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Pereira Maintains [Paperback]

Antonio Tabucchi
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
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Book Description

21 July 2011
In the sweltering summer of 1938 in Portugal, a country under the fascist shadow of Spain, a mysterious young man arrives at the doorstep of Dr Pereira. So begins an unlikely alliance that will result in a devastating act of rebellion. This is Pereira's testimony.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books (21 July 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1847679366
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847679369
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.3 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 31,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Product Description

Review

A masterpiece --Mohsin Hamid

The most impressive novel I've read for years --Philip Pullman

Close to being a perfect novel --John Carey

Tabucchi now takes his place alongside Irene Nemirovsky, Sandor Marai and Stefan Zweig as one of the great Continental rediscoveries for English-speaking readers in recent years --Daily Telegraph

It goes on getting better in one's head after one has stopped reading it
--Diana Athill

About the Author

Antonio Tabucchi is one of Italy's most acclaimed contemporary writers. Born in Pisa in 1943, Tabucchi is the author of twenty novels and short story collections, nine of which have been translated into English, together with numerous essays and plays. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, he has been awarded many prestigious prizes, including the Prix Medicis etranger for Indian Nocturne and the Premio Campiello, the Premio Viareggio and the Aristeion Prize for Pereira Maintains. Emeritus professor at the University of Siena, he has taught at Bard College in New York, the Ecole de Hautes Etudes and the College de France in Paris, and currently divides his time between Paris and Lisbon.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars 1930s Portugal 31 Jan 2011
By elkiedee VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
This short novel by the Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi is set in Lisbon, Portugal in 1938. Salazar's government at the time was sympathetic to fascism, as represented by Mussolini's regime in Italy and General Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War.

Pereira is a journalist working for a small evening paper and has been asked to set up a culture section. He does not think of himself as particularly political, just a man getting on with a rather dull, unsatisfying job and mourning his dead wife. Maybe he can promote the literature and values he loves without causing any trouble in his new position - he translates a 19th century Balzac story from French for inclusion in the paper.

Then he reads an article by a young man and offers him work, a decision which is going to shake up his life. Monteiro Rossi turns out to be totally set on writing unprintably subversive articles extolling the revolutionary political views of his heroes. Pereira is soon introduced to his attractive and fiercely opinionated girlfriend Marta.

Pereira quickly finds himself committed to supporting these young dissidents and their views, whatever the cost to him. The story is told using the phrase "Pereira maintains" several times on each page - he is trying to explain what happened, as if he was sucked in despite himself.

There is a lot to think about within this book, and it has made me want to find out more about Portuguese history, in the context of Europe in 1938 and the looming war for or against fascism. Pereira has been trying not to take sides, but in the story he feels compelled to take the side of what he feels is right, at any cost. Interestingly, when this book was first published in Italy in 1994, it was taken up enthusiastically by those campaigning against the right wing Berlusconi in the elections there.

I think I will probably try to reread it this year as I'm interested in the themes Tabucchi is exploring and I think I might have missed a lot on the first reading.

This English translation by Patrick Creagh was first published in 1995. This Canongate reissue is a compact and appealing hardback (now also available in paperback or for Kindle) with an introduction by Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, explaining why this is his favourite book.
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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A literary page turner 16 Nov 2010
By D. P. Mankin TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This novel has been described as a literary page turner and having read it I agree totally with that statement. It is immediately obvious why the novel is called 'Pereira maintains' although the reason why this should be so is left ambiguous at the end of the story. Despite the lead character's apparent political naiveté, which seems odd given that he was a crime reporter for thirty years, you do empathise with his situation. In many ways Dr Peirera's own lack of poltical awareness is a reflection of wider Portuguese society in the late 1930s which was very much a dark period in the history of Portugal. This is a world you are drawn into because of the author's skilful writing - in terms of his prose style and storytelling. Both sad and uplifting this is undoubtedly one of the very best novels I've read in recent years.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Antenna TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
This novel demonstrates why my previous policy of avoiding novels translated into English is a mistake. In the same way, to assume that such a short, very readable novel must be lightweight is another error.

Impeccably translated from Italian, this subtly humorous story with a growing underlying sense of menace captures Lisbon in the summer heat of 1938, as Portugal slides into fascist dictatorship on the coattails of its aggressive neighbour, Spain, under the influence of Franco.

Punctuated with the refrain, "Pereira maintains", this is the testimony of a journalist employed in a sinecure to produce the new weekly cultural page for a small newspaper, "The Lisboa". Sunk into a dull routine, overweight and unhealthy, Pereira's life revolves around eating "omelettes aux fines herbes", drinking sugary lemonade at the Cafe Orchidea, and communing with a photograph of his dead wife.

Since he is a humane man with principles, he is gradually forced out of his ostrichlike state by the examples of repression which become increasingly hard to ignore. A carter is murdered by the police for being a socialist, but staff on "The Lisboa" are too scared to report the story in the boss's absence: information on the real state of affairs has to be gleaned from listening to the BBC or obtaining a foreign newspaper. An attractive woman whom Pereira meets on a train confides that she is planning emigration to the US, because she is Jewish. The office telephone system is altered without warning so that all calls come through the nosy female caretaker, clearly a police spy. Yet the main trigger for what a sympathetic doctor calls the "rise of a new ruling ego" in Pereira is the youthful political idealism of a young couple he meets by chance and drifts into helping, with fateful consequences.

Tightly plotted, despite its misleadingly gentle rhythm, the book builds up to a dramatic and effective climax. Perhaps the "last straw" that drives Pereira to take a stand is the extension of censorship and bigotry even to his little page, where he finds himself no longer free to publish his translations of foreign authors, after a piece by Alphonse Daudet is seen by the philistines in power as anti the Germans who are propping up the corrupt Portuguese regime.

This is one of the few novels I would like to retain and reread again, to enjoy all the allusions and observations which you may miss on a first reading in the pressing need to know what happens.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Grace and economy
A simply stunning performance, a growing sense of menace, lives and politics hurtling along, seen through their eyes of a gentle, quiet arts editor. Read more
Published 4 days ago by L. Spence
2.0 out of 5 stars Too many omelettes
I simply was'n't at home with this book and had to struggle to laugh at the jokes especially as they were all the same: a kind of literary version of Ravel's "Bolero".
Published 29 days ago by martyn dyer
5.0 out of 5 stars a clever, humourful yet serious, beautifully written tale,
Masterty account of the transformation of an anti-hero without a word wasted.

I maintain that Tabuchi is a minor genius.
Published 3 months ago by Rowland Atcherley
4.0 out of 5 stars A good read!
Very well crafted book which skillfully takes the reader along with gently related events and mullings over life, religion, fascism and food (among others). Read more
Published 5 months ago by foeser
4.0 out of 5 stars Totally Original
As far as I know this is a new way of writing -as if the subject was being interviewed. I would give it five stars except that the Title is slightly irritating, and there are too... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Booklover
4.0 out of 5 stars Portuguese Men of War
PEREIRA MAINTAINS
Antonio Tabucchi

Pereira Maintains as its title suggests is a narrative at one remove from a personal document. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mr. D. James
4.0 out of 5 stars Pereira Maintains
Set in pre-war Portugal, Pereira Maintains is about Dr Pereira, editor of the culture pages of a mediocre weekly newspaper, ageing and lonely and struggeling with his health. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Book 1981
3.0 out of 5 stars A teaser on life in pre-war Portugal
My first thoughts on this book were, why put an introduction in that puffs it up so much? Are readers today really not to be trusted or allowed to make up their own minds about a... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Neil Russell-Bates
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
I had read very good reviews of this book but although I read it in a very short space of time, I am not enthusiastic about it. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Tissue
4.0 out of 5 stars Pereira Maintains
Pereira Maintains is a quirky and yet very refreshing novel, that describes a time in Portugal's history which is not widely documented. Read more
Published 13 months ago by AndyD
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