( I ) — “The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico,”
When Antonio Tabucchi passed away, in March of two-thousand and twelve; the literary world was devastated by the loss of a giant of world literature. Italy itself was forced to say farewell and thank-you to their greatest living writer; who had taken up the mantel of Italo Calvino. Yet to say that Tabucchi and Calvino were similar in every aspect would be misleading. Where Italo Calvino was generally seen as apolitical – after his youthful ideology years, in which he belonged to the communist party; Tabucchi was engaged in the social and political sphere. One of Tabucchi’s most well-known books “Pereira Declares,” (or “Pereira Maintains,”), which discusses the awakening of an overweight journalist to the difficulties and arbitrary inhumanity of Salazar’s, Portuguese dictatorship. This is just one example of Tabucchi’s politically engaged work. “Pereira Declares,” was often used as a symbol of resistance, against the Italian president and convicted fraudster, Silvio Berlusconi and his subsequent government. Further separation came from Tabucchi’s love of Portugal, after his discovery of the poet Fernando Pessoa. Tabucchi even wrote a book in Portuguese, to celebrate his admiration of Pessoa, and love for Portugal.
“The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico,” was the first book to be published in English translation, after Tabucchi’s death. It was published by the amazing Archipelago Books. It’s a small square pocket book. It fits naturally in the hands. It’s a small book of stories. Tabucchi himself had called them: “drifting splinters, survivors of some whole that never was.”
The titular story “The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico,” is the first sweet taste of the beautiful splinters that Tabucchi, divulges. It’s a gentle tale; a wistful charismatic fable. That portrays an Italian monk in a monastery, in the poignantly warm and time of dusk, collecting onions. While fulfilling his duty, this monk – who will become the greatest fifteenth century painter; encounters a large bird. A large bird with different coloured feathers: orche, yellow, deep blue and emerald. Reminiscent of the prismatic kingfisher. Other such birds, visit. While the monk is sleeping in his cell, a dragonfly visits him. He commands the monk to paint his visitors.
In this same vein, Tabucchi has done what the monk has. He has taken dream like impressions and solidified them with ink, and words. Other splinters and fragments of stories are letters. Emotional betrays and subtle details all mixed in with flights of fancy and fantasy. Calypso writes to Odysseus. There is the prince of Portugal, whose deep seated love becomes an adequate form of revenge. Mademoiselle Lenormand also makes an appearance. The famed fortune teller, of the Napoleonic Era. The mystic herself, offers a monologue on the perpetual dusk of her own shadow world. A place that she best describes as a dream, in which you are well aware is a dream. Where truth is all that more pure; and reality is so much sharper. This short monologue had to have been one of my favourites.
All the brief sketches, in this small book, are vignettes and simply written short reflections. The only one that best be described as a short is the titular “The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico.” Still these lactescent stories, offer a glimpse into the authors own preoccupations, with identity, mystery, history and other personal obsessions. These fragments. Memories of dreams. Impressions and nostalgic laments. Each of them carries a small weight to their punches. Yet their depth surpasses the superficial minimalism of their surface.
( II ) — “The Woman of Porto Pim,”
I once saw a picture of the Azores Archipelago. I saw a verdant hill, populated by few trees, surrounded by the ocean and the mist. In the background was Mount Pico. A shark tooth of a mountain. It appears to rise out of the sea; pushing through the mist and haze of the ocean and obstinately jab its peak right towards the heavens. I never knew about the Azores, until I started reading “The Woman of Porto Pim.” Still, we never gave much thought, to the Falkland Islands until the short Falkland war was started and resolved. Much like “The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico,” – “The Woman of Porto Pim,” is a small pocket book of stories, its small, and fits comfortably into the hands of any reader. “The Woman of Porto Pim,” is best described as being inspired by Tabucchi’s travels within the Azores Archipelago. These small volcanic islands under the stewardship of Portugal – Tabucchi’s inspirational and adopted home.
Despite this romantic title, “The Woman of Porto Pim,” is not about women – as it is about whales and whaling. I remember reading a children’s version of “Moby Dick,” when I was younger. A shocking moralistic fable of a book; about mans’ ever intense quest for revenge; and how revenge consumes all. At the time, from my faded orange tinted sepia photographs of memory; I can’t say that I was entirely shocked by the desire to get revenge for loosing ones leg. Yet now that I am older, I can now understand the quest for the death of the white whale, was nothing shy of a tale of our inhumanity, and personal vendettas; and the adequate consequences that are sure to be fall all of us. The only reason that I bought “The Woman of Porto Pim,” was because Antonio Tabucchi himself had written it. Without his name attached to the book, I would have seriously reconsidered, not buying this book. If only because it dealt with whaling. What Tabucchi has done though is created quite a neat and fascinating book of stories, which traverse between travel diary, and fiction.
At first these stories appear like puddles. Without thinking twice; gumboots and all – we find ourselves jumping into a pothole of a sea. What lies hidden beneath the casually small and short surface is a world we never thought about looking at twice. Take for instance the titular story of this collection. It’s about a mysterious woman, who lives beneath her means in a hut. Then comes along the naïve sailor. He sings her a song to get her attention. With this story Tabucchi writes some of his most gorgeous prose:
“The moon was coming up in a veil of red, a summer moon. I felt a great longing, the water lapped around me, everything was so intense and so unattainable, and I remembered when I was a child, how at night I used to call the eels from the rocks: then an idea came to me, I couldn’t resist, and I began to sing that song. I sang it very softly, like a lament, or a supplication, with a hand held to my voice.”
One can picture the eels crawling out between the crags of the rocks. Called out like children, to the pied piper. The way the warm water cradles, someone, like the amniotic fluid of the womb. What comes from this man’s song; is much like the eels. A varied experience of: wonder, betrayal and violence. Though of course with every fragment that Tabucchi has written, one is left absent minded, and drifting about on the waters. Constantly mulling over what we have just read, and what it pertains to what is left unsaid and unanswered. We constantly look for the certainties, of the world. The salt sea water; the gentle southern breeze. The way sailors praise the new land or the old land, the way they feel the warmth of the home; find salvation in the rum bottle. So do we. We try to find answers in their now still sails. Their forgotten songs that only the eels remember. We rub our hands on the deadwood barnacle, covered shipwrecks. We cradle the forgotten mermaid. We hold her scarred salted face to our chest. We tell her we will love no other. Just divulge your history. We scour the empty rum bottles, littering the beach; smashed up on the rocks. Yet still we circle the unknown, and the uncertainty. Just as we grasp at the reflection of the moon in the water – we never truly hold it; and so is the same with Tabucchi’s fragments and reflections. We scoop up the reflections. We listen to the ripples. Yet it is still what has already been stated before. This is what makes Tabucchi such a wonderful writer. He never tells. He never condescends by feeling that all answers must handed over. We are left to read the text, mull it over, and spin our own inclusive theories.
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
