rather than imitate Fernando Pessoa, Antonio Tabucchi recognizes his own limitations as an author, but also realizes and thrives in his own strengths. Instead Antonio Tabucchi writes of a hymn of indirectness. Everything is misled, and the world itself is lost in a heat wave, which subjugates the world further into a place of fantastic characters.
The characters as pointed out again in another review can be alluded to Fernando Pessoa but as well as one of Fernando Pessoa’s greatest creations and probably most confusing creation of an author who continues to baffle me – : Heteronyms. The literary creation of Fernando Pessoa, but differ from a pen name or alias in the fact that Heteronyms are a creation and life of their own. They are more than just names; they are people in their own rights. They hold distinct biographies in their own right. These Heteronyms to this day, Fernando Pessoa, continue to confuse me, not as literary creations but on whether the author was sane or not. To varying degrees while reading about Fernando Pessoa and his creations via the internet and articles on his most famous work “The Book of Disquiet,” confuses and flabbergasts me, and makes me wonder if the author himself is schizophrenic or suffer from an identity disorder. Maybe it is my western thought on the matter. The desire and need to know as well as identify the subjected problem or what is suspected as a problem, which does not fit into the concept of normalcy in my thinking. However since the first initial discovery of the thought and idea of Heteronyms I have been more lenient and less rigid then they have been. Rather than attempt to understand the concept I have seen it as a form of literary ventriloquism or acting – or in this case throwing one’s own identity and taking on the shape of a new one with different fictional components. As if donning a mask, and for brief moments becoming posed in the fictional world of that character. However what becomes interesting with these concepts of Heteronyms and their relation to Fernando Pessoa, which therefore is of interest to Antonio Tabucchi, lead another reviewer to suspect or at least theorize on the very notion that some of the characters (to all of characters with the exception of the one who the narrator is to meet) are layers and layers of different identities and characteristics of the narrator, who continues to subjectively experience the world and seek answers from the past with a sense of saudade.
My only regret with this novel is that it wasn’t longer. At a mere short one hundred and six pages, I had the book read in an afternoon between chores and a few real life trivialities that needed to be tended too. However Antonio Tabucchi is an economical writer. His writing is lush and expansive, yet it is contained. Antonio Tabucchi is a writer who won’t waste his time writing expansive prose that continue on for pages on end. His writing is indirect in its writing, and also shifts from page to page, continuously however it is a readable writing and also continues to amaze and astonish.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
