“Tell me, dear heart, dear chilled heart, what would you say to going to live in Lisbon? It’s surely warm there and you’d revive like a lizard under the sun. The city’s at the water’s edge and they say it’s built of marble. You see it is a country after my own heart; a landscape made up of light and...
‘“Saudade,” said Maria do Carmo, “yearning. It isn’t a word, it’s a category of the spirit. Only the Portuguese are able to feel it, because they have this word in order to say they have it. A great poet said this.” And then she began to talk about Fernando Pessoa.’ In the short-story “The Backwa...
The content is not culturally translatable to a Dutch girl. The title is going to haunt me and remind me that sometimes you don't have to keep reading to get it. Obnoxious.
Tabucchi’s notion of time (e.g., aging) is a weird one. I grew up thinking it didn't really exist, that it was just something us humans invented as a measurement, like cm or mm. But I also used to think tomato soup was lava. Time is the only God, because it behaves in exactly the way any self-respec...
Of course it's the old "can you teach talent" argument, isn't it? That's the meaty question, the puzzler of substantial length and girth that needs to be grabbed firmly with both hands. What produces worse writing? People striking off alone, with nobody to tell them to stop and their critics being s...
“Were someone to ask me why I wrote this story in Portuguese, I would answer simply that a story like this could only be written in Portuguese; it's as simple as that. But there is something else that needs explaining. Strictly speaking, a Requiem should be written in Latin, at least that's what tra...
“[…] but I feel I must tell you that originally, we were Lusitanians, and then came the Romans and the Celts, and then came the Arabs, so what sort of race are we Portuguese in a position to celebrate? The Portuguese Race, replied the editor-in-chief, and I am sorry to say Pereira, that I don’t like...
Being a devoted admirer of Antonio Tabucchi, and purchaser of many of his books as gifts for friends and family, I am disappointed to report that this book is unreadable for me. I gave it a go for over a hundred pages, but the torture was unbearable. I wave the white flag.
Have you ever thought of someone you haven’t thought of for years and then, suddenly, heard from them in that same instant you thought of them?This novel provided me with a similarly eerie experience. I have just finished reading Kafka’s The Trial last night, which made me ponder over a book by the ...
Tabucchi, where have you been all my life?! I feel like I want to read all your books in a day, to cover my walls with posters of you and to write a cheesy poem declaring my undying love for you. I am a girl of twelve again, only this time my heart is too old for feelings this strong, so my wallet w...
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