Fado Alexandrino - Antunes

[1001shelf]

Reviews for Fado Alexandrino go here.

[Gail]

An overwhelmingly demanding book by the Portuguese author António Lobo Antunes which starts as a puzzle that the reader must decipher as the voices of the characters begin to tell their stories without much context. Slowly we come to realize that there are four or five soldiers or ex-soldiers who served in Portugal's last gasp war for keeping her colonial presence in Mozambique and they have gotten together in a reunion back in Lisbon after about 10 years. We do not really learn about the "Captain" who most of the stories are told to, so it is not clear if he was in Mozambique or not. It is not even 100% sure if he was physically in the room although there are sentences such as "the soldier leaned over me" which are presumably spoken by the Captain to the reader. So, in a way, there are only four soldiers that we learn about. Although the speakers are labeled by their role or rank, it takes us quite awhile to get to their names and to hear about what they have been doing since returning. Much of their stories center around their love and lust relationships with women and let us just say that not one relationship in the book is a healthy one. The violence and abuse that they observed or participated in in Mozambique follows them back to Lisbon to haunt all their interactions. Their stories build a sophisticated construct of the history of Portugal since just before the 1974 revolution (the Carnation revolution was actually a military coup that was supported by the populace) to the realization that the revolution changed little for the average person in Portugal. Themes include the role of communism at that time in the country, the various class reactions and participation, the PTSD of the soldiers, the horrible mistreatment of women in wartime that haunts the soldiers and all their relationships after their return. It is the kind of book you could read multiple times and still be gleaning more details from it. It has a haunting strange humor and a general tone of complete despair. It was not an easy book for me to read but I gave it 4 stars.

[Diane]

Rating: 4 stars


Not an easy read, but definitely a rewarding one. This is a densely-written novel that seems longer than it really is. The story is told by four different Portuguese soldiers who served in a conflict in Angola. The soldiers came from diverse backgrounds, had broadly different ranks and roles in the war, and vastly different experiences.

[Amanda]

Not an easy read is a good way to put it. It did take a little bit to settle into fully understanding which perspective I was reading from. As well, I did find it a little difficult to stay focused on the prose not because I didn't know what was happening, but because there was something about it that felt a little chore like. I gave it 3 stars because of this.

It does work as an example of how colonialism turns everyone involved in its front line service into someone who is, or has done, something monstrous. The addition of so many descriptions of very not titillating sex acts, the grossness of body fluids and defecation, and dustiness among the blood and violence act with the intention to further express the idea of the absolute debasement of the victims and perpetrators of this war. Sometimes I feel it works seamlessly, and others it comes across as too obviously inserted for this cause.