Pereira Maintains

Product Information

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in. Pereira Declares is certainly a work in the high esthetic mode, a historical novel cast in delicately evocative prose and filled with witty references to the great figures of modern European literature. In it Italians could examine their political consciences through an artful image of another country's past. The novel is worth reading not simply because it is ingenious and moving, but because it links politics, commerce and good writing in a way that's rare in this country." - Lawrence Venuti, The New York Times Book Review E dunque, pur non essendo più tra i vivi, regolarmente Antonio Tabucchi vive: lo fa presentandosi coi baffi da dentro le pagine di un quotidiano, partecipe ancora del contemporaneo, mettendo il piede nella porta delle cose che succedono. Come ogni personaggio, fa il pendolare tra la morte e la vita, va avanti e indietro impunemente rendendo visibile ciò che non si vede, trasformando le parole in vita vera, in corpo, in sensazioni.

Pereira, our main character, is a journalist having his mid-life crisis. His wife died a few years ago and he regrets that they never had children. He’s aging, lonely, overweight. He writes about art and literature and seems so disconnected from the political winds that a couple of friends, one a priest, tell him “stop living in another world; go out and see what’s happening all around you.” At night he tells his wife’s photo about his day and asks her opinion about things. The word “maintains” has a defensive quality to it, too. It suggests that Pereira’s account is suspect, but nevertheless he maintains that this is how things happened. It suggests that he’s being accused of something, and is maintaining his innocence. If the novel had been called “Pereira Said”, it would have been very different. “Pereira Maintains” gives a more uncertain feel to the narrative, and heightens the interest. So much can be communicated by just a couple of words, in the right hands. For me, the clever use of this narrative technique was worth the admission price alone. Eu afirmo que é o próprio passado que nos edifica, que permite encarar o presente e que nos garante as pedras necessárias para construir a estrada do futuro. Abitudinario consumatore di limonate al bar, forse farebbe bene a diminuire le frittatine alle erbe aromatiche che lo hanno ingrassato, e forse farebbe bene a licenziare quel misterioso signor Rossi, ragazzo troppo giovane e dalle idee troppo brillanti, dal quale però non riesce più a staccarsi. Le idee hanno aperto nella vita quotidiana di noia e di solitudine che si è costruito una breccia irriparabile, aprendogli gli occhi sul crudele e violento mondo della dittatura, e per un intellettuale non ci sono alibi che consentano di convivere con il sopruso e la prevaricazione di una dittatura.As is the narration by Derek Jacobi. Absolutely fantastic narration. It couldn't be better. Women sound like women. Derek Jacobi is the most talented male narrator of women that I have ever come across. He does secretaries and bitchy caretakers and attractive women, each and every one is pitch-perfect. All the different characters have their own intonation. Each sentence has the perfect inflection to say what the author wants said. I cannot praise the narration enough. The most striking thing about Pereira Maintains is the narrative voice. It’s narrated in the third person, but the two words from the title, “Pereira maintains”, occur regularly throughout the book to qualify what we’ve just been told. For example: Great point about “maintains”– it does remind me of a police testimony. Really casts a shadow over the ending. I didn’t want to discuss the ending in the main post, but since we’re down in the comments I think it’s OK. Alphonse Daudet. Le petit Chose (1868). Contes du lundi (1873). La Dernière Classe. L’Arlésienne (1872).(1840-1897). La trama del romanzo è ambientata a Lisbona nel 1934 durante la dittatura di Salazar alla vigilia di uno dei più grandi disastri della storia. Pereira è solo "un oscuro direttore della pagina culturale di un modesto giornale del pomeriggio". È vedovo, grasso e avanti con gli anni. In seguito alla lettura di un saggio sulla morte, conosce un ragazzo, Monteiro Rossi, a cui invita a scrivere necrologi che non possono essere pubblicati, perché pieni di teorie socialiste e anarchiche e c'è il rischio di incorrere nella censura del regime.

I went to view the remains at two in the afternoon. The chapel was deserted. The coffin was uncovered. The gentleman was Catholic, and they had placed a wooden crucifix on his chest. I stood beside him for nearly 10 minutes. He was robust or, rather, fat. When I knew him in Paris, he was about 50, svelte and agile. Old age, perhaps a hard life, had turned him into a fat, flabby old man. Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special. Pereira Maintains is an excellently written compassionate novel but to my chagrin the main hero is somewhat idealized. Tanmateix, la seva perspectiva comença a canviar quan coneix en Mario Rossi i la seva nòvia Marta, els quals comencen a parlar de termes com justícia i revolució. En Pereira es troba ajudant la parella sense voler-ho, o volent-ho, i una sèrie de fets simbòlics fan que es replantegi tota la seva existència i que s'impliqui fins a límits insospitats.El llenguatge que utilitza Tabbuchi és ideal per evocar l'atmosfera de la Lisboa dels anys 30, escrit amb una prosa preciosa i senzilla, fa que sigui impossible deixar-lo un cop l'has començat. Irving Malin comes to quite a contrary conclusion (in the Review of Contemporary Fiction, see quote above).

Pereira Maintains ( Italian: Sostiene Pereira) is a 1994 novel by the Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi. It is also known as Pereira Declares and Declares Pereira. Its story follows Pereira, a journalist for the culture column of a small Lisbon newspaper, as he struggles with his conscience and the restrictions of the dictatorial regime of Antonio Salazar. Antonio Tabucchi won the Premio Campiello, Viareggio Prize and Premio Scanno in 1994 for the novel. [1] [2] It was adapted into a film, also called Sostiene Pereira, in 1996. Le pagine della letteratura possono coincidere con quelle della storia, se si ha il coraggio di sconfiggere l’indifferenza dei singoli. Martin Luther, for example, divided the world cleanly in two. In his interpretation the spiritual had nothing at all to do with the political. Modern Evangelicals still view existing law as God-given, unless of course they take offence at it. But mostly, middle-class Christians simply accept the inevitability of government and its policies and they adopt an attitude of impotent indifference to the resulting suffering - usually by the less well-off and non-Christians. Commonly they claim to do so in the name of Christianity itself.

Retailers:

An ardent and perceptive Lusophile, the author has neatly contrived both to assume a specific second skin of Portuguese experience during the late 1930s and to present Declares Pereira as something much more general to our shared awareness, a novel about humane responsibilities within a political framework." - Jonathan Keates, Times Literary Supplement Growing apprehension, however, is assisted by something oblique and disjointed in the prose -- the slight lag behind words and phrases experienced even in excellent translations." - Ophelia Field, The Observer Aquilino Gomes Ribeiro.[He was involved in the opposition to António de Oliveira Salazar and the Estado Novo, whose government tried to censor or ban several of his books.] (1885-1963).

The end is not as clear as either of these two reviewers suggest -- possibly they are correct, but there seems no certainty either way (or some other way). Thanks for the comment. Yes, I really liked how Pereira started out that way, living as so many of us do, not wanting to get involved until he has to. Then his gradual involvement in political affairs is very believable – and I’m not sure how Tabucchi managed that in such a short novel! Christian conscience can be a strange thing. The eponymous Pereira feels uncomfortable with the political condition of his country and “... he wanted to repent but didn’t know what he had to repent of, he only felt a yearning for repentance as such, surely that’s what he meant, or perhaps (who knows?) he simply liked the idea of repentance.” Repentance, like salvation, is a personal thing without social implications. The resolution of Pereira’s discomfort, he thinks, is confession and counsel. Political involvement is unthinkable.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Pereira is a lonely apolitical widower… Pereira conforms but at the same time he tries to keep his individuality…