The Portuguese Soul: "As Naus" by António Lobo Antunes

Published 1988.

Wenn ich dieses Buch in fünf Minuten zusammenfassen könnte, was könnte ich schreiben? Der Versuch den Inhalt des Romans auf weninge Sätze zu reduzieren, ist es sehr schwer.

Camões wander durch die Strassen von Lissabon und schleppt den Sarg mit dem Leichnam seines Vaters mit sich – für mich ein Symbol für das portugiesiche Weltreich. Ich könnte hinzufügen: stellen Sie sich einen Camões vor, der durch “Lixboa” streift und in einem Sarg seinen verwesenden Vater mitbringt, einen Pedro Álvaro Cabral, der nach seiner Verflucht aus “Loanda” nun von dem “Milizen der UNITA” verfolgt wird und sich von seiner Frau, einer dunkelhäutigen Prostituierten, aushalten lässt, einen Heiligen Francisco Xavier, der als Zuhälter arbeitet, einen Pater António Vieira, der in betrunkenem Zustand Predigten halt, einen pensionerten Vasco da Gama, der dem Kartenspiel verfallen ist und mit einem König D. Manuel, der eine Blechkronte trägt, in einem rostigen Ford Cabrio durch die Stadt fährt, der wahnsinnige D. Sebastião ist ein Drogenanhängiger, der in Tanger von Oskcar Wilde in seinem Streit um eine Beutel Gras niedergestochen wird und stirbt usw.

Die Handlung des Romans entwickelt sich auf zwei Ebenen: einer realer als Ausgangspunkt, welche die Geschichte der zahllosen Heimkehrer erzählt, deren Habseligkeiten am Ufer des Tejo verstreut herumliegen und einer fiktiv-historischen Ebene, die unablässig um die Symbole aus dem glorreichen Zeitalter der Entdeckungen kreist und ebenso wirkliche wie barocke Bilder aus fünfhundert Jahren portugiesischer Geschichte kreiert. Ein Aspekt der ersten Ebene, dem besondere Aufmerksamkeit gezollt wurde, ist die implizite Kritik an der überstürzten und chaotischen Art und Weise, in der sich der Rückzug aus den Kolonien nach der Nelkenrevolution abgespielt hat.

Es Geht in dem Roman umm eine Karnevalisierung der poretugiesichen Geschichte. Lobo Antunes verknüpft in seinem Roma Figuren, Orte und Gegenstätande aus verschiedenen zeitlichen Zusammenhängen und lässt einen fragmentarischen Diskurz entstehen, der von einem, nicht selten durch Alkohol bei den Erzählerfiguren ausgelösten, stream-of-consciousness gekennzeichnet ist. So erzeugt der Autor seine Halluzinatorischne Atmosphäre. Immer wieder wurde zudem auf Parallen zu Faulkner in Lobo Antunes’ Erzähltechnik hingewiesen. Ich hebe dioe besondere ästetische Qualität der Prosa von Antunes hervor, die aus dem “Chaos” in Grammatik, Erzählperspektive udn Chronologie entstehe.

Die Schlussszene. Mit der Lobo Antunes "As Naus" ausklingen lässt, ist von entscheidender Bedeutung für das Verständins der ideologischen Vorstellungen, die dem Roman zugrunde liegen. Faulkner hat die Weissheit mit Löffeln gefressen: “The past is never dead, it's not even past“(Die Vergangenheit ist nicht tot, sie ist nicht einmal vergangen”)

NB: Ich musste dieses Buch noch einmal lessen, diesmal auf Portugiesisch…Nächstes Mal vielleicht auf Deutsch…oder auf Englisch…

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E tinha de escrever algo em Português: querem perceber o que significa ser português? Um livro intenso, poético e original. A alma portuguesa, embalada pela glória do passado, arreigada no presente inesperado, imerecido, esquivo. Uma nação, um povo, prisioneiro nos meandros da saudade, regressado a si mesmo, de si mesmo desconhecido, rejeitado. Soberbo.

(And I had also to write something in Portuguese: do you want to glimpse what it means to be Portuguese? An Intense, poetic, and original book. The Portuguese soul, lulled by the glory of the past, rooted in the unexpected, unmerited, and elusive present. A nation, a people, prisoner in the intricacies of nostalgia, left to its own devices, unknown even to itself, rejected. Superb.)

If anyone out there wishes to buy it, can find here a superb English translation by none other than the also superb Gregory Rabassa (one the greatest living translators of Portuguese literature into English).

In my view, António Lobo Antunes is the most German of the Portuguese authors. Every time I read him, I get the feeling I'm reading a translation from German into Portuguese...I think it was Harold Bloom who said Lobo Antunes is one of the living writers who will matter most in the long run. Now that we come again to that particular time of the year, it always surprises me why José Saramago won the Nobel Preis in Literature and Lobo Antunes didn't. Alas, the ways of the Nobel Prize committee are inescrutable...

Hell on Earth: "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by by Gabriel García Márquez

(Original Review, 1981-02-27)

I love One Hundred Years of Solitude, in my top three books. When I first read it, it was quite confusing, with all the names the same - and so sad and funny. Not to skip ahead, but I still remember that none of it really made sense until I read the very last page - and then I understood everything in a kind of revelation - I'd never had that feeling before nor since with any other book, and that is why I think it has stuck with me all these years. Sometimes, if I see it in a book store, I just read the last page - but it's never the same.

The characters are trapped in their family history. Marquez frequently uses animal imagery or comparisons to characterise the humans as they are consumed by passion or vice of some kind - similar to a 14th Century view of the world that man is below the angels and above animals unless they give way to sin or vice of some kind. There is a kind of hell on earth feel to the book the more I think of this. The wheel of fortune is always turning and people will always fall from hope into despair. Progress often leads to ruin and the search for knowledge consumes. There's very little human contact other than the obvious! When Fernanda and Aureliano Segundo put Amaranta Ursula on the the train, they briefly touch which is unbearably poignant. People are lonely and wall themselves up away from others metaphorically and literally. There are lots of echoes of literature generally.

The lessons-to-be-learnt-by us-all were there all the way through the book and the magical element and humour kept the reader slightly apart and somewhat protected from the horrors of human behaviour. I loved the ending where it all came full circle and they weren't even looking out for the poor baby!

Here is an alternative view behind Garcia Marquez use of magic and surreal in his stories. His fiction is full of humour and warmth without skimming over the more unattractive aspects of human behaviour. He used humour AND fantasy as a tool or a means of looking at those aspects of life which are difficult to absorb or understand. Make no mistake, they are savage commentary on politics and human nature but without the humour and fantasy to lighten the touch they are almost impossible to absorb. To him fantasy and magic are simply a way of trying to explain the unexplainable, not everything in life has logic and solution or clarity. This is his message and he was brilliant at doing so as it also captures our imagination. He was deeply embedded in the Latin American culture where the unexplainable was often attributed to fanciful gods of nature. Much like the Greek classical myths with Hydras and Minatours and so on. If you read the texts in Spanish and understand the Latin American humour, amongst the horror they have comic moments which are very funny. A sort of "suicide bunny" black humour is very much there in the background. This is very typical Latin American. Just because it is magical and funny doesn't make it not serious in intent.

I accept that this is a world apart and from a different era and I think Marquez uses a different kind of language to report the unsettling which makes this startling. Although it's a grim book, it has a huge amount of humour in it. It's a roller coaster of a ride that is always startling and powerful. Perhaps, one needs to understand that the point of good literature is not to portray society as "what it assumes itself to be", but rather "what it actually is". So if some readers or reviewers are discomforted by reading a portrayal of the true nature of human societies, and on the basis of that discomfort, judge the author as "strange and magical"; they need to reserve their judgments till they attain full maturity.