Fado Alexandrino

by António Lobo Antunes

Five veterans reunite to tell the stories of their lives before, during and after the revoluton that overthrew the Salazar dictatorship

Genres: Fiction, Portugal, Portuguese Literature, 20th Century, Literature, Novels, Literary Fiction

497 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

At the age of seven, António Lobo Antunes decided to be a writer but when he was 16, his father sent him to medical school - he is a psychiatrist. During this time he never stopped writing.
By the end of his education he had to join the Army, to take part in the war in Angola, from 1970 to 1973. It was there, in a military hospital, that he gained interest for the subjects of death and the other. The Angolan war for independence later became subject to many of his novels. He worked many months in Germany and Belgium.

In 1979, Lobo Antunes published his first novel - Memória de Elefante (Elephant's Memory), where he told the story of his separation. Due to the success of his first novel, Lobo Antunes decided to devote his evenings to writing. He has been practicing psychiatry all the time, though, mainly at the outpatient's unit at the Hospital Miguel Bombarda of Lisbon.

His style is considered to be very dense, heavily influenced by William Faulkner, James Joyce and Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
He has an extensive work, translated into several languages. Among the many awards he has received so far, in 2007 he received the Camões Award, the most prestigious Portuguese literary award.

Reviews

[Guille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Debo confesarlo, me da pereza empezar un libro de Lobo. La razón es simple, sé lo que me voy a encontrar. Pero justo ese saber es lo que me hace volver a él una y otra vez y ser testigo nuevamente de su necesidad de catarsis.

Lobo es como esos futbolistas excepcionales que aun sabiendo por dónde te atacará, como te regateará y hasta en qué momento lo hará, consigue pasarte tal cual lo sabías. Y no es que sea fácil leer a Lobo. Él decía que sus novelas había que aprehenderlas como el que es contagiado por una enfermedad, y efectivamente, hay que dejarse infectar por su lírica, por el entrecruzamiento de voces, modulaciones de una misma voz, por los vacíos, por la prevalencia de la forma sobre el fondo -la historia es lo que menos le preocupa al autor y lo que menos tiene que preocupar al lector que deberá esforzarse por encontrar las claves que la narración propone-, por sus letanías y repeticiones, por el ritmo y la música que de ellas surge, por las imágenes que se entrelazan en una misma secuencia potenciándose unas a otras, por los personajes que se mueven entre las escenas que forman un continuo, de un presente a un pasado, de un pasado a un sueño… Sí, da pereza empezar con Lobo, pero una vez empezado da rabia tener que parar y pena llegar a la última palabra.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grandmaster of Metaphor

Trying to come up with the right word to describe Antunes' prose is difficult. Any comparisons are superficial, but I'll mention all the writers he resembles in minor ways. The best single word I could find was "tintinnabulation." That's what his words do. They rattle around in your head, slide around like unsecured luggage on a freighter, jostle and chortle, and crowd one another out, the images swarm, magnify and recede, searing your mind, and continually, and over and again, tintinnabulating until you're terrorized, barreling forward into Surreal, fractured heavens and hells.

At times I was lost, groping through the text, wall-eyed with indefinable sensations. The difficulty level bordered on Faulkner's Absolom, Absolom! at first, but I could feel the blockage loosening up. The dams eventually burst and the rollicking, hedonistic, rambling, phantasmagoric words flooded in with Biblical insistence. The author's intrinsic reliance on crunchy, noodling metaphors within metaphors sold me on the style, but it took practice to acclimatize myself to the hailstorm of his method. Having read The Land at the End of the World, I immediately bought all 13 volumes of Antunes currently available in English. Fado Alexandrino is a doubly forceful encore to that book, vaster and braver and more insane in every way. His prophetic images, nuanced through bodies and minds, his visionary texturing of layer upon layer of perspective, the imagination, the absurdist comedy, the deep pathos, the bloody violence, all congealed into a twisted nightmare. It took me far too long to read. At times I recoiled, gasping, but I always dove in for more.

The book takes place in a restaurant so splattered that the colors all run together. The men who tell their stories here are tied together by the tragedies of war and the semblance of lives they lead afterward, some politics intrude, reality blends seamlessly with their words - it is sometimes impossible to tell if a line is spoken aloud by a character or not, since quotation marks were missing from Antunes' typewriter. There is an astounding richness of diction, an abundance of syntax that is most inspiring, a Nabokovian variety of descriptions, endless clarifications, and haunting, Kafkaesaue flights of fancy all intricately interwoven with contra-textual interpolations, until it becomes a fabric of dispossessed, roiling, shamanistic visions, belligerent speculations, Borgesian depths of irony and allusion, an ever-deepening darkness, a whirlpool, spewed out by the most expressive, articulate of cynics, amid the most entertaining and gruesome business of warfare, as he warps mentally between Mozambique and Lisbon, cradled by his whores, the narrator, abysmally in his cups, indulges in luscious flashbacks, which layer the novel with a hazy filter.

It is a book to be treasured, devoured, regurgitated, and savored repeatedly. It is sustained dementia, a mesmerizing panoply of humanity's willy-nilly selfishness. It's mind-boggling to conceive how Antunes' brain concocted all of this controlled chaos. The riveting imagery makes for an immersive experience, as crowded as an Altman film, with "the strange toothache of nostalgia," fading in and out, coupled with effective motifs and repetitions, as the characters "vomit out the sea."
It is an interior sea, as detailed and manic as Javier Marias at his best. The sea of human emotion and strife, language as a liquid, solidifying around them. The narrative flows. The chapter divisions become almost meaningless, but stopping reading is like coming up for air before plunging back down into an ocean of grease. It meanders, digresses, diverges, submerges you. You have to succumb to the galloping rhythm if you are going to make it all the way through this monumental work.

Schizo-phrenetic, with constant interruptions, confusing jump cuts and scene changes, often mid-sentence - just roll with it. It's a sophisticated form of impressionistic storytelling. The environment is constantly personified, wilderness mingles with urban settings, nurses become creatures, and the wildest illusions intrude into the mundane conversations of night club drifters. Get used to the feel of mud, insects, rot, destruction, toads, make way for sex, murder, strangulation, erotic fixations, bursting pustules everywhere, simply everywhere, war-torn landscapes of the mind, stumbling, delirious soldiers, and obviously, death as a hovering omniscience. Antunes is as acerbic as Céline, but somehow dignified in his irreverence. His prose is always biting, pissing and scratching as it scrambles through labyrinthine paragraphs, you are grabbed, manhandled and left in a slowly drying pool of excrement. The book is truly fecal in texture, with elephantine horrors sliding across the page, dwelling too long under your nose, dribbling over your mind, leaving a definitive, tongue-shriveling aftertaste, at times deliciously repulsive. Reminiscences manifesting with lucid detail, scenes morphing into still-lives, memories metamorphosed into fossilized hangover hallucinations - these are the corridors of this literary convolution. Remarkably, it is crystalline in structure, and gem-like metaphors sprout in abundance: "The washing machine was sobbing away at its work." - Hundreds of profound observations about the state and nature of objects and environments parade through the narrative, every character is caught with their pants perpetually down, trailing afterbirths, or excrement, like baffled fish in the grit-smeared tank of Antunes' mind.

The squelching, magnificent simile-metaphor sandwiches are to be re-read endlessly, like the following - "Madam Simone, hand-in-hand with the fellow in a red jacket, came back on stage rolling her ancient body with all the grace of a locomotive, and bending over in an awkward bow that made the vast withered mass of her mammaries pop out like cartilagenous heads of twins peeping out and hanging down in the course of a birth."

How could you not read this?

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I love Lobo Antunes!" I hear myself say.

"Why, what are his books like?"

"I don't know really. I don't remember much except the fact that they were music in my head when I read them and then they left me content that there still are word magicians out there spinning unbelievable tales of condensed and rich truth..."

No, I didn't say all that. I said something a lot more prosaic, with a lot of gap fillers and "ehs" and "ohs". For truth is, I don't remember Lobo Antunes much and can't make a case for an author I read a long time ago, if it is not for that vague aftertaste of brilliance that has lingered in my consciousness long after the book disintegrated into a random pile of letters in my memory.

If I had a memory as rich as the novel I don't remember, I would stand on my soap box and advertise it loudly and clearly and eloquently.

But I don't. So I won't. The book will have to stand up for its own right to be read and cherished and forgotten and remembered...

[withdrawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second read. As is my habit, I shall not attempt to summarize the story, just my take on what it is about.

A brilliant novel by Portuguese author, António Lobo Antunes. Fado Alexandrino is an alcohol fuelled crawl through Portugal’s colonial wars, the Carnation Revolution, and the post-revolution period, all portrayed in their hideous glory.

As with all of his novels, the author takes his readers into a world of violence, sex, drunkenness, hatred and love. Simultaneously, he has created a work of genius in which the conscientious reader can discern the pain and the confusion in the stories of each of the central characters. Most importantly, he has left this reader, at least, in a story filled with deprivation, disgust and humour, with a deeply felt sense of empathy with the human condition.

At the end of the book, I found myself wondering if, given the circumstances of each of their lives, I would have been able to overcome a similar fate, a fate which, on the surface seems to be so easily avoidable. As with all of us, each character wants to be understood, wants to understand, wants to simply live - what? - the good life? Don’t we all?

This is the story of five men who gather to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their return from the war of counter insurgency in the then colony of Mozambique. They are the soldier, the communications officer, the second lieutenant, the captain, and the lieutenant colonel. During the long night of talking, drinking and whoring, each relates, often in painful detail, the circumstances of his life. Only four of the characters are speaking. The fifth is generally the one being addressed. Often they are speaking over each other, not paying much attention to what the others are saying. Often they are confused, bewildered, distressed by another’s story. Typical human communication.

But I shall leave it those of you who decide to read the book to discern the story. Keep in mind that António Lobo Antunes wants to portray people as they actually feel and behave, so it is not always easy to sort the characters out. Also, as the characters speak, events do not always unfold chronologically.

Also, note that the book is divided into three sections, each with four chapters. Thus, each character is given three chapters to tell his story in each section (but it’s not always that simple.). If you take on this wonderful challenge, I would suggest that you make a list of the four characters then write down the various names they are given throughout along with the events and the women in their lives. You may also wish to list the names of the women as they come up and be on the lookout for those known by different names. This is probably not at all necessary for those not addled by old age (as I am.)

Do read it. It is a very human, even touching, story with lots of heartfelt humour. António Lobo Antunes does a wonderful job of putting us in touch with our inner humanity. Really.

[Bogdan]

All long, happy-ending novels are the same; each never-ending prose masterpiece is a “novel” in its own way.[1]

Any of these latter — Петербург, Voyage au bout de la nuit, Horcynus Orca, Wergeland-trilogien, 2666, Europe Central, Monde vor der Landung, Сабакі Эўропы, etc.[2] — bend the framing term “novel” with a unique implosion of “narrative” — let’s call it that for lack of a better substance name. There are more word- than possible chemical combinations, and the former can truly transform that “world” Wittgenstein was referring to when he wrote: “Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt” (“The limits of my language ‘mean’ — or determine — the limits of my world”).

For the grit of its canvas and for the style in which it is woven and sung, for its fury and sound, Fado Alexandrino is as raw as prose and as fine as music can be. This book not only abounds in scenes of rough sex, violence, and war — all against the background of extreme poverty in Mozambique during Portugal’s colonialist conflicts there, in the decrepit décor of Lisbon under Salazar, and into the meat of the Carnation Revolution that put an end to the dictatorship only to bring a disappointing democracy —, thanks to a narrative technique that goes back and forth in places and times, often without a change of sentence or paragraph, there is simultaneously much violence, war, and poverty in sex, or much sex, ultraviolence, and poverty in war, or much poverty in sex, violence, and war, and so on, in the crazy carousel of this narrative driven by mad matrioshka sentences, where the images of war–sex–violence–poverty constantly pop into and out of one another. In this hyper-novel, time-space is twisted in an endless wormhole of chained simile-metaphors, where going to a brothel can be at once like attacking a village in Angola ten years ago and starting the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon in the following months.

Finally, there’s the “banality of evil”, but also the casual kindness of human beings — or vice versa. What does this amount to at the very End of History, when all conclusions and moral comforts are drawn from resentment, resignation, or total disillusionment?

A war veteran as doctor, a psychiatrist by profession and, by vocation a film director in prose, Antunes shows that, also on the scale of his characters, scenes and descriptions juxtapose in a swift, fading cinematic montage, or a collage of mixed places, persons, actions, and memories that all together mirror an ongoing inner and outer catastrophe that has man as both subject and object. “I am in Lisbon, yet I am in Mozambique now,” says one of the voices in this book, the soldier who came back from the war. At home, he’s a stranger now; nobody wants him there. He has to sleep the very first night in a dilapidated hotel, where the bed shakes under him and the rectangular ghost of the window travels on the ceiling in the noise of the night trains. To give another example, in a sentence that has a travelling-shot movement worthy of Antonioni — see the ending of The Passenger — but also with a touch of Pasolini in it, the narrative camera moves, in one place, from the bed where two lovers are entangled to the street where the garbage is being gathered…

For a retired lieutenant, the bed is a battlefield, where he sees the woman he now has sex with as an anonymous foe he once massacred in Mozambique, or as a child he bought there — a girl barely approaching pubescence, whom her own brother sold to him, after rolling the good merchandise of her small naked body on the beaten earth floor to advertise her virginity while negotiating the price. That beaten earth floor is now the bed, the body of, and the spot where the conflicting consciousness of the lieutenant rolls on.

Are you afraid of the Lobo now? (“lobo” means “wolf” in Portuguese.) You shouldn’t be. If you're a conscious citizen of this collapsing world, and a connoisseur of its fleeting beauty, you can only be charmed by him. If you can not not love — while despising — Céline for all the right reasons, you will simply love this amoral, verbose virtuoso. While influenced by both Faulkner and Joyce, it’s somewhat easier to enjoy the unique style of António Lobo Antunes, despite its density. He creates an atmosphere that seems to be the actual main theme of this novel, which isn’t centered on any plot: within it, the streaming lines of consciousness cross each other like those in a cubist painting — with all the unexpected spatial and temporal perspectives they open and close —, but these lines don’t form a labyrinth in which you have to be very careful not to get lost; you always have the big picture in mind: the large canvas of this novel, with the music of its lines.

I can assure you that the four main figures are more lost in their entangled destinies than you will be as a reader, observing the whole picture from above. There are these longer passages where the four men, back from the war in Mozambique and, once again, after the revolution, desperately seek to recreate their shattered lives — in their homes, at work, on the streets of Lisbon. But it all goes back and forth, and in fragments, just like the so-called real life has a tendency to do, too. The Weltanschauung orchestrated by the four lost men seems to be that of a multiple dead end, but the style and composition of the narrative make all the lines meet in a strange and subtle harmony. If ever Dostoevsky’s Idiot was right, here “Beauty saves the world” (Красота спасет мир). And only it.


The music genre called fado originated somewhere in the vast colonial landscape of Portugal, in Brazil, where it was (probably because of the warmer climate) a rather light and joyous music before it turned into urban folklore some late autumn in Lisbon, where its tune became melancholic and the verses more complex and finer. Typically, there is one singer singing his or her “fate” (which is what the word fado means), in what are some sort of modern ballads, because the rhyming text tells a story — and that is what primates over the music line, which has to follow the rhythm of the words. These almost narrative lyrics, which tell the sadness and nostalgia (in one word, the saudade) of the singer, have, throughout the years, inscribed themselves more and more consciously into the long tradition of the European poem, and fado eventually attained, in one of its most complex forms, the alexandrine measure, which since ancient times was the most favoured for the oral epic. The measure is used, nevertheless, very freely in the so-called Fado Alexandrino, which might respect the syllable count but gives it a new, quite irregular rhythm.

It is also what António Lobo Antunes does here: taking the measure of the great historical and social European novel and breaking all its rules in this late modernist experiment, creating a beautiful monster, a sublimely chaotical composition where four figures hunt the text as they are caught in between three worlds and times — as spectres of a futile colonial war and strangers at home in the fascist Estado Novo and after the flowery revolution. Their voices endlessly sing the Alexandrine fado like four streaming, interlapping, mixing, and at last collective consciousnesses that, in their immense melancholy, transcend the local, the social, the historical, to show us, in a glass darkly, a polyphonic portrait of all that is human, all too human.

In this novel, António Lobo Antunes brings the fado phenomenon to its inner and outer limits, blowing it up to the proportions of a modern epic.
—

[1]

I obviously paraphrase here the incipit of Anna Karenina. And I already doubt my parodic formula, since, isn’t the ending of Ulysses the happiest of all? I should only quote its last, ecstatic word: Yes.

[2]

I deliberately chose one book per language and avoided making three obvious choices from the English, French and German literature. I confess that I so far only attempted and still have the ambition to read some of these prose mammoths.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not going to beat around the bush: reading this was a real struggle. More than 500 pages of condensed writing, with constant changes of perspective, almost always in the form of short or long pieces of stream of consciousness, sometimes deceptively turning into third-person storytelling and reconstructed dialogues. It takes a while before you have an idea of what the setting is, and how this book is composed: four former soldiers having a sort of reunion (with a fifth, silent one), reminiscing events before, during and after the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal. Sounds pretty simple, isn't it? Well, it sure isn't.

You can look at this novel as a kind of frame story, albeit that everything is cut up in an incredibly ingenious way, the punctuation is regularly omitted, events and perspectives intertwine and sometimes there is hardly a storyline to be found. Naturally, the 1974 revolution is pivotal, and it is also extensively evoked and commented on in the episodes. And associated with that there are the scenes in the Portuguese colonies, in this book especially Mozambique (the soldiers served there). That results in stories (or fragments of stories) of exploitation, of underground resistance to the regime, of the actions of the secret service, of interrogation, torture and outright murder, etc.. They all form points of reference on which the story is hung. It need to be said that some prior knowledge of Portuguese history is required.

Now, in the end, after having wrestled through this labyrinthic book, what message could one derive from it? Well, Lobo Antonus provides the reading key already at the beginning. In front, he has placed a citation of the American singer Paul Simon (from The Boxer): “after changes upon changes we are more or less the same”. And indeed, whatever stance the four story tellers take, whatever they do, in the end it doesn’t really make that much difference. In human lives the seemingly important structural frameworks and events (such as war and revolution) certainly have an impact, but ultimately they do not make a real difference.

Throughout the story you even get the impression that it rather are "women's affairs" that determine the main evolution of this novel: marriages turned sour, successions of demanding mistresses, even rapes and sexual relations with underage girls in colonial Mozambique. Of course, that’s what you get when you only let men speak (although, to add to the confusion, there are also some passages in which female voices emerge). And as a result, the global tenor of this book is also that people just muddle along, make important choices (such as choosing sides in the revolution) in arbitrary ways, and that ultimately life just is a mess.

I have the deepest respect for Lobo Antunes' writing talent: certain passages are quite impressive. And in his very own way he succeeds in evoking the kaleidoscopic character of life, just as - for example - Georges Perec did in a very different, much more structured way in La Vie mode d'emploi. But at the same time I must acknowledge that the effort of reading this novel mainly lies in the intensive puzzle work that is needed to follow the story. To me this enormous investment of energy went a bit over the edge, and spoiled my reading pleasure. I prefer the equally difficult novels by the Spanish author Javier Marias, which also offer a chain of streams of consciousness, but he succeeds much better in rewarding his reader.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult, dense, dirty, disturbing, dazzling

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone is familiar with the concept of a great american novel. This book might be easily called “ a great Portuguese novel”. It encompasses traumatic, relatively recent past of the country including desperate bloody wars for african colonial possessions followed by the revolution against the dictatorship in 1974 and its aftermath. Four main characters, all ex-millitary men irrevocably damaged by the war, are having the reunion 10 years after coming back. The book is intermingled monologue of these four during the events of this very long night. To say that the characters are unlikable would be an understatement, but they are deeply human all the same. There is a lot of violence, sex and black humour on these pages. There are also very acute and bleak observations of a society under the dramatic change, the meaning of this change and how each human being is forced to be a part of it. It is a very male-dominated novel. There are a lot of female characters but we only see them through the eyes of these four men. For them, the women are either the objects of their admiration or instruments for fulfilling their needs. This attitude reminded me the essay, “Courtly Love, or, Woman as Thing” by Zizek.

It is my third novel by Antunes and i love his unique style of writing. It could be called “stream of consciousness”, but it is the stream by at least three characters. In this novel, there are four voices talking, moving forwards and backwards in time, between the reality and the imaginary of their thoughts. It is impossible to appreciate this novel without giving it a full concentration. But it pays off in my case. He manages to combine very bleak, sometimes violent content with lyricism and beautiful imaginary. He also is very good in showing the different layers of a moment: how the outside reality is juxtaposed with the one inside someone’s head. For example, in the fragment below the protagonist is talking to another character, the captain Mendes, all along thinking about his departure from a woman in Goa many years ago:

She didn’t even speak in the morning when I left her in the tumbledown house beneath a huge thunderclap, where invisible hands were torturing the clouds as if they were bread dough. The trees were agitated with tics, the brimstone light was shedding quick copper-coloured flashes over the few unmatched pieces of furniture. Not a word, not a sound, her damp fingers extended, an absolute lack of expression on her face, the Jeep heaving hesitantly in the windstorm, battered by loose leaves, trash, gusts of water, splashed of mud brought up be the wheels, just like spit. Through the body, the words, the face, the tunic of captain Mendes, he saw the house growing smaller in the distance, the restless river, the anguish of the woods, his own heart, microscopic, vibrating. Now you are watching the rain fall in some village or other, cookstoves fashioned out of three piles of stones over a small cone of hot coals and twisted logs…

It is a long novel. It is a demanding novel. I have to admit, I felt a bit tired by the last 50 pages. The knowledge of context would be probably a plus. However, it is a wise and stylistically superb book.

[Ricardo Gomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Há uns dias atrás, ouvi uma entrevista antiga do Gonçalo M. Tavares em que ele dizia querer evitar as "palavras casadas à nascença". Ficou-me na cabeça a expressão e quando voltei ao gigantesco tomo que é o Fado Alexandrino, percebi o quão bem encaixava este querer na obra do Lobo Antunes.

Li livros do Lobo Antunes contempôraneo e agora estou a fazer uma leitura cronológica, tendo começado no primeiro e assim em diante. Fado Alexandrino parece-me uma obra de transição entre as duas fases. Menos autobiográfico que os anteriores, mais denso, mais intrincado, mais próximo da maneira circular de escrever de agora. É neste limbo, que se ergue esta história assente em quatro personagens principais. Cinco militares, companheiros de armas em Moçambique, juntam-se para um jantar. Todos eles vão contando à vez ao capitão, que é no narrador, a história da sua vida até aquele momento. O autor divide o livro em 3 atos, pré-revolução, revolução e pós revolução. É assim, apoiado nas vicissitudes destes homens e das suas mulheres, que o autor disseca a história socieconómica do Portugal da época. A fuga para o Brasil das famílias ricas com medo dos comunistas, os miliares revolucionários, o falhanço do 25 de Novembro, o saneamento dos oficiais, a miséria dos bairros de Lisboa.

A escrita é irreprenssível, mais domada que em livros anteriores, menos pomposa. Como disse no início, o autor encontra metáforas belíssimas onde ninguém as veria, junta palavras que nunca seriam gémeas. O estilo é inigualável e aparece neste livro mais depurado, com menos plumas, mais eficaz. O autor admitiu já que os primeiros livros são vaidosos, tinha muita vontade de mostrar a cultura que tinha, os livros que lia, os quadros que conhecia, a música que ouvia. Neste o autor despe-se desses adereços e afunda-se pela primeira vez na sua obra em vidas alheias, nas quais enxerta um pouco da sua. Não conheço na língua portuguesa autor tão bom a criar personagens, que surgem no livro tão verdadeiras nas suas forças e fraquezas que podiam ser o nosso vizinho do lado.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

"Two years ago Lobo Antunes pissed people off by making the unarguable statement that by the time he was 40, about the age the 2001 crowd is now, he had already published Fado Alexandrino, one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and they had nothing of identical power to show for. It’s easier to prove 2 and 2 equals 5 than refuting that statement. They’re not even trying: instant success and hyperbolic adulation has curbed their development." --Miguel, https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com...

[Paul Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 3rd Antunes, and it won't be the last. A fever dream of a narrative about the reunion of Portuguese soldiers who had previously served together in Mozambique.

The stories of several of the soldiers interweave and overlap in such a way that you have to pay attention to what's going on. Nobody comes out this well, not even Lisbon itself.

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

literature as tapestry

Drowning in words that crash, rumble, streak past, drip down through the cracks in the ceiling, swell up from the pages and invade my brain, stumble, drop, fall, plunge from every page, topple my usual sense of books, I made it through FADO ALEXANDRINO to the very end, sometimes wondering why I was subjecting myself to such a difficult novel, sometimes rejoicing that I'd heard of it by chance many years ago. Lobo Antunes, whose other works I didn't know, has written a nearly-500 page masterpiece which definitely is not for everyone. It demands close attention, it demands patience, and you have to like the flow of language. That this is the case even in English is a tribute to the famous translator Gregory Rabassa, who almost single-handedly, brilliantly, has brought Portuguese-language literature to English readers. Five men gather in the 1980s in a bar. They served together in Mozambique around 1970, fighting in one of Salazarist Portugal's colonial wars. The novel covers their return to Lisbon, the resumption or crumbling of their previous lives, and then the onset of the bloodless Portuguese revolution of April 25, 1974. One man never speaks, but we feel his presence. There's a soldier, become a furniture mover for his uncle's tottering business. There's a second lieutenant from a humble background, married into a rich family who flee to Brazil when the Revolution occurs. Third is a lieutenant colonel whose wife dies just as he returns from Africa and who takes up with "a cloud of perfume" in silver high heels and oyster-colored eyelids. Fourth is a communications officer (also referred to as "Lieutenant" which caused me no end of confusion at first) an underground Communist agitator, jailed for his pains before being freed after April 25th. What happens to the men during that confused period in Portugal's history, and then when things settle down is the subject of the rest of the book. There's a lot of their sex life, a murder and a denouement. Set down like that, the `plot' of FADO ALEXANDRINO doesn't amount to much. No, you'll read this because you want to read a highly unusual work of art, one that weaves stories, the gritty side of Lisbon, times, voices, dreams, thoughts, imaginations, and moments together like a collage, like a Pollock painting, like a tapestry. Lobo Antunes changes direction on pages, in paragraphs, and even in sentences---some of which are extremely long. He draws a detailed picture of Portuguese society seen from the bottom up; no touristy views for him. You can't just skim along; you have to pay close attention.

Let's face it. Either you're going to be blown away by this incredible book or you're going to toss it after the first 20 pages.

[Vítor Leal · Rating 5 out of 5]

O maior romance de Lobo Antunes (aproximadamente 700 páginas) é também um dos melhores. Quatro ex-combatentes na guerra colonial (um soldado, um alferes, um oficial de transmissões e um tenente-coronel) juntam-se num jantar que se prolongará até à claridade da manhã. Revivem memórias, passam a pente fino as suas vidas, entre o cómico e o dramático, e o inesperado final. Há três grandes divisões nesse espaço temporal de memórias: antes da revolução (25 de Abril), durante a revolução e após a revolução. Também um retrato muito fiel desse Portugal, num estilo de escrita fortemente metafórico.

E restam-me agora quatro romances para completar a longa maratona de 30.

[Chad Post · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the course of one long, long night five military men who fought in the Portuguese Colonial Wars get blasted and tell their life stories from "before the revolution," "during the revolution," and "after the revolution." Each chapter centers on one of the particular characters--the lowly foot soldier, the lieutenant colonel who returns from the colonies to find out his wife has died, the communist supporting communications officer, the second lieutenant whose rich wife leaves him for another woman--but voices mingle across chapters, and the past and present become nearly indistinguishable, a literary muddle of moments, some humorous, but most pretty emotional and dire.

And filled with detritus. In Antunes's world, everything is a bit broken, dirty, faded, fat, and gross. It's as if all of his characters are living in the entropic end-times and trying to figure out how to keep themselves together. In many ways, this is the prototypical Antunes novel.

[Joao Baptista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seguindo a ordem cronológica, chegou agora a vez de ler o 5.º romance de António Lobo Antunes (ALA), “Fado Alexandrino”, publicado em 1983.
Comparativamente com os anteriores, trata-se de uma obra substancialmente mais extensa (mais de 700 páginas). Em termos de estrutura, está dividido em três partes (I – Antes da Revolução, II – A Revolução e III – Depois da Revolução), cada uma comportando precisamente 12 capítulos, todos de dimensão muito equivalente e que obedecem, mesmo até final, a uma lógica narrativa fixa, assente sobre um dispositivo de organização discursiva que consiste em quatro vozes e um “ouvinte” mudo. Cinco ex-militares combatentes na guerra colonial reúnem-se num jantar, dez anos depois do regresso a Lisboa em 1972: um tenente-coronel, um oficial de transmissões, um alferes e um soldado; há ainda um quinto militar, a que os demais se dirigem por “meu capitão” e que se limita essencialmente a ouvir, mas que é, na realidade, o narrador, quem interage com o leitor, funcionando como uma espécie de instância de entrelaçamento das quatro vozes dos outros militares e sua consciência comum. Todo o romance é o resultado do entrelaçar e conjugar das quatro vozes que, durante essa noite e em três lugares distintos (um por cada parte), recordam o regresso a Lisboa e as suas vivências desde então.
Encontramos neste romance alguns dos temas recorrentes em ALA: a experiência traumática e despersonalizante da guerra colonial, a impossibilidade de retomar a vida deixada em suspenso com o embarque para a guerra, a inserção urbana como factor de identificação e a difícil relação com as mulheres.
Embora as três partes do romance sejam construídas tendo por pólo agregador a revolução do 25 de Abril, a verdade é que esse acaba por ser um evento relativamente secundarizado. Aquilo a que assistimos é a um longo processo de ressaca e de desenraizamento progressivo, até à queda final. Quando regressam, estes quatro homens, embora a diferenciação da sua inserção social, estão já derrotados e a década que se segue apenas mapeia o itinerário da derrocada existencial. Nesse sentido, a Revolução não tem qualquer dimensão vivificante, libertadora ou regeneradora, limitando-se a mudar a posição relativa dos escolhos que cada um enfrenta e coloca no seu próprio caminho.
Se na “Explicação dos Pássaros” o discurso narrativo se apresenta numa admirável estruturação polifónica, aqui parece-me que ALA leva essa técnica ainda mais longe, em que as diversas vozes se entrelaçam de forma ainda mais intrincada e densa, em que sujeitos, tempos e situações se interpenetram de forma constante e caleidoscópica. Numa só frase podemos mudar de fio narrativo, ser transportados para outro lugar e outro momento por breves instantes e novamente conduzidos a outro registo. Trata-se de um aturado trabalho de composição que exige grande atenção do leitor e que, nas fases iniciais do livro, em que o panorama geral da sua estrutura está ainda parcialmente encoberto para o leitor, produz alguma sensação de desnorte. Desnorte que, creio, não pode deixar de fazer parte do efeito literário pretendido por ALA e que se coaduna com a tónica geral do livro. Não posso deixar de salientar, todavia, que em certos momentos esse artifício gerou algum cansaço na leitura, potenciado pela extensão da obra.
Outro aspecto em que ALA é mestre é na invenção da metáfora, na capacidade ímpar de criar imagens precisas por via de associações surpreendentes de palavras e da conciliação dos seus significados, à primeira vista tão distantes ou carecidos de conexão, mas que impressionam pela sua capacidade expressiva.
Em suma, uma obra bastante interessante pelo tour de force técnico mas que, ainda assim, na minha avaliação, fica um pouco atrás da “Explicação dos Pássaros”.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As other readers have said, this is NOT an easy book to read due to the stream of consciousness, the characters not being given names (described by military rank) - very slow reading. But worth it I thought. Five men are having a reunion on the 10th anniversary of their return from Mozambique having served in the Portugese army at the very end of the occupation of Mozambique, returning home just before the overthrow of the Portugese dictatorship. It helps to know at least a little of mid-20th Century Portugese history. For 500 hundred pages we follow these soldiers (and their wives, girlfriends, bosses, oomrades) lives for better or worse (mostly for worse.) A fascinating rather beautiful book.

[Rosa Ramôa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Deve-se ser muito restritivo quanto ao uso da palavra obra-prima. Mas não me resta qualquer dúvida de que este romance não é outra coisa que não isso. Leiam-no! Adquiram-no e leiam-no!"


(in Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias, ano XI, nº489, Novembro de 1991)

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The writing is great. The author is king of the metaphor. It’s about the reunion of five men who had been together in the Portuguese army in Mozambique ten years ago. During their long conversation at an eating and drinking place, we learn about their backgrounds. There’s lots of entertaining descriptions of each of their sex lives. Corruption in the Portuguese army and government is one of the main themes of this novel.

This novel took me over one month to read as there is little plot momentum. My copy is 497 pages, Grove Press edition.

There are many times when I picked up the book and read ten solid densely written pages with pleasure. A book to keep and read random pages as the writing is so fluid with beautifully written imagery.

This book was first published in 1983.

[Philip Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read. I found myself struggling to distinguish the characters, locations and times because much of the narrative is stream of consciousness and not everyone is given a name. However the language is so evocative, and quite extraordinarily well translated, that I was moved and thrilled with sensations created by a large number of passages throughout the book. This is a book I will mark down to read again as I am sure that with re-reading the plot and characters will become clearer and the smells and sounds will remain just as strong.

[Sónia Teixeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estou a ler lobo antunes por ordem cronológica, e se os primeiros 3 livros não me convenceram, o quarto, e agora este quinto deixaram me com a conviccao que e realmente dos nossos melhores autores.

[Ana Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic novel, written in some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read, even in translation. Antunes’s writing is rife with intense, mesmerizing imagery and kept me hooked from the first page. He paints a stunning picture of Lisbon, illuminating the legacies of war, dictatorship, revolution, and colonialism and the psychologies of his characters. I loved the way his writing melds real and imaginary, past and present, and individual and collective experiences. A worthwhile read!

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The novel is about five Portuguese soldiers returning from the civil war which took place in Angola in the 70’s. As they sit around a table all five discuss the madness of war and eventually commit an murder which affects the town they live in as well and works as a sort of wake up call.

Fado Alexandrino displays war in all its cartoon insanity, there are passages stuffed with sex, violence and corruption, crossed with complex emotions and anecdotes. The author himself was part of this conflict so I’m sure the novel is autobiographical.

My problem is that I found it dragging. Passage upon passage of detail which I found superfluous, sure the novel is written in the fado style ( twelve chapters of 26 verses, if i’m not mistaken) but I found it a tough slog many times.

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a challenging and very difficult book to understand and read. Written in a stream of consciousness with little punctuation and with voices switching mid sentence I needed infinite time and patience to try and understand what the author was telling the reader. the translation was excellent but because of the dense writing, few paragraphs and the narrative voices continually changing I felt I never got to know the characters sufficiently well to begin to understand the story. I know little about Lisbon where the story was set.

[George P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+ stars
This very modern-day novel reminded me somewhat of the style of Virginia Woolf, esp her "The Waves", though it's much longer and the jumps between times/ places/ characters much more frequent. It's sometimes difficult to determine which of the main characters is being referred to, so it's a challenging read. Often however, there are wonderfully creative phrases and plotlines that kept me wanting to read on.

[Nicole Mercer · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Fado Alexandrino" is a stream of conscious-style story of five men reuniting to tell their experiences during the Portuguese revolution in 1974. The language is beautiful and the reading experience very immersive.

[Daniel Pinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

credo. é bom que se farta. mas eu já só o queria acabar.

[Joni · Rating 5 out of 5]

the voice of realism cracked like a colony. tour de force

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a novel this monolithic; this isn’t for the faint of heart and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read Antunes before unless they reeeeaaaaally like Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Thank god I took a break during the couple months I was reading this to knock out Guignol’s Band. Somehow, Fado Alexandrino makes even that feel simple.

[Sini · Rating 5 out of 5]

De Portugese gigant Antonio Lobo Antunes (1 september 1942) publiceerde onlangs "De omvang van de wereld". Zijn allerlaatste prachtroman, en een waardige afsluiting van een Nobelprijswaardig oeuvre. Die roman, en bijna al zijn andere vertaalde romans, las ik vol bewondering. Met veel dank aan meestervertaler Harrie Lemmens. Maar "Fado Alexandrino" had ik nooit goed gelezen. Terwijl juist dat bekend staat als zijn magnum opus. En dat is volkomen terecht. Het is zijn meest omvangrijke roman: 650 kolkende bladzijden dik. Ook biedt het een uniek perspectief op het Portugal voor, tijdens en na de Anjerrevolutie in 1974. Bovendien is het een ongelofelijk ingenieuze polyfonie, waarin verschillende personages leeglopen in adembenemende monologen vol frustratie en pijn. En de taal is tot mijn verbazing zelfs nóg rijker, barokker, complexer, grotesker en meeslepender dan in de andere romans van de oude meester. Ja, alle in het Nederlands vertaalde romans van Lobo Antunes zijn meesterlijk. Maar "Fado Alexandrino" is nóg meesterlijker dan de rest.

We volgen vier Portugese militairen, die elkaar tien jaar na hun terugkeer uit de koloniale oorlog weer ontmoeten in een van dronkenschap en liederlijkheid doordrenkte nacht. Om beurten vertellen zij hun barokke verhalen over heden en verleden, afwisselend in de ik- vorm en in de hij- vorm. Zij richten die verhalen vaak tot een vijfde militair: de kapitein, die ook de organisator en regisseur lijkt van deze met drank overgoten nacht. En die zich, als een alter ego van schrijver en psychiater Lobo Antunes, soms met veel verbeeldingskracht en empathie lijkt te verdiepen in wat de vier anderen hebben meegemaakt.

En dat is niet weinig. Want de verschrikkingen van de oorlog in Mozambique hebben deze mannen voorgoed ontwricht. In Lissabon schemert voor hen voortdurend het Afrikaanse oerwoud door, en het brute oorlogsgeweld blijft maar spoken in hun geteisterde hoofden. In verbijsterende koortsdromen, waarin elke boomtak een schrikwekkend lijk is en elk boomblad een trillende tong. Mede daardoor hebben zij na hun terugkeer uit Mozambique nooit kunnen aarden in Portugal. Ook zijn hun huwelijken kapotgegaan, zijn de idealen van de Anjerrevolutie versmoord, zijn hun carrières ontspoord, en zijn hun levens getekend door desillusie en wanhoop. Ook worden zij geteisterd door snakkende en schrijnend- vergeefse verlangens naar fysieke liefde. Die verlangens zijn soms te stuitend voor woorden, maar tegelijk wel adembenemend intens en bodemloos ontroerend.

"Fado Alexandrino" heeft twee tijdslijnen, die elkaar voortdurend afwisselen. Ten eerste die ene nacht vol steeds toenemende dronkenschap, die in groteske en gewelddadige tragiek eindigt. En ten tweede de tienjarige periode voor, tijdens en na de revolutie. De periode dus die tijdens die dronkenmansnacht in dronken delirium wordt herbeleefd en naverteld. Het groteske gehalte van het verleden wordt nog aanzienlijk versterkt door de dronkenschap van nu. Want intense dronkenschap kleurt de herbeleving. Maar ook het omgekeerde is waar: de herbeleving voedt ook de dronkenschap. Want alle groteske pijn uit het verleden verhevigt nog de hallucinante en dronken desillusie van nu. En die pijn is precies de reden waarom de personages zich zo mateloos verdoven in drank en liederlijkheid.

Bovendien is "Fado Alexandrino" in beide tijdslijnen een meerstemmig delirium, dat als een kakofonie klinkt. Want de dronken militairen vertellen hun verhalen om beurten, maar worden steeds vaker onderbroken door associatieve tussenwerpsels van anderen. Zodat hun verhalen en de reacties daarop versmelten tot een dissonante en chaotische samenzang. Temeer omdat de verschillende verhalen steeds meer door elkaar heen worden verteld, zodat de samenzang meer en meer klinkt als een vreemd verspringende beurtzang. En dat terwijl die verhalen zelf al heen en weer springen tussen allerlei barokke associaties, tussen heden (tijdslijn 1) en verleden (tijdslijn 2), tussen carnavaleske kluchtigheid en tragische teleurstelling, en tussen surrealistische hallucinatie en ontnuchterende werkelijkheid. Alsof elk personage zelf al meerstemmig is. Alsof hun eigen verhaal steeds al een kakofonische samenzang is van vele stemmen in hun koortsachtige en door drank benevelde hoofd.

Behalve koortsachtig meerstemmig zijn alle zinnen bovendien ook nog eens koortsdroomachtig vreemd. Want ze zijn opgebouwd uit reeksen van indringende, maar ook barokke en ongerijmde beelden. Ook daarin wordt voelbaar hoezeer de personages hun binnenwereld en buitenwereld doorleven als een grotesk en hallucinant delirium. Zo spreekt een van hen over zijn “ogen, die nauwelijks bedekt werden door de oogleden, als zwavelgordijnen die omhoog en omlaag gingen”. Alles doet dus kennelijk pijn aan de ogen. Zelfs een gewoon vliegtuig is voor hen volkomen ongewoon: “Een grote, plompe, stijve duif vol vierkante poriën van ramen”. Hun gevoel van perspectiefloosheid komt terug in sfeerbeelden als: “Volkomen zinloos stak de Don Quichot van klei zijn gebroken lans dreigend op naar de lamp”. Of in beelden als: “Buiten op straat stroomde de druilerige mist van de vorige dag langs de verwaarloosde puien, zoals de make-up van een huilende oude vrouw uitloopt over haar gezicht”.

En zo gaat het maar door. Op elke bladzij en in elke zin. De beschrijving van een oude, zeer boze en volkomen ontgoochelde oom luidt bijvoorbeeld: “Het was een klein astmatisch mannetje […], wiens trekken zich concentreerden in een kosmische wildheid zonder doel, gevoed door de hortende blaasbalg van zijn longen”. In wanhopig- koortsachtige dromen over een vrouw droomt iemand over “De vreselijke, penetrante geur van haar oksels, bezaaid met kleine plukjes algen, alsof er onder haar armen nog twee monden groeien die herleid zijn tot het spons van hun tandvlees”. Bovendien is de wereld vaak surrealistisch, veranderlijk en fragiel: “We stapten op als het donker werd, kapitein, als de gevels door de avond lila geverfd werden, als huizen van kleur veranderden, de gezichten van kleur veranderden, ja, zelfs de geluiden van kleur veranderden, alles werd kwetsbaar, fragiel, van glas, als de stemmen bijvoorbeeld op de stoep zouden vallen, zouden ze in duizenden letterscherven breken”.

Lobo Antunes bedelft ons dus onder vele vreemde beelden. Intrigerend is bovendien hoe die beelden in ketens worden verknoopt. Zoals in de volgende passage, waarin een verveloos flatgebouw van ooit associaties oproept met een scheepswrak in de Taag, dat vervolgens weer associaties oproept met dood en verval: “[D]e meeuwen cirkelden krijsend als snikkend protesterende kinderen boven het schip, en ineens, zomaar vanuit het niets, moest ik denken aan de lang vervlogen jaren dat ik bij je ouders thuis in Seixal met je ging vrijen, in een verveloos flatgebouw aan de rivier dat me, zo scheef, zo oud, zo gescheurd en verrot, altijd deed denken aan een scheepswrak vol door vissen, algen en de tanden van het water aangevreten meubels, waar mensen met gezichten zo ruw en poreus en hard als puimsteen spartelend als drenkelingen door de dichte, stinkende damp dreven die opsteeg van de oever en in troebele golven binnendrong door de scheef in hun sponningen hangende ramen, als etterende kiezen in het magere spons van het tandvlees. De Taag was een walgelijke, door verbrokkelde muren en fabrieksschoorstenen samengeperste smalle strook slijk waarin gesloopte scheepjes en tot houten balken vol rot herleide resten van de gesloten dokken lagen te vergaan, terwijl aan weerskanten grieperige vogels zaten te rillen in holtes in de voorgevels […]”.

Heraclitus zag het bestaan als een rivier, waarin alles voortdurend verandert. Bij Lobo Antunes echter is die rivier zelfs een walgelijke strook slijk, die alles aanvreet. En die dichte en stinkende damp afscheidt waarin drenkelingen spartelen. Niets heeft een vaste en helder omlijnde vorm. Want huizen zijn scheepswrakken, meeuwen zijn snikkend protesterende kinderen, water heeft tanden en ramen zijn etterende kiezen. Alles vervloeit, wordt aangevreten, rilt, en vergaat. En precies dat maakt Lobo Antunes voelbaar met deze barokke beeldenketen.

Lobo Antunes schreef ooit dat elke tekst van hem een avontuur is, een ongewisse reis in het pre- rationele donker van het onbewuste. Dat geldt zeker voor "Fado Alexandrino". Want dat is een koortsachtig en meerstemmig delirium, dat doordrenkt is van koortsdroomachtige en barokke beelden. De lezer moet zich dus onderdompelen in chaos, in onsamenhangendheid, in een stroom waarin alles onbekend en veranderlijk is. Want dàt is hoe de personages zichzelf en de wereld ervaren. In het dagelijks leven gaan we uit van samenhang, en vertellen we verhalen die op logische wijze van A naar B verlopen. Maar Lobo Antunes ontregelt dat alles volkomen, en vraagt dat wij ons overgeven aan die ontregeling. Want alleen dan doorvoelen we de ontregelde blik van de personages, en de ontwrichte wereld zoals zij die zien.

Lobo Antunes offreert ons een polyfonie van grillige en in totale dronkenschap vertelde verhalen, over een ongerijmde wereld die als een delirium wordt beleefd. En hij wil dus dat wij meebewegen met die polyfonie en met dat delirium. Zodat het avontuur van de tekst ook echt gestalte krijgt in onze leeservaring. Dat betekent dat we geduldig moeten luisteren naar verschillende personages die ademloos, door elkaar heen pratend, associatief en vol ongefilterde emoties leeglopen. Ook moeten we die emoties in al hun bizarre schakeringen proberen te volgen, met maximale inzet van onze empathie. En ons aandachtig verdiepen in al die koortsdroomachtige beelden, en in de grillige kracht daarvan. Juist ook als we die beelden nauwelijks begrijpen en vooral hun ongerijmdheid voelen. Dat betekent dat je als lezer elk analytisch oordeel moet opschorten. En dat je jezelf zonder voorbehoud moet onderdompelen in een leesavontuur vol van ongekend heftige en vaak zelfs schokkende emoties, en in een tsunami van ondoorgrondelijk vreemde beelden.

In "Fado Alexandrino" vraagt Lobo Antunes zelfs nog meer dan in zijn andere prachtboeken. Zelf las ik alle passages dan ook meerdere keren. Om de chaos van ongefilterde emoties voluit te doorvoelen, en om optimaal te worden doordrongen van al die ongerijmde beelden. Uiteraard kostte mij dat veel tijd en inspanning. Maar het leverde mij een heel intense leeservaring op. En die gun ik iedereen. Toegegeven: liefhebbers van heldere verhalen kunnen Lobo Antunes beter vermijden. Maar zelf vind ik hem groots. En voor mensen die andere boeken van hem waarderen is "Fado Alexandrino" zonder meer een must.

[La vida es bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Van in het begin was ik betoverd door de schrijfstijl van de auteur. Eerst viel me op dat hij de personages door elkaar liet praten: in 1 zin schakelt hij tussen verleden en heden en ook tussen de verschillende personages. Hij schrijft dus niet "Jorge zegt...", maar aan de hand van de inhoud moet je weten wie er aan het woord is. Door die stijl werd ik direct naar een Portugees café of restaurant gekatapulteerd, waar iedereen door elkaar praat en er ook nog minstens 2 tv's verschillende programma's uitzenden. Ik heb me dikwijls afgevraagd, of die Portugezen elkaar kunnen verstaan, maar misschien is dat niet zo belangrijk. Het belangrijkste is dat ze kunnen praten en dat de kelen niet droog komen te staan. Dit is ook het geval in deze roman van Antonio Lobo Antunes, die wel een centraal aanspreekpunt in de vorm van de kapitein heeft gecreëerd. Over hem komen we eigenlijk niets te weten, terwijl de 4 andere personages aan de hand van meestal alledaagse gebeurtenissen langzaamaan uitgediept worden. We leren de luitenant-kolonel, de vaandrig, de verbindingsofficier en de soldaat kennen. Soms schudde ik vol ongeloof mijn hoofd over een dwaas idee, soms kreeg ik medelijden als er eentje een blauwtje liep, soms moest ik glimlachen om een absurde situatie...

Het centrale thema in het boek is de Anjerrevolutie. De zinloze oorlog in Mozambique komt ook uitgebreid aan bod. Met zijn 4 personages kan Antonio Lobo Antunes deze gebeurtenissen uit verschillende invalshoeken belichten. Na hun verblijf in Mozambique hebben ze het alle 4 moeilijk om de draad weer op te pikken en misschien slagen wel nooit meer daarin. De luitenant-kolonel wordt met een chique dienstwagen naar het kankerziekenhuis gebracht, waar hij ontdekt dat zijn vrouw ondertussen overleden is. Niemand weet waar het lijk naar toe is. De beschrijving van de ziekenhuizen in Portugal is trouwens adembenemend accuraat. Hij komt thuis in een vreemd leeg huis en zoekt troost in de alcohol. De vaandrig is met een rijke bankiersdochter getrouwd en ondanks zijn job, voelt ook hij zich niet meer thuis. De verbindingsofficier probeert weer ondergronds communistische ideeën te verspreiden, tot hij door de PIDE wordt opgepakt. Hartverscheurend is dat er niemand op de soldaat wacht bij zijn thuiskomst en hij in het begin tussen de ratten in het magazijn van de verhuisfirma van zijn oom slaapt. Ongelooflijk hoe de auteur machtig mooie beschrijvingen kan geven van lelijke dingen zoals het verwaarloosde magazijn vol rotte meubelen en ratten.

Antonio Lobo Antunes beschrijft ook heel gedetailleerd de relaties tussen mannen en vrouwen, hoe er misverstanden komen, hoe (sommige) Portugese vrouwen thuis de broek dragen, hoe een huwelijk op een scheiding uitdraait, het dubbelleven van sommige personages... Soms kreeg ik wel het gevoel van een Portugese telenovela, omdat die ene vrouw dan juist bij die ene man terechtkwam, maar met zo'n hoog schrijfniveau zie ik dat graag door de vingers.

Bij het middelste deel over de revolutie wordt het belang van dit alles in vraag gesteld. Of zoals de soldaat het goed verwoordt "zeg mij eens welk verschil de revolutie heeft gemaakt, behalve dat de prijzen zijn gestegen?".
Voor de soldaat en zijn oom is er alleen hinder omdat ze hun verhuizingen wegens het tumult moeten staken. De luitenant-kolonel wordt vastgezet en valt zelfs in slaap midden in de strijd. De vaandrig probeert met zijn rijke schoonfamilie naar Brazilië te vluchten. De verbindingsofficier wordt tot zijn eigen stomme verbazing uit de gevangenis bevrijdt.

De avond was als een militaire reünie begonnen, wordt verdergezet in een etablissement met vrouwen van lichte zeden en eindigt dramatisch in het huis van de vaandrig. Het is alsof geen enkel leven echt zin heeft gehad en dat ze allemaal in eenzaamheid verzonken, alhoewel ze in een drukke stad woonden.

Een rasechte fado dus, een treurzang over gemiste kansen en vervlogen dromen, overgoten met een ironisch of sarcastisch sausje en met de nodige humoristische anekdotes zoals de overval met waterpistolen op een bank die net definitief dicht was.

Besluit: deze fado dompelt je onder in het echte Portugal.

Een goede raad: neem je tijd om van dit meesterwerk te genieten!