What do you think?
Rate this book
Réquiem
Bajo la forma inédita de un diario de una experiencia misteriosa e iniciática, Tabucchi ha escrito su más hondo homenaje a Portugal. En un estado entre la conciencia y la inconsciencia, entre la experiencia de lo real y la percepción del sueño, un hombre se encuentra, sin saber explicarse cómo, en una Lisboa desierta y tórrida al mediodía de un último domingo de julio. Sabe que tiene una misión que cumplir en particular el encuentro con un personaje ilustre y desaparecido que, quizá, como todos los fantasmas, se presentará sólo a medianoche, pero no tiene ni idea de cómo llevarla a cabo. Se entrega así al flujo del azar, y se encuentra frente a un recorrido que lo lleva a revivir el recuerdo de aquel día, a transitar de nuevo por algunas etapas fundamentales de su vida, a tratar de resolver los nudos de su estado alucinatorio. La alucinación, el viaje y el sueño duran doce horas, durante las cuales se comprimen y se dilatan los tiempos de una vida: pasado y presente se mezclan para explicarse recíprocamente, muertos y vivos se encuentran en los mismos lugares, unos lugares que se fijan en una inmovilidad que nada tiene que ver con el tiempo.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
70 people are currently reading
4015 people want to read
About the author
Antonio Tabucchi
149 books840 followersAntonio Tabucchi was an Italian writer and academic who taught Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena, Italy.
Deeply in love with Portugal, he was an expert, critic and translator of the works of the writer Fernando Pessoa from whom he drew the conceptions of saudade, of fiction and of the heteronyms. Tabucchi was first introduced to Pessoa's works in the 1960s when attending the Sorbonne. He was so charmed that, back in Italy, he attended a course of Portuguese language for a better comprehension of the poet.
Deeply in love with Portugal, he was an expert, critic and translator of the works of the writer Fernando Pessoa from whom he drew the conceptions of saudade, of fiction and of the heteronyms. Tabucchi was first introduced to Pessoa's works in the 1960s when attending the Sorbonne. He was so charmed that, back in Italy, he attended a course of Portuguese language for a better comprehension of the poet.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 307 reviews
November 8, 2016
Requiem: A Hallucination
Antonio Tabucchi
What is hallucination? Experiences by our mind due to a lack of skill at "reality- testing" or reality discrimination as psychologists put it and those who, experience hallucinations, interpret world differently from rest of us so called ' normal beings; and what is reality then? The way our consciousness process stimuli from the surroundings to create percepts and concepts (then, are hallucinations created due to ambiguous wandering of our unconsciousness ?), but isn't the reality subjective, isn't the process is different for every being, though they say that process is same but parameters for it are different for everyone and it gives birth to subjective reality ; and they say: hallucination is a matter of confusing internally generated stimuli for external reality, but how do we know about it, for we perceive the things as they occur to us, how do we determine whether we are hallucinating or living for real, for what occurs real to us may be essentially a hallucination after all, for things change as frame of reference changes, what if all this whole world is an illusion, created by our limited capability, what if it's just one of many probable possibilities, what if one day our concept of this reality will collapse or essentially expand (perhaps for good or may be not) as it has happened in past too right from the outbreak of human civilization.
Consciousness and unconsciousness are complex but essential aspects of human life, ones which have been haunting human beings throughout the history of human evolution, it's the thin line between them where one has to tread upon to be consciously aware of one's being and perhaps that is what we call enlightenment , but is it so easy to attain it ? Tabucchi's self portrait Requiem takes the reader on a hallucinating trip in Portugal where the narrator waits for someone in scorching heat on last Sunday of July month, as the day progresses, he goes on to have several encounters with different sorts of people- some may be real, some may be not-to eventually meet the ghost of dead great poet- perhaps Fernando Pessoa, whose works Tabucchi, a champion of Portuguese literature, has translated, to discuss Kafka, postmodernism and the future of literature. The reader is forced (though artistically) to ponder upon-does it all really happening ? is it just the dreams and memories of narrator playing tricks ?A Hallucination perhaps ? a fog which descends in the opening pages, uprising from the moment the narrator waits in the park in Lisbon never lifts from that moment on.
The narrative of the book is straightforward but breathtaking as Tabucchi entwines impressions about his friends, his life with different ideas which seem to be permeated out of eternity; the encounters by chance, ambivalent symbols, black humor and non-rational events are used throughout the book to create a magical experience which hinges on the valley between reality and dream to evoke a weird situation wherein the reader feels a tinge of sadness (though perceived perhaps) as if one loses the sense of reality around, and there's no difference between dead and alive and the concepts of life and death becomes murky, life and death-two dimensions (or limiting factors) which we've known and been using to define our existence since time immemorial, as if the whole thing may collapse at once for it may be just a projection of so called reality, a frightening chill strikes you- the one which is felt when you don't know what is what- that the very notion of Universe may go for a toss.
Antonio Tabucchi
What is hallucination? Experiences by our mind due to a lack of skill at "reality- testing" or reality discrimination as psychologists put it and those who, experience hallucinations, interpret world differently from rest of us so called ' normal beings; and what is reality then? The way our consciousness process stimuli from the surroundings to create percepts and concepts (then, are hallucinations created due to ambiguous wandering of our unconsciousness ?), but isn't the reality subjective, isn't the process is different for every being, though they say that process is same but parameters for it are different for everyone and it gives birth to subjective reality ; and they say: hallucination is a matter of confusing internally generated stimuli for external reality, but how do we know about it, for we perceive the things as they occur to us, how do we determine whether we are hallucinating or living for real, for what occurs real to us may be essentially a hallucination after all, for things change as frame of reference changes, what if all this whole world is an illusion, created by our limited capability, what if it's just one of many probable possibilities, what if one day our concept of this reality will collapse or essentially expand (perhaps for good or may be not) as it has happened in past too right from the outbreak of human civilization.
Consciousness and unconsciousness are complex but essential aspects of human life, ones which have been haunting human beings throughout the history of human evolution, it's the thin line between them where one has to tread upon to be consciously aware of one's being and perhaps that is what we call enlightenment , but is it so easy to attain it ? Tabucchi's self portrait Requiem takes the reader on a hallucinating trip in Portugal where the narrator waits for someone in scorching heat on last Sunday of July month, as the day progresses, he goes on to have several encounters with different sorts of people- some may be real, some may be not-to eventually meet the ghost of dead great poet- perhaps Fernando Pessoa, whose works Tabucchi, a champion of Portuguese literature, has translated, to discuss Kafka, postmodernism and the future of literature. The reader is forced (though artistically) to ponder upon-does it all really happening ? is it just the dreams and memories of narrator playing tricks ?A Hallucination perhaps ? a fog which descends in the opening pages, uprising from the moment the narrator waits in the park in Lisbon never lifts from that moment on.
The narrative of the book is straightforward but breathtaking as Tabucchi entwines impressions about his friends, his life with different ideas which seem to be permeated out of eternity; the encounters by chance, ambivalent symbols, black humor and non-rational events are used throughout the book to create a magical experience which hinges on the valley between reality and dream to evoke a weird situation wherein the reader feels a tinge of sadness (though perceived perhaps) as if one loses the sense of reality around, and there's no difference between dead and alive and the concepts of life and death becomes murky, life and death-two dimensions (or limiting factors) which we've known and been using to define our existence since time immemorial, as if the whole thing may collapse at once for it may be just a projection of so called reality, a frightening chill strikes you- the one which is felt when you don't know what is what- that the very notion of Universe may go for a toss.
February 10, 2021
My dear friend, he said, life is strange and strange things happen in life
I went to bed, it was almost midnight. Three hours later, I was up drinking water and holding a book which I’ve been reading for a few days now and I’m almost finishing, filled with paragraphs that suffocate the reader due to a lack of white spaces, recipes and places that make Portugal proud, rather mundane observations interspersed with the extraordinary, dialogues that disguise themselves on purpose, and underscore the tone of a stream of consciousness but not quite—it’s a hallucination, why would I expect order?, I asked.
As I was holding the book, I knew I would write something about it as soon as I finish it; I kept listening to that voice anticipating things to say. It’s instinct; the way I see it, it isn’t born in one’s mind but in one’s gut. I can’t analyze inspiration; it comes—while turning the pages or two months later—I sit and I write. But I’m not a writer. They write for readers; I write to clear the mind and unclog the heart. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, it must be all those thoughts and responsibilities heavier than mountains, I assumed, that have prevented me from having a good night’s sleep since April. So I started reading the book I was holding, trying to find some sort of reassurance. Whereas many people seek entertainment, and I’d like to be a member of that group more often, I added, I was looking for solace; I was trying to reclaim a lost sanctuary. Everything causes cancer, even being unhappy, told me the Ticket Collector the night before. One should always be careful, I replied, once unhappiness poisons the heart, all sorts of ailments and diseases appear, medieval and new. Books usually provide balm for troubled souls. However, do I have a soul? There’s trouble, no doubt, but perhaps I caught the Writer’s virus and I don’t have a soul anymore, we all know how contagious those things can be and I may have an Unconscious now. It would explain why I’m here, talking nonsense, addressing the Silence, fearing ghosts as the boundaries between reality and fantasy dissolve quietly. It would explain many things. I’d better get back to the book, I said, before the night is over and the day demands the fulfillment of all duties. Besides, this is not a good time to be discussing viruses. This is a bewitched year, I remember the Writer saying once, there is some kind of witchcraft going on.
It was a beautiful night, I could almost hear a melody from a nocturne by Chopin being played not far from here. I’m not the only one experiencing difficulties to sleep, I thought. I returned to the book and suddenly, the Seller of Stories was offering his services again. He insisted on telling me a story, any story. There’s a full moon, he said as he sat on the other side of the bed, and that’s the moon of poets, you’re alone and your soul is filled with longing, and a story might bring you some happiness. A melancholy tone swathed his words; a tone I’ve recognized in every person who carries the burden of their past—everything they failed to be. I listened to what he had to tell. Nevertheless, I had a feeling he kept to himself the most interesting story. A most disquieting one. A quality all literature should possess, according to the Guest I had the pleasure to meet earlier. Well, I haven’t met him per se, I witnessed his meeting with the Writer. I shouldn’t pay much attention to everything the Guest has written, though, since he spent many years hiding behind detached thoughts only to acknowledge, after his death, when most people can’t have an appointment with him and have no more than what has been printed to rely on, that the important thing is to feel. In that same meeting, the Guest said he distrusts literature that soothes people’s consciences, while some people, I responded to myself, turn to books to soothe their consciences, to populate their solitude, to find some answers, to learn how to choose according to the dictates of the heart, that is, to make visceral choices—always the best ones, observed the Writer. Nothing wrong with living in the world of dreams, I thought, as long as that world only belongs to the Night; in order to do any of those things, and for them to have repercussions on our lives, one has to be awake.
Dec 27, 20
* Later on my blog.
I went to bed, it was almost midnight. Three hours later, I was up drinking water and holding a book which I’ve been reading for a few days now and I’m almost finishing, filled with paragraphs that suffocate the reader due to a lack of white spaces, recipes and places that make Portugal proud, rather mundane observations interspersed with the extraordinary, dialogues that disguise themselves on purpose, and underscore the tone of a stream of consciousness but not quite—it’s a hallucination, why would I expect order?, I asked.
As I was holding the book, I knew I would write something about it as soon as I finish it; I kept listening to that voice anticipating things to say. It’s instinct; the way I see it, it isn’t born in one’s mind but in one’s gut. I can’t analyze inspiration; it comes—while turning the pages or two months later—I sit and I write. But I’m not a writer. They write for readers; I write to clear the mind and unclog the heart. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, it must be all those thoughts and responsibilities heavier than mountains, I assumed, that have prevented me from having a good night’s sleep since April. So I started reading the book I was holding, trying to find some sort of reassurance. Whereas many people seek entertainment, and I’d like to be a member of that group more often, I added, I was looking for solace; I was trying to reclaim a lost sanctuary. Everything causes cancer, even being unhappy, told me the Ticket Collector the night before. One should always be careful, I replied, once unhappiness poisons the heart, all sorts of ailments and diseases appear, medieval and new. Books usually provide balm for troubled souls. However, do I have a soul? There’s trouble, no doubt, but perhaps I caught the Writer’s virus and I don’t have a soul anymore, we all know how contagious those things can be and I may have an Unconscious now. It would explain why I’m here, talking nonsense, addressing the Silence, fearing ghosts as the boundaries between reality and fantasy dissolve quietly. It would explain many things. I’d better get back to the book, I said, before the night is over and the day demands the fulfillment of all duties. Besides, this is not a good time to be discussing viruses. This is a bewitched year, I remember the Writer saying once, there is some kind of witchcraft going on.
It was a beautiful night, I could almost hear a melody from a nocturne by Chopin being played not far from here. I’m not the only one experiencing difficulties to sleep, I thought. I returned to the book and suddenly, the Seller of Stories was offering his services again. He insisted on telling me a story, any story. There’s a full moon, he said as he sat on the other side of the bed, and that’s the moon of poets, you’re alone and your soul is filled with longing, and a story might bring you some happiness. A melancholy tone swathed his words; a tone I’ve recognized in every person who carries the burden of their past—everything they failed to be. I listened to what he had to tell. Nevertheless, I had a feeling he kept to himself the most interesting story. A most disquieting one. A quality all literature should possess, according to the Guest I had the pleasure to meet earlier. Well, I haven’t met him per se, I witnessed his meeting with the Writer. I shouldn’t pay much attention to everything the Guest has written, though, since he spent many years hiding behind detached thoughts only to acknowledge, after his death, when most people can’t have an appointment with him and have no more than what has been printed to rely on, that the important thing is to feel. In that same meeting, the Guest said he distrusts literature that soothes people’s consciences, while some people, I responded to myself, turn to books to soothe their consciences, to populate their solitude, to find some answers, to learn how to choose according to the dictates of the heart, that is, to make visceral choices—always the best ones, observed the Writer. Nothing wrong with living in the world of dreams, I thought, as long as that world only belongs to the Night; in order to do any of those things, and for them to have repercussions on our lives, one has to be awake.
Dec 27, 20
* Later on my blog.
Read
June 13, 2017We are all fascinated by our own memories. Think about it. As we get older, we spend many moments tripping back and forth through the years, through the familiar scenes of our lives, revisiting conversations with loved ones, rewriting the script of many of those encounters using the new insights of our wiser and maturer selves. The trick would be to do that beautifully and seamlessly on paper as Tabucchi has done in Requiem where he weaves the memories and conversations of former years, particularly those of dead friends and family, into the present day sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the Lisbon he loves.
November 10, 2013
“My past is everything I failed to be.”
The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa
Memory is made of hope and oblivion resembling a shimmering reflection of vanished beings in the hollow mirror of silence and time, which provides walking paths to shorten the distance between previous but vividly delineated selves and the faint creature one is now.
Let’s invent a universe where to walk slowly on the horizon separating the sky and sea and wire a versed bridge to bring the past forward to the future of current infinity.
“I am dreaming but what I dream seems to me to be real, and I have to meet certain people who exist only in my memory.” (p. 17)
It is from the ambiguous state flowing between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the experience of reality and the perception of dreams that truth is forged and enlightenment is consummated.
A writer’s story within a writer’s biography shaping a mirage of a day spent in a deserted and scorching Lisbon on a last Sunday of any given July.
Unprecedented Tabucchi’s diary as token of the most fervent homage to his beloved Lisbon?
Or a feverish yet fecund hallucination of a middle aged writer product of a transcendental journey?
Either journal or uncanny experience, Tabucchi has a mission to accomplish in Lisbon. An illustrious and befogged Portuguese poet, who makes his apparition only at midnight, waits for him. Blurred and abrupt change of scenarios, from a cemetery to the house of a long deceased friend, stopping by a traditional restaurant that magically gets the silhouette of a cool room of a brothel where the writer takes a nap within his dream, where billiard rooms and demolished lighthouses blend without awkwardness. The shadowy meetings, all random and crucial, are naturally presented one after another in miraculous fashion, albeit without tricks or traps.
Everything is possible in this no man’s land of chimera where Tabucchi writes the unfinished chapters of his life. From an eternal date with the lost love of his life to a tremendously rousing encounter with his young father that will defy fate, passing through “Café A Brasileira” to meet Fernando Pessoa and his multiple unfocused existences, who answer in multilayered echoes “In order to travel it is enough to be” at Tabucchi’s unuttered question.
Memories and phantoms merge in a twelve hours half momentous journey, half delusional trance, in which a lifetime is relentlessly compressed and dilated and past and present commingle to reciprocally give meaning to each other. Dead meet the living in the motionless crevice filled with the absence of time paying homage to the soul of Lisbon, the quintessential city where poets and mementoes smile from the other shore of the river of life.
“Did you fall into the river?, he asked. Worse than that, I said, I seem to have the river inside me.” (p. 21)
Let’s descend to the oldest river in the world where every fractal billow acts as a mirror creating fragmented works of art in the form of self portraits in which one discovers hidden gospel truths when looking at the reflection of another’s consciousness. This is the power of words, of art … of literature.
The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa
Memory is made of hope and oblivion resembling a shimmering reflection of vanished beings in the hollow mirror of silence and time, which provides walking paths to shorten the distance between previous but vividly delineated selves and the faint creature one is now.
Let’s invent a universe where to walk slowly on the horizon separating the sky and sea and wire a versed bridge to bring the past forward to the future of current infinity.
“I am dreaming but what I dream seems to me to be real, and I have to meet certain people who exist only in my memory.” (p. 17)
It is from the ambiguous state flowing between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the experience of reality and the perception of dreams that truth is forged and enlightenment is consummated.
A writer’s story within a writer’s biography shaping a mirage of a day spent in a deserted and scorching Lisbon on a last Sunday of any given July.
Unprecedented Tabucchi’s diary as token of the most fervent homage to his beloved Lisbon?
Or a feverish yet fecund hallucination of a middle aged writer product of a transcendental journey?
Either journal or uncanny experience, Tabucchi has a mission to accomplish in Lisbon. An illustrious and befogged Portuguese poet, who makes his apparition only at midnight, waits for him. Blurred and abrupt change of scenarios, from a cemetery to the house of a long deceased friend, stopping by a traditional restaurant that magically gets the silhouette of a cool room of a brothel where the writer takes a nap within his dream, where billiard rooms and demolished lighthouses blend without awkwardness. The shadowy meetings, all random and crucial, are naturally presented one after another in miraculous fashion, albeit without tricks or traps.
Everything is possible in this no man’s land of chimera where Tabucchi writes the unfinished chapters of his life. From an eternal date with the lost love of his life to a tremendously rousing encounter with his young father that will defy fate, passing through “Café A Brasileira” to meet Fernando Pessoa and his multiple unfocused existences, who answer in multilayered echoes “In order to travel it is enough to be” at Tabucchi’s unuttered question.
Memories and phantoms merge in a twelve hours half momentous journey, half delusional trance, in which a lifetime is relentlessly compressed and dilated and past and present commingle to reciprocally give meaning to each other. Dead meet the living in the motionless crevice filled with the absence of time paying homage to the soul of Lisbon, the quintessential city where poets and mementoes smile from the other shore of the river of life.
“Did you fall into the river?, he asked. Worse than that, I said, I seem to have the river inside me.” (p. 21)
Let’s descend to the oldest river in the world where every fractal billow acts as a mirror creating fragmented works of art in the form of self portraits in which one discovers hidden gospel truths when looking at the reflection of another’s consciousness. This is the power of words, of art … of literature.
October 7, 2018
....life is strange . and strange things happen in life …
Indeed. How to describe this inconspicuous book, this strange dream-like journey through shimmering in the heat city?
The story, which is impossible to tell in Italian and needs Portuguese as the author claims, takes place in July's scorching heat, in some beautiful sweltering emptiness in the middle of siesta time. Narrator, wandering from one bar to another, visiting museum, house where once lived, cemetery, on foot, tram, taxi, meets different people, real and dead, to finally make his appointment with mysterious Guest.
Though, is it all really happening? Does he really traverse Lisbon in this long hot day or is it just a projection of his dreams and memories? Hallucination? What is behind this? Heat, fever, wine?
The story flows lazily, suspended in strange state between the sleeping and waking, acting on our imagination and senses; evokes this strange condition, mixture of melancholy and nostalgia, swathing us lightly as the evening mist, and although that is not a sadness, it triggers your memory and brings on you overwhelming desire and longing for something irretrievably lost. This state of, simultaneously, soft resignation and consent to the passing of the time.
Indeed. How to describe this inconspicuous book, this strange dream-like journey through shimmering in the heat city?
The story, which is impossible to tell in Italian and needs Portuguese as the author claims, takes place in July's scorching heat, in some beautiful sweltering emptiness in the middle of siesta time. Narrator, wandering from one bar to another, visiting museum, house where once lived, cemetery, on foot, tram, taxi, meets different people, real and dead, to finally make his appointment with mysterious Guest.
Though, is it all really happening? Does he really traverse Lisbon in this long hot day or is it just a projection of his dreams and memories? Hallucination? What is behind this? Heat, fever, wine?
The story flows lazily, suspended in strange state between the sleeping and waking, acting on our imagination and senses; evokes this strange condition, mixture of melancholy and nostalgia, swathing us lightly as the evening mist, and although that is not a sadness, it triggers your memory and brings on you overwhelming desire and longing for something irretrievably lost. This state of, simultaneously, soft resignation and consent to the passing of the time.
April 6, 2015
Waiting on line I perspired. Some of those in front, along the winding ess curve of bodies, left while others passed through the entrance. My turn, the person in the booth remained invisible behind the grill and mesh netting. Through a small window slot near the bottom I asked the dark female voice the price of entrance.
“The ability to quickly enter another world with an open mind,” she began her list.
“Unafraid to tour a life racked by the methods of Time’s skill in tearing memory asunder.
The removal of the thinned partition still and stoic in its attempts to divide the imagination from a reality conjured and filled in by imagination.
An acceptance watching the wall’s sudden sway, then collapse.”
I slid the fare into the slot taking the returned ticket to the uniformed guard by the entrance gate. Half bowing he waved me in, white toothed and smiling.
Once, I had been to Tabucchi Land Theme Park. Given time off from the work of life it fell on the holiday of Pereira Maintains. Then, I stepped into a phantasm of the unknown appearing as the every day.
Amongst the myriad din of voices unwinding their typical pauses and spacings, magicians immediately staged themselves on both sides. Using swift movements of their torsos, flash of shoulders and hands whipping into dazzled contortions their phantasm through the use of well placed specifics rendering it believable, partook of the world of the commonplace without a hitch. How it is done, made to look easy, comfortable.
Further on I came upon a row on either side of large rusted black metal barrels. Peering down into one I moved on to the next and then the next. Each was filled three quarters of the way to the top with quotation marks. The she and he saids, were on the other side in identical barrels but scribbled on the outside in rose chalk warned, “Use only to clarify and further rhythm.” Moving on into a corridor, doors to be opened and closed lined the plastered walls leading to staircases winding up and downward.
Each door opened onto a room. Steadfast and plainly set. Shrugging it off I went to leave the first room I entered. The door was locked, the phantasm quietly setting into place. Looking around everything appeared similar. It wasn’t what I saw but a feeling. A feeling the wall began its crumble and dream sifted in. A door painted the same white as the splitting walls opened and a man appeared with two drinks. We sat at a table I hadn’t noticed and talked. When finished he directed me to another door. There stood…yes, may father as a young man filled with questions to grill me. When finished he directed me to another where I found my old friend who had died. Mine or…his. Tabucchi himself, his narrator, or was it me. Confused I no longer recognized the difference. A life was being walked through. Retaken in its ending.
Room after room handed off through the past. Some rooms occupied by those of my present situation which quickly worsened as the corridor split off again. What kind of theme park was this? What was Tabucchi thinking, doing? My thoughts spiraled. There were no signs lit. Choosing either direction might well spin my disorientation into mayhem in this maze. It seemed too far to turn back. Knocking on doors there was no answer. On impulse I chose the path on the left. It grew dimmer. I could turn around and retrace my steps then take the turn to the right. But if I just listened a faint sound simmered through the dark. Barely heard but gradually louder as I stepped on. Then shards of light, widening. But to where? To an opening, the din reshuffled into voices of tears, sobs, mutterings convoluted. Holding my breath and stepping to the flutter of my heart I snaked out into the light. All eyes turned toward me. The sudden silence.
I had returned to the entrance where my journey began. I followed the path, patrons on both sides of me, the bitter-sweet smiles, handkerchiefs dabbing at moist eyes, pats on the back encouraging me on. The exit gate opened for me. I looked back. There he sat. The Poet with legs crossed a hand held briefly up hesitated then waved. I felt my own eyes grow moist and waved back. Passing through the exit gate I heard it click shut behind me. I was alone.
August 15, 2018
August 14, 2018
Review of Requiem: A Hallucination - take 2.
Imagine yourself sitting with your favourite eccentric friend. The two of you are sitting in a comfortable, partially darkened room sipping at glasses of a particularly good port. Silence has reigned for several minutes as you have let the port tell its story. Now your friend breaks in with the story that he has come to tell.
He speaks of a meeting which he arrived at twelve hours too early. “. . . and it was then that I remembered: He said twelve o’clock, but perhaps he meant twelve o’clock at night, because that’s when ghosts appear, at midnight.” And so, with twelve hours to fill, your friend set out to kill some time, perhaps to visit some long lost places or renew some acquaintances and to find some answers to some aching questions. You sit back with your port, prepared to be enlightened and entertained.
Antonio Tabucchi leads us through one of those extremely hot and uncomfortable days in Lisbon and around its environs, one of those days where you cling to every scrap of shade that you see, asking yourself how the local people survive. In the course of the day, we travel with our unnamed narrator as he encounters: a junky in a park, and, against his own values, gives the young man some money; a taxi driver who does not know his way around Lisbon. Because of the heat, he asks the taxi driver to stop so that he can buy a new, dry, shirt as he is soaked in sweat.
He purchases the shirt from a gypsy woman who sells him two fake-Lacoste shirts, plus a self-adhesive crocodile sticker to make it a “genuine Lacoste”. She then reads his palm and gives him what will be the theme for his day.
“Listen, my dear, she said, this can’t go on, you can’t live in two worlds at once, in the world of reality and the world of dreams, that kind of thing leads to hallucinations, you’re like a sleepwalker walking through a landscape with your arms outstretched....”
And so he continues his hallucinatory day, knowing that his his fate is set.
Our narrator now takes us through the rest of his day as he encounters: a cemetery keeper who has trouble seeing because he has a “cataplasm”; the ghost of a former friend, Tadeus; the ghost of Tadeus’s former lover, who has apparently died by her own hand. He also meets the ghost of his father as a young man. The ghost wants to know how he died, so our narrator explains his death from “... cancer of the larynx, which is odd because you never smoked...”
But, I don’t want to retell the whole story. Let the narrator do that. That’s why he’s in the book. I shall skip to the end of the story, to the meeting with the person the narrator was supposed to meet at 12:00.
Of course, if you are a big fan of Portuguese literature, you may have guessed who it was. If not, here’s a hint. José Saramago also wrote about meeting with this same ghost. Got it? Of course, the ghost of Fernando Pessoa. (If you have the patience to read it, you should ask me for my story of my encounters with the ghost of Pessoa back then. But not today.)
Now, to be honest, Pessoa is never named, but who else would Tabucchi, a Lusophile, like myself go to all of this trouble for on such an unbearable hot day in July in Lisbon. And check out this exchange between the ghost/Guest and the narrator:
“Did my company displease you? he [ghost/Guest] asked. No, I [narrator] said, it was very important to me, but it troubled me, let’s just say that you had a disquieting effect on me. I know, he said, with me it always finishes that way, but don't you think that's precisely what literature should do, be disquieting I mean personally I don't trust literature that soothes people's consciences. Neither do I, I agreed, but you see, I'm already full of disquiet, your disquiet just adds to mine and becomes anxiety. I prefer anxiety to utter peace, he said, given the choice.”
There, you see. What could be more Pessoan than a discussion of “disquiet”?
And what do they discuss? Mostly literature. Modernism and futurism and Kafka’s The Trial. Then there’s a short discussion of Pessoa and his girlfriend and the moon. And then he’s gone.
If I haven’t persuaded you to read the book yet, I might add that there is a great deal of discussion of food in this book. Especially food from the Alentejo region of Portugal. I can speak highly of the food from the region because I have enjoyed it myself. And if you get the book, you will have the ability to learn about that food because there are recipes, of sorts, in an appendix to the book. What more could you ask? What’s that? What is the book about? you ask. Well it’s a Requiem, isn’t it. For whom? Read the book, with a fine port, of course.
One last note. If you read the book, you will read about the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller. Our narrator recognizes him from somewhere. Do you know where?
August 10, 2018
When will I ever learn? “Don’t write reviews on the GR site.” Damn. I lost another one. I will rewrite this in a few days when I have regained my equilibrium.
Review of Requiem: A Hallucination - take 2.
Imagine yourself sitting with your favourite eccentric friend. The two of you are sitting in a comfortable, partially darkened room sipping at glasses of a particularly good port. Silence has reigned for several minutes as you have let the port tell its story. Now your friend breaks in with the story that he has come to tell.
He speaks of a meeting which he arrived at twelve hours too early. “. . . and it was then that I remembered: He said twelve o’clock, but perhaps he meant twelve o’clock at night, because that’s when ghosts appear, at midnight.” And so, with twelve hours to fill, your friend set out to kill some time, perhaps to visit some long lost places or renew some acquaintances and to find some answers to some aching questions. You sit back with your port, prepared to be enlightened and entertained.
Antonio Tabucchi leads us through one of those extremely hot and uncomfortable days in Lisbon and around its environs, one of those days where you cling to every scrap of shade that you see, asking yourself how the local people survive. In the course of the day, we travel with our unnamed narrator as he encounters: a junky in a park, and, against his own values, gives the young man some money; a taxi driver who does not know his way around Lisbon. Because of the heat, he asks the taxi driver to stop so that he can buy a new, dry, shirt as he is soaked in sweat.
He purchases the shirt from a gypsy woman who sells him two fake-Lacoste shirts, plus a self-adhesive crocodile sticker to make it a “genuine Lacoste”. She then reads his palm and gives him what will be the theme for his day.
“Listen, my dear, she said, this can’t go on, you can’t live in two worlds at once, in the world of reality and the world of dreams, that kind of thing leads to hallucinations, you’re like a sleepwalker walking through a landscape with your arms outstretched....”
And so he continues his hallucinatory day, knowing that his his fate is set.
Our narrator now takes us through the rest of his day as he encounters: a cemetery keeper who has trouble seeing because he has a “cataplasm”; the ghost of a former friend, Tadeus; the ghost of Tadeus’s former lover, who has apparently died by her own hand. He also meets the ghost of his father as a young man. The ghost wants to know how he died, so our narrator explains his death from “... cancer of the larynx, which is odd because you never smoked...”
But, I don’t want to retell the whole story. Let the narrator do that. That’s why he’s in the book. I shall skip to the end of the story, to the meeting with the person the narrator was supposed to meet at 12:00.
Of course, if you are a big fan of Portuguese literature, you may have guessed who it was. If not, here’s a hint. José Saramago also wrote about meeting with this same ghost. Got it? Of course, the ghost of Fernando Pessoa. (If you have the patience to read it, you should ask me for my story of my encounters with the ghost of Pessoa back then. But not today.)
Now, to be honest, Pessoa is never named, but who else would Tabucchi, a Lusophile, like myself go to all of this trouble for on such an unbearable hot day in July in Lisbon. And check out this exchange between the ghost/Guest and the narrator:
“Did my company displease you? he [ghost/Guest] asked. No, I [narrator] said, it was very important to me, but it troubled me, let’s just say that you had a disquieting effect on me. I know, he said, with me it always finishes that way, but don't you think that's precisely what literature should do, be disquieting I mean personally I don't trust literature that soothes people's consciences. Neither do I, I agreed, but you see, I'm already full of disquiet, your disquiet just adds to mine and becomes anxiety. I prefer anxiety to utter peace, he said, given the choice.”
There, you see. What could be more Pessoan than a discussion of “disquiet”?
And what do they discuss? Mostly literature. Modernism and futurism and Kafka’s The Trial. Then there’s a short discussion of Pessoa and his girlfriend and the moon. And then he’s gone.
If I haven’t persuaded you to read the book yet, I might add that there is a great deal of discussion of food in this book. Especially food from the Alentejo region of Portugal. I can speak highly of the food from the region because I have enjoyed it myself. And if you get the book, you will have the ability to learn about that food because there are recipes, of sorts, in an appendix to the book. What more could you ask? What’s that? What is the book about? you ask. Well it’s a Requiem, isn’t it. For whom? Read the book, with a fine port, of course.
One last note. If you read the book, you will read about the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller. Our narrator recognizes him from somewhere. Do you know where?
August 10, 2018
When will I ever learn? “Don’t write reviews on the GR site.” Damn. I lost another one. I will rewrite this in a few days when I have regained my equilibrium.
March 11, 2019
I have a meeting with a dead poet, but I may have gotten the time wrong, and I keep being diverted. I meet a syllabus of characters: some old friends, some seemingly quotidian. Yet each is unhurried and engages me. I just have an absurd feeling, the idea that I've come across you in a book somewhere, I say to one such. It comes as no surprise then when the waiter at the restaurant says Tonight we have a literary menu.
A hallucination, you say. But I have had dreams like this. And will have.
For the crossing over, maybe. Where we bring our characters with us, like a magnet dragging filings.
A Requiem. The seats fill. By turns, one real, one literary, and one somewhere in between, those special ones only I've imagined.
A hallucination, you say. But I have had dreams like this. And will have.
For the crossing over, maybe. Where we bring our characters with us, like a magnet dragging filings.
A Requiem. The seats fill. By turns, one real, one literary, and one somewhere in between, those special ones only I've imagined.
September 14, 2015
Is Karen in that picture, or is it a hallucination?
March 19, 2024
An un-self-important masterpiece, deeply affecting and yet sheer pleasure to read. A celebration of Portugal and Fernando Pessoa by an Italian who chose to write this most perfect of all his books in Portuguese.
What is it about Pessoa that so excites the imagination? So far I'm not a big fan of Jose Saramago, but his The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (concerning one of Pessoa's key pseudonymic alter-egos) is also brilliant, and for many of the same reasons as this is - funny, sad, playful, otherworldly, with a vivid sense of Lisbon as a setting. Also the painting of Pessoa that graces the cover of Penguin's Selected Poems - have you ever seen a better portrait of a writer?
For whatever reason, Pessoa clearly fascinates Tabucchi, and it will help your understanding of Requiem if he fascinates you too. When I first read this novella roughly 15 years ago I knew nothing of Pessoa, and though the atmosphere stayed with me I found it too cryptic. But by now, the fourth or fifth reading, I enjoy every word of it, and find it anything but cryptic. Every chapter contains a revelation, some so powerful I am left repeatedly in tears. The description of the death of the narrator's father, for example, is heart-rending, and yet still conveyed with the playful tone that appears so easy yet is so rare. In a short preface to the piece Tabucchi explains:
This love of the 'music of the streets' also comes through strongly here. There are over twenty characters in Requiem, all of them sharply-drawn and most of them with names like 'The Young Junky', 'The Taxi Driver' and 'The Barman at the Museum of Ancient Art', and Tabucchi lets their voices fill his work. It's hardly credible that this works, but it does. Taken together, the whole jangling, apparently discordant jumble actually brings forth notes of utter purity. It's real and it's heartfelt, and this reader at least wonders how anyone could ever have the time or energy to write such a thing, despite (or because of) its scarce 100 pages. Rarely is literature this inspiring.
What is it about Pessoa that so excites the imagination? So far I'm not a big fan of Jose Saramago, but his The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (concerning one of Pessoa's key pseudonymic alter-egos) is also brilliant, and for many of the same reasons as this is - funny, sad, playful, otherworldly, with a vivid sense of Lisbon as a setting. Also the painting of Pessoa that graces the cover of Penguin's Selected Poems - have you ever seen a better portrait of a writer?
For whatever reason, Pessoa clearly fascinates Tabucchi, and it will help your understanding of Requiem if he fascinates you too. When I first read this novella roughly 15 years ago I knew nothing of Pessoa, and though the atmosphere stayed with me I found it too cryptic. But by now, the fourth or fifth reading, I enjoy every word of it, and find it anything but cryptic. Every chapter contains a revelation, some so powerful I am left repeatedly in tears. The description of the death of the narrator's father, for example, is heart-rending, and yet still conveyed with the playful tone that appears so easy yet is so rare. In a short preface to the piece Tabucchi explains:
Should anyone remark that this Requiem was not performed with due solemnity, I cannot but agree. But the fact is that I chose to play my music not on an organ, which is an instrument proper to cathedrals, but on a mouth-organ that you can carry about in your pocket, or on a barrel-organ that you can wheel through the streets.
This love of the 'music of the streets' also comes through strongly here. There are over twenty characters in Requiem, all of them sharply-drawn and most of them with names like 'The Young Junky', 'The Taxi Driver' and 'The Barman at the Museum of Ancient Art', and Tabucchi lets their voices fill his work. It's hardly credible that this works, but it does. Taken together, the whole jangling, apparently discordant jumble actually brings forth notes of utter purity. It's real and it's heartfelt, and this reader at least wonders how anyone could ever have the time or energy to write such a thing, despite (or because of) its scarce 100 pages. Rarely is literature this inspiring.
January 31, 2021
I'm almost convinced that I'm never awake. I'm not sure if I'm not in fact dreaming when I live, and living when I dream, or if dreaming and living are for me intersected, intermingled things that together form my conscious self.—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of DisquietHave you ever read a book, and felt that it embodies your 'ideal' writing in many ways? Requiem was such a novel for me—my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami and Fernando Pessoa, as well as other novels such as Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, had made me feel that I wanted to write in a way which mixed dreams, memories and impressions from other times and places with the world of reality, and I had a real glimpse of what that can look like with this story.
As an author, writing is something akin to dreaming while being awake. It's the kind of undefinable experience which lies outside the boundaries of logic.From the very first page of the story, actually, even the author's introductory note and the list of characters preceding that, I knew this was going to be a special book. Tabucchi learned Portuguese to read Pessoa in the original, and the atmosphere and tone in this book, set in Portugal and written in Portuguese as 'a story like this could only be written in Portuguese', for me felt connected to the one in The Book of Disquiet, my all-time favourite book.
I wake up every morning so I can dream.—Haruki Murakami, 2003 interview for Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire
I have to choose what I detest—either dreaming which my intelligence hates, or action, which my sensibility loathes; either action, for which I wasn't born, or dreaming, for which no one was born.I have always been fascinated by dreams. For most of my 20's, I have kept a dream journal in which I write down the lives I've experienced while sleeping. Even in the last ten days, I have been in a dungeon where many cats appeared one by one, consumed three naked women in the form of fried rice and red wine, contested several 1-on-1 battles in soccer with a female schoolmate, and made an assist with the outside of my right foot to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, an Azeri chess grandmaster, been called into a shift at a stall at a carnival by my manager at work, laughed at one of my close friends who stretched his penis up to his face, and had to walk up to the front of the class to demonstrate on a whiteboard, the graph for y = x-(1/s).
Detesting both, I choose neither; but since I must on occasion either dream or act, I mix the two things together.—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams. But it doesn’t last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.—Haruki Murakami, Sputnik SweetheartI have contacted people I haven't talked for years when they appeared in a dream of mine, I've met some virtual Goodreads friends in dreams (even their mothers), and although sleep has never come easily to me from when I was little, perhaps it would be too good a deal if I could visit without any struggle these worlds which often show the infinite possibilities and impressions inside the human condition in a deeper, more truthful and beautiful way than reality in some ways.
Dreaming is the one thing we have that's really ours, invulnerably and inalterably ours. Life and the Universe—be they reality or illusion—belong to everyone. Everyone can see what I see and have what I have, or can at least imagine himself seeing it and having it, and this is...Tabucchi's protagonist goes through his day, where there is no boundary between the ordinary and extraordinary, the past and the present. It reads like nothing out of the ordinary is happening, even though this is far from the case. This is a short novel that could be read in one sitting, but there is a limit to how many dreams one can have in a night, so I savoured the pages over four days.
But no one besides me can see or have the things I dream. And if I see the outer world differently from how others see it, it's because I inadvertently incorporate, into what I see, the things from my dreams that stuck to my eyes and ears.—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, to dream all the time.—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost TimeI was amazed at what Tabucchi managed in 100 pages. The segments, transitions, open ends, conditionals and diverging paths. The characters, conversations, humour, beauty in the mundane, and humanity. A beautiful requiem, hallucination, dream, real life story, and novel—I will be reading more of Tabucchi very soon.
I fused the beauty of dreaming and the reality of life into a single blissful colour.—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, and now also, Antonio Tabucchi, Requiem: A Hallucination
31 January, 2021
March 24, 2019
I slipped right in, what Lisbon is this? I left it behind in the dwindling 19th century, fading out of the age of opera, Carlos and Ega wistfully noting the work of the sands of time and running for the tram. Here we are again, one hundred blooming years later, still smoking cigars and discussing literary trends, so many languages and so many liquids, spending an afternoon staring at Bosch's The Temptation of St Anthony, speaking to so many ghosts. I had heard the word saudade before and now I think I know what it means.
If Requiem is a mass, it is also a strange epilogue to The Maias, uncanny mapping of my reading life onto itself. I must go to Lisbon now, and see if I hallucinate the same city.
If Requiem is a mass, it is also a strange epilogue to The Maias, uncanny mapping of my reading life onto itself. I must go to Lisbon now, and see if I hallucinate the same city.
September 21, 2017
È un fado, malinconico e suadente, a far da colonna sonora di una torrida giornata di luglio a Lisbona, sotto un sole accecante e un cielo "di un azzurro esagerato e distante, come un'allucinazione". L'inconscio ha scalzato l'anima dell'io narrante e la città diventa il luogo di un incontro tra passato e futuro, confine tra un prima e un dopo, di un "sogno" di cui lo stesso protagonista sembra far parte. Le dodici ore in cui si svolge la storia sono popolate da personaggi reali e ombre della memoria, tutti spinti dalla stessa necessità di parlare, di raccontarsi, fino all'incontro più importante, quello decisivo e definitivo, col Convitato/Pessoa.
È un romanzo dal fascino strano, tipico delle storie in cui il tempo si snoda su piani diversi, dilatandosi e comprimendosi in attesa del Convitato, in dodici ore importanti per venire a capo di questioni irrisolte in cui la comprensione del passato diventa la chiave del presente e del futuro.
"Non avrei mai dovuto farlo, dissi io, non consiglierei a nessuno di parlare con i fantasmi, è una cosa che non si deve fare, ma a volte bisogna, non spiegarlo bene, è anche per questo che sono qui".
La luna prende il posto del sole.
"Buonanotte, dissi, o meglio: addio. A chi, o a che cosa stavo dicendo addio? Non lo sapevo bene [...] Addio e buonanotte a tutti, ripetei. Reclinai il capo all'indietro e mi misi a guardare la luna".
È un romanzo dal fascino strano, tipico delle storie in cui il tempo si snoda su piani diversi, dilatandosi e comprimendosi in attesa del Convitato, in dodici ore importanti per venire a capo di questioni irrisolte in cui la comprensione del passato diventa la chiave del presente e del futuro.
"Non avrei mai dovuto farlo, dissi io, non consiglierei a nessuno di parlare con i fantasmi, è una cosa che non si deve fare, ma a volte bisogna, non spiegarlo bene, è anche per questo che sono qui".
La luna prende il posto del sole.
"Buonanotte, dissi, o meglio: addio. A chi, o a che cosa stavo dicendo addio? Non lo sapevo bene [...] Addio e buonanotte a tutti, ripetei. Reclinai il capo all'indietro e mi misi a guardare la luna".
October 7, 2018
What a curious, yet charming book! To begin with, the Italian Tabucchi wrote this in Portuguese. The explanation is simple: he was a teacher of Portuguese language, and also lived and worked in Portugal for a long time. The book is set in Lisbon on a very hot day, or actually perhaps more in a kind of no man's land, or better a Wonderland. For the protaganist, clearly the writer himself, makes a surreal journey through various more or less imaginary places. It is not for nothing that Tabucchi has given this booklet the subtitle of 'hallucination'. Soon he also gives away a reading key, when the storyteller says: "Today is a very strange day for me, I am dreaming but it seems real to me and I have to meet a few people who only exist in my memory". What follows is a curious journey through various places (including a burial chamber) and especially a succession of endless, sometimes absurd conversations, mostly about food, but in the background there is clearly also a personal tragedy, an abortion followed by a suicide is mentioned . In the end, after the encounter with a figure that in everything reminds of the inevitable Pessoa, a feeling of sadness remains, or, to stay in a Portuguese context, of saudade. I don’t normally like surrealist literature, but this wonderful book, which you can read in one hour, is just lovely.
February 9, 2014
http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/7606810...
After completing this quick read I was reminded of my very first sighting of the Chrysler Building in New York City just after coming out of the hole in exiting the subway. I immediately remarked to my companion that day that this building is the one that should really be the Empire State Building. My guide that day long ago got quite a kick out of my country bumpkin statement. But it was true at that time. The magnificence of first lighting eyes on this wildly extravagant building gave me pause to wonder what other structure in this humongous city could possibly be any more remarkable than this one I was faced with? And was not the Empire State Building the one attraction all the tourists flock to? I have since given up that feeling for the Chrysler Building and have grown rather fond of regularly seeing the Empire State Building breaking into view while heading uptown on Broadway. But Requiem: A Hallucination had the same affect on me as that first morning did in New York.
Suffice to say that this book is exactly what I have been looking for between the covers of the two Italo Calvino books I have thus far engaged in. And as dead as Calvino's writing is to me the opposite is true of Antonio Tabucchi. Now, smarter people than I could most likely explain why this is true. But I, for the life of me, cannot begin to try, other than to say I have felt my way through every page of this small gem of a book and nary felt a thing while reading Calvino. So perhaps this a quasi review of both short books, this Requiem: A Hallucination and Calvino's Mr. Palomar.
But how is it that one respected writer can make a reader feel something and another does not, when both use language in which to proceed from? Of course, in a way this is not fair, as Calvino is writing in Italian and Tabucchi in Portuguese, and both works have been translated into English by completely different translators. But even if a foul has been made how is it that the words of one may ring so hollow and the other come to break so deeply in my soul? I am wont to always return to my theory of a writer's personality (or translator's) having been present in the work and that personality being of a person I am attracted to or find extremely interesting. Antonio Tabucchi is one very cool dude. I love the way his mind works, and the people he visits with, whether true or made-up characters in a fictional world made so very real to me. And if this world is not at all of material substance it matters little to me as the dream is one I am attracted to anyway.
This was a short and lovely piece that I wish had not ended so soon for me. But as other readers and admirers of this little book have said, it is one that must be revisited and enjoyed again. In addition I also learned some interesting recipes and was also introduced to the writer Fernando Pessoa, and for that I am grateful again. And again.
After completing this quick read I was reminded of my very first sighting of the Chrysler Building in New York City just after coming out of the hole in exiting the subway. I immediately remarked to my companion that day that this building is the one that should really be the Empire State Building. My guide that day long ago got quite a kick out of my country bumpkin statement. But it was true at that time. The magnificence of first lighting eyes on this wildly extravagant building gave me pause to wonder what other structure in this humongous city could possibly be any more remarkable than this one I was faced with? And was not the Empire State Building the one attraction all the tourists flock to? I have since given up that feeling for the Chrysler Building and have grown rather fond of regularly seeing the Empire State Building breaking into view while heading uptown on Broadway. But Requiem: A Hallucination had the same affect on me as that first morning did in New York.
Suffice to say that this book is exactly what I have been looking for between the covers of the two Italo Calvino books I have thus far engaged in. And as dead as Calvino's writing is to me the opposite is true of Antonio Tabucchi. Now, smarter people than I could most likely explain why this is true. But I, for the life of me, cannot begin to try, other than to say I have felt my way through every page of this small gem of a book and nary felt a thing while reading Calvino. So perhaps this a quasi review of both short books, this Requiem: A Hallucination and Calvino's Mr. Palomar.
But how is it that one respected writer can make a reader feel something and another does not, when both use language in which to proceed from? Of course, in a way this is not fair, as Calvino is writing in Italian and Tabucchi in Portuguese, and both works have been translated into English by completely different translators. But even if a foul has been made how is it that the words of one may ring so hollow and the other come to break so deeply in my soul? I am wont to always return to my theory of a writer's personality (or translator's) having been present in the work and that personality being of a person I am attracted to or find extremely interesting. Antonio Tabucchi is one very cool dude. I love the way his mind works, and the people he visits with, whether true or made-up characters in a fictional world made so very real to me. And if this world is not at all of material substance it matters little to me as the dream is one I am attracted to anyway.
This was a short and lovely piece that I wish had not ended so soon for me. But as other readers and admirers of this little book have said, it is one that must be revisited and enjoyed again. In addition I also learned some interesting recipes and was also introduced to the writer Fernando Pessoa, and for that I am grateful again. And again.
June 18, 2020
"Ah, eu acredito, respondi, pelo menos em certas bruxarias, sabe, nunca se deve sugerir às coisas como é que se devem passar, se não acontecem mesmo."
"As coisas da infância nunca mais voltam, disse eu, é principalmente isso. Pois é, disse ele, é inútil ter ilusões."
"As coisas da infância nunca mais voltam, disse eu, é principalmente isso. Pois é, disse ele, é inútil ter ilusões."
January 21, 2014
Simply beautiful, sad and perfectly poised. Makes me want to re-read Pessoa and re-visit Lisbon...
October 12, 2024
Libro scritto in portoghese da un italiano che non traduce se stesso ma affida completamente la sua scrittura ad un'identità linguistica, geografica e culturale che ha come epicentro Lisbona per interessare poi tutto l'Alentejo. Una fusione di mondi culturali che sono penetrati così profondamente nel vissuto dell'autore fino a creare una sorta di osmosi identitaria. C'è tutto Tabucchi: la passione letteraria, il Portogallo, la dimensione del ricordo, la storia e il suo adorato Pessoa. Sempre interessante e piacevole, Tabucchi.
July 5, 2021
Tabucchi tornou-se um dos meus escritores favoritos. E não é por ter gostado tanto de Portugal, que eu não ligo a essas coisas. Nem por ter escrito este livro lindíssimo em português. É pela verdade que imprimia às histórias, mesmo se o jogo que lhe interessava era entre o real e o irreal, a verosimilhança e a pantomima, a alucinação e o terreno. Não é por acaso que este livro leva precisamente por subtítulo «Uma alucinação», sem deixar de ser um Requiem, se é que uma coisa impede a outra. E apesar do carácter onírico de tudo isto, as personagens habitam o livro de verdade, como se as conhecêssemos de não sei que mundo, como se vivessem autonomamente noutras narrativas e aparecessem aqui por evocação, continuando depois as suas vidas de papel. Maravilhoso texto, diga-se outra vez, que como livro só ganha por ter o ensaio em apêndice onde o autor discorre sobre a origem desta música de uma Lisboa no último dia de Julho.
August 3, 2018
Another of Tabucchi's metaphysical travelogues, this one an ode to city of Lisbon, the delights of regional Portugese cuisine, and, yes, a requiem for a certain Portugese poet. The journey is also haunted by other losses, gracefully held to the ellipses between chapters, a requiem for memory and personal past and all that cannot be undone. Against the scars of what is gone, however, Tabucchi's narrative, with its dramatis personae of symbolic figures and mildly unearthly meeting places, gently allows for reconciliation.
April 8, 2022
Mi verrebbe da definirlo un libro caldo.
C'è una sensazione tiepida che aleggia tra le pagine, il torpore del sogno trasmesso dall'autore. Non riesco a tenere i piedi per terra.
È il primo libro che ho letto di Tabucchi, sicuramente leggerò altro!
C'è una sensazione tiepida che aleggia tra le pagine, il torpore del sogno trasmesso dall'autore. Non riesco a tenere i piedi per terra.
È il primo libro che ho letto di Tabucchi, sicuramente leggerò altro!
August 3, 2025
Річ хороша, але маленька. Шкода, що Табуккі наявний у нас тільки у вигляді пʼєси, яку я поки не збираюся читати.
March 25, 2022
This one really got to me. Haunting, melancholic, and humorous all at once. Spellbinding prose. I read it in one sitting. What a dream!
August 15, 2017
Non è l'ultima domenica di luglio (giorno in cui si svolgono le vicende narrate nel libro), ma ho passato il mio Ferragosto a lavoro (sigh) riuscendo almeno ad approfittarne per leggere questo bellissimo libro. Nonostante la funesta circostanza, sono riuscita a perdermi nelle torride strade di una Lisboa deserta e al contempo sovraffollata dai fantasmi di un uomo pieno di rimorsi, domande e curiosità.
Conosco ormai abbastanza Tabucchi da poter ritrovare nel protagonista di Requiem il suo Io più maturo, lo stesso uomo colmo di interrogativi de Notturno indiano, ma questa volta con un'amarezza più latente, con minori prospettive di salvezza. E lo amo per questo, per aver riconosciuto la sua realtà senza pretese, ma anche (naturalmente) per le sue citazioni e per i suoi continui rimandi a tematiche che, per chi lo conosce abbastanza bene come autore, sono sempre presenti e radicate (forse rischiano di sembrare anche un po' ridondanti). Per lo stesso motivo mi ritrovo a dover privare il libro di una valutazione migliore: non tutti possono apprezzare Requiem, non è un libro universale fino in fondo.
Il tragitto del Tabucchi di Requiem è per altro scandito da personaggi più umani, meno saccenti (tranne per forse due casi) rispetto a quelli di altri racconti, uomini e donne che trasudano dignità e nostalgia, nonché spiccato attaccamento al proprio Paese - con ricorrenti rimandi ad una regione del Portogallo in particolare , Alentejo- poiché questo racconto, comunque, si presenta come un omaggio alla nazione d'adozione dello scrittore. E l'omaggio ne risulta delicato, come lo è anche lo stile della scrittura di Tabucchi. È facile innamorarsi dei luoghi, dei profumi, dei cibi e dei vini che ci vengono presentati con tale minuzia e rispetto da far venir voglia di visitarli - odorarli - assaggiarli il prima possibile, infondendo nel lettore la volontà di perdersi con il personaggio per la città o di divenirne parte egli stesso.
Le atmosfere evocative tanto care a Tabucchi sono cadenzate dalle inquietanti presenze di diversi personaggi che si alternano senza sosta, intervallando i 4 grandi fantasmi della vita del protagonista: Tadeus - Il padre - Isabel (...) - Il Convitato.
Tabucchi era dannatamente sincero e in Requiem ci regala uno scorcio intimo della sua vita senza fronzoli e vergogne. E di questi timori, angosce, curiosità, rimorsi e incomprensioni ne fa un'allucinazione memorabile.
Conosco ormai abbastanza Tabucchi da poter ritrovare nel protagonista di Requiem il suo Io più maturo, lo stesso uomo colmo di interrogativi de Notturno indiano, ma questa volta con un'amarezza più latente, con minori prospettive di salvezza. E lo amo per questo, per aver riconosciuto la sua realtà senza pretese, ma anche (naturalmente) per le sue citazioni e per i suoi continui rimandi a tematiche che, per chi lo conosce abbastanza bene come autore, sono sempre presenti e radicate (forse rischiano di sembrare anche un po' ridondanti). Per lo stesso motivo mi ritrovo a dover privare il libro di una valutazione migliore: non tutti possono apprezzare Requiem, non è un libro universale fino in fondo.
Il tragitto del Tabucchi di Requiem è per altro scandito da personaggi più umani, meno saccenti (tranne per forse due casi) rispetto a quelli di altri racconti, uomini e donne che trasudano dignità e nostalgia, nonché spiccato attaccamento al proprio Paese - con ricorrenti rimandi ad una regione del Portogallo in particolare , Alentejo- poiché questo racconto, comunque, si presenta come un omaggio alla nazione d'adozione dello scrittore. E l'omaggio ne risulta delicato, come lo è anche lo stile della scrittura di Tabucchi. È facile innamorarsi dei luoghi, dei profumi, dei cibi e dei vini che ci vengono presentati con tale minuzia e rispetto da far venir voglia di visitarli - odorarli - assaggiarli il prima possibile, infondendo nel lettore la volontà di perdersi con il personaggio per la città o di divenirne parte egli stesso.
Le atmosfere evocative tanto care a Tabucchi sono cadenzate dalle inquietanti presenze di diversi personaggi che si alternano senza sosta, intervallando i 4 grandi fantasmi della vita del protagonista: Tadeus - Il padre - Isabel (...) - Il Convitato.
Tabucchi era dannatamente sincero e in Requiem ci regala uno scorcio intimo della sua vita senza fronzoli e vergogne. E di questi timori, angosce, curiosità, rimorsi e incomprensioni ne fa un'allucinazione memorabile.
January 7, 2021
There is some strange warmth that pervades the book, which I find very elusive to express in my writing!
But I like to say this. I hardly travel. I haven't been to Portugal, not in any near future; I don't even occasionally drink, though I have tasted alcohol once or twice; I am born and practicing vegetarian with aversion even for eggs (and you have all these in great detail in the book).
This being the case, I still loved every single page of the book!
What could be the reason? I think it is because of the characters ( The Humanness) of the book. And that's why you get to have a sense of contentment as an after-taste once you finish the book.
The author is an italian who wrote this book in Portuguese, and I got to read it in English translation which is not my mother tongue. And yet for all these linguistic gaps and foreignness of the subjects discussed, I was transported to Lisbon, related with characters' concern for their country's decline, met Pessoa, enjoyed their passion for food and drink, debates, hospitality and everything!
If one asks what is the power of literature and what is the point of reading - it is this!
P.S: In Portugal Is tipping considered as being rude?
But I like to say this. I hardly travel. I haven't been to Portugal, not in any near future; I don't even occasionally drink, though I have tasted alcohol once or twice; I am born and practicing vegetarian with aversion even for eggs (and you have all these in great detail in the book).
This being the case, I still loved every single page of the book!
What could be the reason? I think it is because of the characters ( The Humanness) of the book. And that's why you get to have a sense of contentment as an after-taste once you finish the book.
The author is an italian who wrote this book in Portuguese, and I got to read it in English translation which is not my mother tongue. And yet for all these linguistic gaps and foreignness of the subjects discussed, I was transported to Lisbon, related with characters' concern for their country's decline, met Pessoa, enjoyed their passion for food and drink, debates, hospitality and everything!
If one asks what is the power of literature and what is the point of reading - it is this!
P.S: In Portugal Is tipping considered as being rude?
January 14, 2020
Scoperto per puro caso all'interno di una offerta editoriale Feltrinelli, anche questo Tabucchi è stato un'ottima lettura.
E' qualcosa di aereo, di languido, più che un romanzo un racconto lungo estremamente onirico. Quasi la narrazione di un sogno, un'atmosfera che si addice molto bene a quella che in realtà è la cronaca di un'addio, come il titolo stesso comunica molto bene.
Addio a cosa in realtà non viene specificato, probabilmente ad una fase della propria vita visto che parliamo di una sequenza di incontri con persone, oggetti ed opere d'arte che hanno avuto importanza per lo scrittore.
Il simbolismo è talmente profondo che per averne una comprensione corretta occorrerebbe studiare a fondo il contesto e ciò che c'è intorno: disgraziatamente non ho tempo, mi devo rassegnare a godere solo dei piani più superficiali della torta. comunque ottima. Immaginario molto forte del Portogallo e dei suoi scorci, scrittura fluida, periodare per nulla pesante.
Partlando di scrittura: quasi a conferma che si sta parlando di un addio ad una fase della vita e ad una terra, Tabucchi ha sentito il bisogno di scrivere "Requiem" in portoghese: come a confermare che ogni traduzione sarebbe stata di per sè un tradimento, perchè (ne sono convinto da sempre) ogni terra va raccontata con la lingua e la cultura che ha generato. Devo anche dire che secondo me il fatto che la lingua originale sia il portoghese si sente. I grandi esperti di Tabucchi sostengono che questo libro sia un tributo a Fernando Pessoa, che aleggia con la sua figura aerea e cangiante su tutto il libro. Ritornando a parlare di quel simbolismo e quella camaleontica mutevolezza alla quale sono del tutto refrattario, di Pessoa ho letto un solo libro ("Il libro dell'Inquietudine") e non mi era nemmeno piaciuto. proprio non ce la faccio.
Risultato: molto più che Pessoa, nel sottotesto ci vedo molto Josè Saramago, e quello dei migliori. Con questo amore per le immagini, per le descrizioni dei dettagli, per i colori ed i sapori della campagna portoghese, soprattutto Alentejana; ma anche e soprattutto per questi periodi che si distendono lungo la pagina virgola dopo virgola senza voler finire mai, lunghissimi ma ritmati e mai pesanti. L'idea suggestiva non può non venire: questo parallelismo stilistico discende da una influenza (del tutto verosimile) di Saramago oppure è il risultato di una traduzione corretta e ben fatta dal portoghese, che magari tanta melliflua e direi indolente fluidità la ha come caratteristica?
Idea peraltro non del tutto peregrina, se si pensa a come la lingua lusitana suoni in bocca a chi la parla come lingua madre.
Lo svolgersi di un sogno molto ben scritto, che ha tutto per poter diventare l'inizio di un ragionamento su una terra bellissima, il tributo ai suoi grandi scrittori e, perchè no, la cronaca di un malinconico addio.
E' qualcosa di aereo, di languido, più che un romanzo un racconto lungo estremamente onirico. Quasi la narrazione di un sogno, un'atmosfera che si addice molto bene a quella che in realtà è la cronaca di un'addio, come il titolo stesso comunica molto bene.
Addio a cosa in realtà non viene specificato, probabilmente ad una fase della propria vita visto che parliamo di una sequenza di incontri con persone, oggetti ed opere d'arte che hanno avuto importanza per lo scrittore.
Il simbolismo è talmente profondo che per averne una comprensione corretta occorrerebbe studiare a fondo il contesto e ciò che c'è intorno: disgraziatamente non ho tempo, mi devo rassegnare a godere solo dei piani più superficiali della torta. comunque ottima. Immaginario molto forte del Portogallo e dei suoi scorci, scrittura fluida, periodare per nulla pesante.
Partlando di scrittura: quasi a conferma che si sta parlando di un addio ad una fase della vita e ad una terra, Tabucchi ha sentito il bisogno di scrivere "Requiem" in portoghese: come a confermare che ogni traduzione sarebbe stata di per sè un tradimento, perchè (ne sono convinto da sempre) ogni terra va raccontata con la lingua e la cultura che ha generato. Devo anche dire che secondo me il fatto che la lingua originale sia il portoghese si sente. I grandi esperti di Tabucchi sostengono che questo libro sia un tributo a Fernando Pessoa, che aleggia con la sua figura aerea e cangiante su tutto il libro. Ritornando a parlare di quel simbolismo e quella camaleontica mutevolezza alla quale sono del tutto refrattario, di Pessoa ho letto un solo libro ("Il libro dell'Inquietudine") e non mi era nemmeno piaciuto. proprio non ce la faccio.
Risultato: molto più che Pessoa, nel sottotesto ci vedo molto Josè Saramago, e quello dei migliori. Con questo amore per le immagini, per le descrizioni dei dettagli, per i colori ed i sapori della campagna portoghese, soprattutto Alentejana; ma anche e soprattutto per questi periodi che si distendono lungo la pagina virgola dopo virgola senza voler finire mai, lunghissimi ma ritmati e mai pesanti. L'idea suggestiva non può non venire: questo parallelismo stilistico discende da una influenza (del tutto verosimile) di Saramago oppure è il risultato di una traduzione corretta e ben fatta dal portoghese, che magari tanta melliflua e direi indolente fluidità la ha come caratteristica?
Idea peraltro non del tutto peregrina, se si pensa a come la lingua lusitana suoni in bocca a chi la parla come lingua madre.
Lo svolgersi di un sogno molto ben scritto, che ha tutto per poter diventare l'inizio di un ragionamento su una terra bellissima, il tributo ai suoi grandi scrittori e, perchè no, la cronaca di un malinconico addio.
July 14, 2024
Tabucchi’den okuduğum ikinci kitap bu. Daha önce Isabel İçin Bir Mandala’yı okumuştum. Çok severek okuduğum oyunlu bir kitaptı o da. Bu sefer yine oyunlu fakat bir saygı duruşu aynı zamanda. Portekiz denince akla ilk gelen isimlerden birine, Fernando Pessoa’ya bir saygı duruşu. Kitabın isimsiz ana kahramanı Lizbon’da çok sıcak bir temmuz gününde saat on ikide, Tejo rıhtımında biriyle buluşacaktır. Fakat öğlen mi yoksa gece yarısı mı olduğunu bilmediği için Temmuz sıcağında tüm gününü Portekiz sokaklarında dolaşarak geçirir ve kendi deyimiyle geçmişin hayaletleriyle karşılaşır. Hatta bu hayaletlerden biri de Tadeus ve Isabel. O arafta olma halini, sanrı diye bahsettiği şeyi, o fikri çok sevdim. Gerçekliğe kafa tutar gibi bir kitap. Yazarların bu tarz metinler yazması bazen sıkıcı sonuçlar doğurabiliyor bence ama bu nefis bir örneği olmuş. Tabucchi daha çok okumayı istediğim bir yazar.
“İnsan bilinçaltına hastalık gibi yakalanır.”
“İnsan bilinçaltına hastalık gibi yakalanır.”
August 19, 2011
A ridiculously charming novella that is is difficult to describe in a way that gives it justice. The story follows one day (or perhaps one dream) of an Italian walking around Lisbon interacting with both figures from his past and people he meets. It works at many levels: as mediatation on life; a flanneurs travel guide to Lisbon; a collection of rustic Portuguese cooking; a homage to Pessoa; but above all it works as an expression of love by a foreigner of a country he gets to know in a way that only a foreigner can.
January 18, 2018
P. 19-" Nasci no equinócio do outono, respondi, quando a lua está doida e o oceano incha."
July 30, 2025
Zadavila bih ga u njegovoj halucinaciji što je za sebe ostavio susret sa Izabelom koji sam čekala ko ozebao sunce! 5⭐️ svakako, malo možda više 4+, ali nećemo škrtariti u ove teške dane!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 307 reviews