The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi
Irving Malin

Antonio Tabucchi. Pereira Declares. Trans. Patrick Creagh. New Directions, 1996. 144 pp. $19.95.

Tabucchi’s latest novel begins with a characteristic paragraph. Pereira, the fat old columnist of a periodical called the Lisbon, is a puzzled critic. He loves literature, lemonade, the photograph of his dead wife, but he is obsessed with death. Although he is “certain” that he has a soul, he cannot believe in “the resurrection of the body.” He thinks: “All that blubber he carted around with him day in day out, and the sweat and the struggle of climbing the stairs, why should that all rise again?” Although Tabucchi doesn’t emphasize his details, he begins to make us aware that this novel is about possible meanings of death and life. His hero will confront their meanings in a new, brutal way.

Pereira soon discovers that the writer he has hired to write obituaries of cultural figures cannot seem to do his job “properly.” Rossi insists on politicizing their lives (and deaths). He makes much of Lorca as revolutionary; he does the same with Mayakovsky. He is “adopted,” nevertheless, because in some strange way he becomes a reflection to Pereira of the son he never had. Although we know that Rossi is a revolutionary, a foe of the Portuguese Fascists—the year is 1938—we are mystified by the fact that Pereira is living “in another world.” He is, indeed, an unknowing “accomplice.”

Thus Tabucchi’s descriptions gradually assume meanings unnoticed by otherworldly Pereira: “In some nondescript square somewhere in the universe, he thought, there’s a fat elderly man dancing with a young girl and meanwhile the stars are circling, the universe is in motion, and maybe someone is watching us from an everlasting observatory.” Pereira does not realize that he is being watched—here and now!—by the Fascists. His “square” is not “nondescript”; he has been described—no, identified!—by Rossi and his political enemies.

Why does Tabucchi stress the word declares? He suggests that, even though we don’t recognize our little rituals, we are, in effect, declaring ourselves to Others! I assume that Pereira finally accepts his “declared” role, his fate, and will, no doubt, pay for his previous, unsophisticated knowledge by having to flee from the country he loves, the past he knows: “Then he fetched a small suitcase, packed the absolute minimum and the file of obituaries, went to the bookshelves and began to hunt through Monteiro Rossi’s passports.” He becomes a new man; he resurrects himself—just in time. And he need not write his own obituary. [Irving Malin]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi Irving Malin Antonio Tabucchi. Pereira Declares. Trans. Patrick Creagh. New Directions, 1996. 144 pp. $19.95. Tabucchi’s latest novel begins with a characteristic paragraph. Pereira, the fat old columnist of a periodical called the Lisbon, is a puzzled critic. He loves literature, lemonade, the photograph of his dead wife, but he is obsessed with death. Although he is “certain” that he has a soul, he cannot believe in “the resurrection of the body.” He thinks: “All that blubber he carted around with him day in day out, and the sweat and the struggle of climbing the stairs, why should that all rise again?” Although Tabucchi doesn’t emphasize his details, he begins to make us aware that this novel is about possible meanings of death and life. His hero will confront their meanings in a new, brutal way. Pereira soon discovers that the writer he has hired to write obituaries of cultural figures cannot seem to do his job “properly.” Rossi insists on politicizing their lives (and deaths). He makes much of Lorca as revolutionary; he does the same with Mayakovsky. He is “adopted,” nevertheless, because in some strange way he becomes a reflection to Pereira of the son he never had. Although we know that Rossi is a revolutionary, a foe of the Portuguese Fascists—the year is 1938—we are mystified by the fact that Pereira is living “in another world.” He is, indeed, an unknowing “accomplice.” Thus Tabucchi’s descriptions gradually assume meanings unnoticed by otherworldly Pereira: “In some nondescript square somewhere in the universe, he thought, there’s a fat elderly man dancing with a young girl and meanwhile the stars are circling, the universe is in motion, and maybe someone is watching us from an everlasting observatory.” Pereira does not realize that he is being watched—here and now!—by the Fascists. His “square” is not “nondescript”; he has been described—no, identified!—by Rossi and his political enemies. Why does Tabucchi stress the word declares? He suggests that, even though we don’t recognize our little rituals, we are, in effect, declaring ourselves to Others! I assume that Pereira finally accepts his “declared” role, his fate, and will, no doubt, pay for his previous, unsophisticated knowledge by having to flee from the country he loves, the past he knows: “Then he fetched a small suitcase, packed the absolute minimum and the file of obituaries, went to the bookshelves and began to hunt through Monteiro Rossi’s passports.” He becomes a new man; he resurrects himself—just in time. And he need not write his own obituary. [Irving Malin]

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