This new edition in English is almost identical to the one issued in 1995 under the title Pereira Declares, and it grips from start to finish. He discusses with her what he should do about Rossi and Marta, and she seems to urge him on. Hitler, Mussolini and the Pope are supporting Franco’s coup against the Spanish republic, and the Portuguese are supporting the Pope. Possibly an avant-garde review, Pereira is not definite on this point, but with a fair share of Catholic contributors. At the other end, Pereira maintains, there was a moment’s silence, and then the voice said that it was Monteiro Rossi speaking and that he didn’t give a great deal of thought to the soul. Enjoy. It lay elegantly on the sheets beside me. It is also known as Pereira Declares and Declares Pereira. It would seem that Pereira was in his office biting his pen, the editor-in-chief was away on holiday while he himself was saddled with getting together the culture page, because the Lisboa was now to have a culture page and he had been given the job. And if my experience is anything to go by, we love it. At just 15 years old, he […] Pereira in turn was silent for a moment or two, for to him it seemed strange, he maintains, that a person who had penned such profound reflections on death should not give much thought to the soul. We know that the life or death choice Pereira makes has a right outcome thanks to the narrative device that is the title; I got rather irritated with the endless repetition of ‘Pereira maintains…’ after every new bit of the story, but it works to tell us that he is still alive after the ending of … | Free to Read, Consultants’ change fetish is clichéd and confused, Borat returns with Giuliani, Pence and a female accomplice, Why the urban poor will be forced to leave big cities, ‘Bank of Son and Daughter’ could pay dearly for retirement, Wish I were there: the glory of California’s redwoods. The year is 1938; razor and cosh gangs loyal to the Portuguese dictator António Salazar have begun to attack Jews. These words are usually greeted with one of two reactions: bewilderment, which is far more common, or otherwise a delighted and conspiratorial grin. When I looked at it again, months later, I did so as an apprentice. First published in 1994, it is reissued here in a ludic translation by Patrick Creagh. After all, there was only so much ground for the reader to cover between beginning and end. In a word, Pereira got flustered, and he was angry, mainly with himself, he maintains, at having gone to all this trouble of ringing up a stranger and speaking of delicate and indeed intimate matters such as the soul and the resurrection of the body. How, with such serious and pressing concerns, did Pereira manage to be so difficult to put down? 172 Views. My own Pereira habit began a decade ago, in San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore, where an Italian girlfriend suggested I give it a try. When Pereira learns that Rossi is on a mission to recruit volunteers for the anti-Franco cause in neighbouring Spain, he realises he must act. It swept me off to Lisbon in the thirties, to a ‘beauteous summer day, with the sun beaming away and the sea-breeze off the Atlantic kissing the treetops, and a city glittering, literally glittering’ beneath a window. The Portuguese regime is supporting Franco in the Spanish Civil War. The young man, and his beautiful girlfriend Marta mesmerise Pereira, and although he tries to keep his distance and stay aloof, he finds himself drawn into a situation that becomes progressively more dangerous and difficult. My mind will go to the spas and hospitals where Pereira stayed, and I will remember him talking to his wife’s photo. I developed a crush on the character of Marta, so briefly sketched, who in her ‘straw hat’ and ‘dress with straps crossing at the back’ asks Pereira to dance, a waltz he performs ‘almost in rapture, as if his paunch and all his fat had vanished by magic’. That first reading spanned a single afternoon and evening. Before leaving his office Pereira consulted the thermometer, bought at his own expense and hanging on the back of the door. I found my answers in Pereira’s form. Pereira Maintains, by Antonio Tabucchi, translated by Patrick Creagh, Canongate RRP£14.99, 195 pages. Yet Tabucchi’s title character, Dr. Pereira, is like most people, an ordinary person living an ordinary life. It seems to me that Pereira is not yet widely read in English, but holds a heroin-like attraction for those few who have tried it. It was a literary review, though with a section devoted to philosophy. Dr. Peirera, an editor at a second-rate Lisbon newspaper, wants nothing to do with European politics. It is a novel that is a long conversation – with itself and with other novels too. And the voice said: yes? It was not long before I went back to Pereira myself. The constant refrain, “Pereira maintains”, suggests that Pereira is before a courtroom scribe. Pereira hires Rossi to write obituaries, and pays him out of his own pocket, even though the work is unpublishable. The threat of increased oppression now makes neutrality impossible. Thus, the first chapter opens with “Pereira maintains he met him one summer’s day.” In contrast, the second chapter begins, “In the afternoon the weather changed, Pereira maintains.” The repeated usage of a phrase one would expect to see in a report on an interrogation or a formal inquiry combines with the fact we do not know who is reporting this contributes to and helps build an underlying sense of dread and disquiet. What really drives Pereira Maintains. This is a conversation novel with characters on the outside, but the form of writing allows the feel of a long internal dialogue with oneself. He edits the culture pages of a minor newspaper – The Lisboa, and all he wants in the summer of 1938 is to avoid the heat, ignore politics, and lose a little weight. Pereira Maintains elsewhere: “Antonio Tabucchi’s novel about a newspaper editor in 1930s Portugal is a passionate warning against political complacency” The Guardian “The power of this slim book is inversely proportional to its size and modest, unassuming tone” The Independent “It is a novel that is a long conversation—with itself and with other novels too” Jeannette Winterson

Enjoy!


Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi (July/August 2019) 14 20: Jul 24, 2019 08:48PM Reading the 20th ...: SPOILER thread - Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi (July/August 2019) 2 11: Jul 20, 2019 01:21AM Reading 1001: Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi: 2 13: Jun 20, 2019 02:44AM Pereira maintains that Monteiro Rossi muttered he would come to the office that very day, adding that the work interested him, that any work interested him, because yes, the fact was he badly needed work, now that he’d finished at university and had to earn his own living, but Pereira had the foresight to say no, not in the office for the moment, perhaps it was best to make an appointment to meet somewhere in town. Good riddance to a lot of what I thought was normal life, Offices have a future — but what about other workplaces?