Knowledge of Hell

by António Lobo Antunes, Clifford E. Landers (Translator)

Like his creator, the narrator of this novel is a psychiatrist who loathes psychiatry, a veteran of the despised 1970s colonial war waged by Portugal against Angola, a survivor of a failed marriage, and a man seeking meaning in an uncaring and venal society. The reader joins that narrator on a journey, both real and phantasmagorical, from his Algarve vacation back to Lisbon and the mental-hospital job he hates. In the course of one long day and evening, he carries on an imaginary conversation with his daughter Joanna, observes with surreal vision the bleak countryside of his nation, recalls the horrors of his involuntary role in the suppression of Angolan independence, and curses the charlatanism of contemporary psychiatric “advances” that destroy rather than heal.

Genres: Portugal, Fiction, Portuguese Literature, Novels, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

298 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

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

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

He recalls the past… Metaphors are scattered like diamonds…

He had sometimes awakened in the silence of a still house, motionless like a dead butterfly among the bodiless shadows of the night, and gazed, sitting in bed, at the diffuse outlines of the armoires, the clothes scattered on chairs like weary spider webs, the rectangle of the mirror that drank the flowers as the banks of Hell drank the distressed silhouette of the dead.

He observed… Everything was different then… He was surrounded by strange strangers…

It was then that he decided to become a psychiatrist in order to live among distorted men like the ones who visit us in dreams and to understand their lunar speeches and the agitated, rancorous aquariums of their brains, in which swim the moribund fishes of fear.

After passing through atrocities of war he comes to a psychiatric hospital and there he starts acquiring his real Knowledge of Hell…

Miguel Bombarda Hospital, former convent, former military school, former Rilhafoles Mental Asylum, is a decrepit old building near Campo de Santana, the dark trees and plastic swans of Campo de Santana, near the large, damp house of the morgue, where as a student he had sliced into bellies on stone slabs with immense disgust, holding his breath so the fat, repugnant smell of guts wouldn’t assail his nostrils with the rotting perfume of lifeless flesh.

There, both patients and doctors abide in the same nightmarish purgatory trying to adjust themselves to the future life in hell… Surreality prevails…

“Psychiatry is a hoax,” his father declared. “It has no scientific basis, the diagnosis doesn’t matter, and the treatment is always the same.”
“Have you ever noticed,” his friend asked, “that psychiatrists are humorless lunatics?”

No need to wait for the afterlife, there is enough of hell right here on earth.

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title first attracted me, and then I read the first pages, which are a hallucinatory description of the Portuguese coast's beaches and tourist spots, like a fictitious world made of cardboard and plastic.
The whole book is an immersion in the tortured mind of Antonio Lobo Antunes, a young psychiatrist who goes by car to the asylum where he works. Memories, reflections, dreams or delusions, fierce descriptions of psychiatrists, his colleagues, scenes of the war in Angola where he was a doctor, the hell of the asylum, the agony of the war, the suffering of the compromise in a job that he compares to the warden, prison warden, concentration camp warden. Hell of guilt, the hell of not being able to be close to those he wanted to understand, hell of constant distancing between himself and the sick, him and the others, between him and himself. The fear of becoming one of the asylum's madmen and this strange dichotomy between thoughts, this desolation of hell, and actions or words, violent, always on the side of authority, never in revolt.
All of this might sound off-putting. Given the complex topics, I feared advancing to increasingly dark and creepy pages. Still, I discovered beautiful writing: sentences so long that they could span up to three pages, but always punctuated by a bitter, nostalgic, ironic, or poetic breath.

[Neva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Великолепна. Разтърсваща. Вълнуваща и кошмарна като топло море без дъно и без видим бряг наоколо - наслада за сетивата и ужас за разума в едно.

Струва ми се, че заглавието всъщност значи "понятие за ад", "познание за ада", но истината е, че книгата описва точно опознаването, процесът на осъзнаване и отсяване на адските дадености, вкаран в две преплитащи се русла: това на лудницата и това на войната. И двете от първа ръка (Лобу Антунеш е бил професионален психиатър и фронтови лекар) - не просто почувствани и изстрадани, но и разбрани, наречени с точните имена, поставени в контекста на сбърканата система, пропити с адска вина.

"...мога да правя каквото си искам с тези хора, без да се вдигне и един пръст в знак на протест: мога да им направя лоботомия, да им отнема потентността, да им забраня да ядат, да забравя за тях. Мога седмици наред да не се вясвам в болницата. Мога да ги разпитвам по най-интимните за един мъж въпроси, за тайните им, за срамните им нещастия, мога да им натрапвам пластмасовите си убеждения, изкривения си светоглед, грандиозната куха натруфеност на речите си. Да стоваря отгоре им бюрото като върху дървеници."

"...зловещите концентрационни чудеса, измисляни от клиничните доктори за удължаване на лудостта, превръщането й в приемливо изтребление в името на смехотворни, непонятни, дълбоко спорни здравни норми..."

"...от всички познати ми лекари психоаналитиците, конгрегация на свещеници лаици с библия, богослужения и вярващи, съставляват най-зловещия, най-нелепия, най-болнавия вид. Докато психиатрите с хапчето са обикновени хора, без криволици, по-безобидни палачи, свели работата си до схематичната гилотина на електрошока, другите се явяват въоръжени със сложна религия, с дивани место олтари... сричащи в манастирите на институтите нескопосан чирашки латински. Разделят човешкия свят на две непримирими категории, на анализирани и неанализирани, тоест на християни и неверници, и питаят към вторите безкрайното аристократично презрение, отредено за простолюдието... За тях във Вселената не съществува нищо друго освен едни титанични, огромни, почти космически майка и баща и един син, сведен до ануса, пениса и устата, който поддържа с тези две непоносими създания някаква неестествена връзка, която изключва спонтанността и радостта."

Ако има справедливост на този свят (случва се понякога, какво) Антониу Лобу Антунеш ще получи Нобелова награда. Човек, който пише такова нещо на 38 години е от много рядка порода. А ако имаше Нобелова награда за превод, Даринка Кирчева щеше да е достоен кандидат. Висш пилотаж е работата й по тази книга, главозамайваща история.

* * *
Това тук е любовна история между автор и преводачка, нямам как другояче да го нарека:
- "флуоресцентното сияние на целофанената зора"
- "свенливо гальовно пъплене"
- "развълнуваните или сърдити аквариуми в мозъците им, където берат душа рибите на страха"
- "нестройно пърхане на уморени ангели"
- "припряната шетня на лястовичките"
- "бичият рев на морето"
- "плетени столове като мършави скутове"
- "усмивките от албумите, пожълтели от липовия чай на времето"
- "Толкова рано мръква в мен."
- "...каза Зе Манел с благия си гальовен глас, който превръщаше думите в нежни плюшени животинки..."
- "цветята избуяват настървени в мрака"
- "където да чакаме ужасени огромния прилеп на нощта"
- "следобедната безметежност на Алентежу, изпълнена с диви гургулици и тишина"
- "оная безстрастна злоба на вещите"
- "невидимото свирукане на звездите в смътните кълбета на дърветата"
- "двойния лаком низ на зъбите й"
- "пенеста роза изникна между стиснатите му зъби"
- "часът, когато жестовете подрънкват като гюмовете на млекарите"
- "Беше юни и тревите покрай гаража шушукаха и се смееха, сякаш бяха населени с банда дечурлига."
- "черните водорасли на горестта"
- "вътре в себе си като в миниатюрна килия"
- "утрото лепваше на щорите белия си пихтиест жабешки корем"

[Emelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can a person write a review about a novel such as Knowledge of Hell and do the book justice? I find myself at a loss so I will just do my best and hope that my words will, at the very least, cause those who read this to pick up this book. It is a masterpiece of gorgeous language that describes the horrors of psychiatry and war; both which seem to have the same end results. Antunes loathing of the incestuous relationships of psychiatry is apparent throughout the book, showing the damage psychiatrists cause to those already severally damaged. But as I said, it is also about the horrors of war. Returning from vacation to his loathed job at Miguel Bombarda Hospital in Lisbon, over the course of the trip, the narrator’s mind ranges over the monstrosities he encountered in the colonial wars in Angola in the 1970s and in his work; through the layering of memories, he draws parallels between the destruction of the war and the questionable care offered to the mentally ill touching on the godliness belief of the practitioners.
With frequent hallucinatory episodes such as the one where hospital employees gleefully consume the corpse of a soldier, this book will grab you and slam you against a wall; forcing you to rethink the humanity of man, or the lack there of. This book presents a bleak vision of his life, his world, except in the narrator’s tender appeals to Joanna, his daughter, to whom much of the novel is addressed.
To me, this is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read, yes it is filled with horrors and an in-your-face ride of nightmares, but it also has tender moments as the author/narrator, describes with dark humor the present and past memories of people who have flowed in and out of his life.
I was deeply affected by this book, though it may seem dark, it is also filled with great beauty, joy, and love. And as I have said earlier about this book, one does not read Knowledge of Hell, one experiences it. Antune has a way with words that surpasses any I have read before. I only hope that my review will cause you to seek out this book and read it. I picked this book up on the "free" shelf at my local library and had never read or heard of Antunes before, now I know that the universe conspires to bring to us small gifts that will alter our lives and perspectives forever.

[Jim Elkins]

Excessive Metaphors as an Illness of Writing

Most of the online reviews of the English translation mention Antunes's language. The consumer reviews on Amazon and elsewhere call it "amazing," "dense," and "difficult." To be a little more specific, the complexity comes from French surrealism, Celine, and Latin American Magic Realism. Yet Antunes is different from Lispector, Lorca, Dos Passos, or any number of possible precedents, beause he is addicted to tropes. He lards sentences with as many figures of speech as he can, and seems not to pause to ask if his metaphors are appropriate to the narrative, or make sense together, or even make any kind of sense at all. "Language of Hell" seems entirely unedited, as if Antunes never met a metaphor he didn't like.

A review at "Three Percent" says Antunes's sentences are "labrinthine" and "carefully wrought." The first is sometimes true; the second almost never is. This book is partly about a psychiatric asylum outside Lisbon, and partly about the Angolan war of 1961-74. An interview in the "Paris Review" focuses on the trauma of that war, implying it is enough to account for the avalanche of tropes. But at an early point -- maybe ten pages in -- the "hell" of mental asylums and bloody wars became endless and therefore uninteresting. My interest turned to diagnosing Antunes's severe addiction to metaphors.

Here's an opening example:

"...the sky was composed of successive layers of overlapping gray, the river shuddered with a fever all the way to the sea, and the rain furiously burrowed hundreds of crystal braids into the highway. The windshield wipers moved their shaky automaton elbows, shaving away the persistent acne of the raindrops." [p. 63]

In my count that is five tropes. The first is rare in this book, because it is only minimally figural. A river shuddering with fever is a good image, because it fits, in reverse, the narrator's rushed trip back to his more feverish life in Lisbon. The first part of the third trope ("the rain furiously burrowed") complements the river image, but the next part of doesn't ("hundreds of crystal braids"). The next two figures of speech veer into unrelated imagery, first robots and then pimples. In order, then: naturalistic, strong, overdone, rote, ridiculous.

(A note about these examples: I've tried to choose passages that are minimally dependent on the translator's choices. My comments here have to do with the logic of Antunes's tropes. Other tropes in the translation are undoubtedly modified from the original in ways that would make it necessary to look at the original.)

Many metaphors in "Knowledge of Hell" are maudlin, as when the narrator compares himself to a dead dog in a park, covered with leaves (p. 81), or when he defines loneliness as "the people standing before me and their gestures of wounded birds, their damp gentle gestures that seem to drag themselves [sic: the people], like dying animals, in search of impossible help." (p. 72) Antunes seems not to register the maudlin. It's not that he uses it too often, or believes in it too much: it's that he doesn't notice it. But the maudlin is part of a rainbow of moods, and for me the most affecting, because genuine, is the feeling of desperation that hangs over the sentences: he needs to escape from literal description. Every thought and image needs to be transformed. Inevitably some are cliches, many don't work, and some, like these two, are emotionally off-key. The anxiety about covering (or decorating, or beautifying, or intensifying) ordinary language is itself maudlin.

If Antunes's obsession (or addiction, or compulsion, or perceived duty) to chain tropes endlessly, and to avoid writing purely descriptive prose, can be imagined as an illness of writing, then one cure would be William Empson's "Seven Types of Ambiguity." That book is like a tonic for this one. Antunes seems never to interrogate his choices of tropes or pause to consider why he feels his narrative needs to be continuously transformed. He seems never to have paused to wonder what any given metaphor meant: it feels like inspiration was followed quickly by obliviousness, as if he felt his writing forced him to invent and move on. Empson is the exact opposite. He worryies at exhilirating length over a couplet in Shakespeare or a few lines of Wordsworth.

Another sense in which the endless figure of speech are like an illness is the juxtaposition of entirely unrelated tropes in long sentences. Another is Antunes's proclivity for tropes that are strong and suprising, but lose their meaning immediately after they're read or even while they're being read. Two examples:

"...in Messines the absence of the sea is so total that the wind hawks the phlegm of bronchitis in the throats of the streets" [p. 60].

And this one, which Antunes apparently especially likes, because he repeats it twice:

Loneliness "is a child's gun in a plastic bag in the hand of a frightened woman" [pp. 68, 71]

Empson might say: Well, let's see. What is a child's gun? A gun that doesn't function? And why is it in a plastic bag? Because that's cheaper than a paper bag or a handbag, and therefore indicates desperation? The kind of desperation that drives a person to go out carrying a plasic bag? And why is loneliness frightened? (And, although it's a different matter, why is loneliness personified by a woman, when the narrator is a man?)

I doubt Empson would have been engaged by Antunes; he would have thought the writing was too loose. In his headlong accumulation of tropes Antunes is very unlike Celine, Dos Passos, or Lispector: he'd more like an expressionist painter who feels compelled to use all the colors in the palette in every painting.

One more example:

"...he didn't realize he had left Albufeira until he stopped smelling in his nostrils the sweetish odor, of candied squash, from the sea. It was a smooth and bland odor identical to the perfume of coloring agents, to the aroma of liqueur-filled bonbons, to the lavender that emanates from linen in chests..." [p. 40]

In my count that is five metaphors and three qualities ("sweetish," "smooth," "bland"). They vary in legibility and pertinence, and they are presented without any connection to one another (except for the assertion that they are all "identical"). It's not that long sentences with enchained tropes are necessarily a bad thing, and it's not that writers need to choose the best of their tropes and delete the rest, and it's not that writing can't be interesting when it is wildly overstocked. (As in Celine.) It's that Antunes himself seems not to be listening. It's as if the author himself doesn't seem to be reading his own book. He operates under a compulsion much more stringent and unremitting even than the horrors of war in Angola or the tortured lives of the patients in the Lisbon asylum: he is pursued, deviled, by the feeling that every sentence, every thought, has to be ornamented, has to be brought out of its literal life, and then, because that operation is so violent and random, it has to be immediately forgotten. That itself is the content of the book for me: it's a pathology of writing, and for that reason it is interesting as long as I keep finding new symptoms, new clues to the ways he thinks. For me, that source of interest ran out long before the book ended.

[Paulo Rodrigues · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conhecimento do Inferno de
António Lobo Antunes
Um Psiquiatra faz uma introspecção da sua vida durante uma viagem de carro da região do Algarve, Albufeira, até Lisboa, a praia das Maçãs. Os eventos são lembrados pelo protagonista (o próprio  António Lobo Antunes) que sozinho no carro vai deambulando entre o passado, na guerra em Angola  e o presente, como Psiquiatra no Hospital Miguel Bombarda.
Logo no primeiro capítulo, ALA  em tom de autobiografia, percebemos o que podemos esperar do romance: "Em 1973, eu regressara da guerra e sabia de feridos, do latir de gemidos na picada, de explosões, de tiros, de minas, de ventres esquartejados pela explosão das armadilhas, sabia de prisioneiros e de bebés assassinados, sabia do sangue derramado e da saudade, mas fora-me poupado o conhecimento do inferno".
Esse conhecimento do inferno , vamos percebendo ao longo do livro que tem a ver com os métodos Psiquiátricos usados no hospital(com os quais não concorda) e com as vivências dolorosas, penosas, que ele vai tendo com os utentes  e que mexem profundamente com ele (apesar de ser a sua especialidade), assistir à decadência humana fazendo paralelos com o que viveu na guerra.
Mais um grande livro de António Lobo Antunes este que foi  o fecho de uma  trilogia; Memória de Elefante,Os Cus de Judas e Conhecimento do Inferno.
Leiam vale muito a pena...

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sabía de heridos, del latir de gemidos en el sendero, de explosiones, de tiros, de minas, de vientres destrozados por la explosión de las trampas, sabía de prisioneros y de bebés asesinados, sabía de la sangre derramada y de la añoranza, pero me había sido ahorrado el conocimiento del infierno.

La locura está separada de la cordura, se dice en el habla popular, por una línea muy tenue, como el sueño y la vigilia, ese territorio tenebroso que visitamos al despertar de golpe y en el que deambulamos largos minutos, nuestros pasos como la bruma, a veces ligeros y otras pesados, intentando abarcarlo todo e irremediablemente cediendo a la voz, o voces obsesivas de la conciencia, que parecen hablarnos en otro plano, y que poco a poco van ganando espacio hasta el momento en que verdaderamente despertamos, o eso creemos, por que el proceso todavía está desfasado en varios sutiles estados que vamos dejando, como los peldaños de una larga y laberíntica escalera en espiral, que si miráramos desde lo alto y hacia abajo, produciría de nuevo ese vértigo incesante con el que inició el viaje, y entonces todo se repetiría de la misma manera, una y otra vez, hasta el infinito. La locura es justamente el estado permanente de subir y bajar la inmensa escalera en espiral, pues cómo vuelve a decir la muy certera habla popular, un tornillo se ha zafado en la cabeza del orate, una falla se ha producido en esa sofisticada y fascinante máquina que es el cerebro humano.

En mi opinión, la telaraña de palabras del párrafo anterior, de igual forma podría ser una acertada descripción de la prosa de este inmenso escritor portugués, simplemente por qué en ella, habita una especie de locura innata, representada por un ritmo imprevisible, una temporalidad constantemente desmembrada, y un lenguaje fraccionado, como las piezas de un rompecabezas que al unirlas, proclaman no solo reglas inéditas, sino un sorprendente nuevo orden que lo abarca todo, donde locura y cordura van de la mano cohabitando y alimentándose una de la otra, dualidad representada por la compulsiva necesidad de comparar, a través del obsesivo uso de metáforas que sin duda, son un ir y venir entre esos dos estados de la mente. Y de todos los libros de él que he leído, es en este que aborda justamente el tema con cierta precisión clínica (fondo y forma, los elementos constitutivos de toda obra literaria, parecen amalgamarse y convertirse en uno solo), siendo que su profesión inicial es la psiquiatría, centrándose en una clínica donde el personaje principal, llamado António Lobo Antunes, es uno de los doctores que por aquella tenue línea divisoria, se convierte en momentos, en un paciente más. Así, el tema central de Conocimiento del Infierno, su tercera novela, escrita en 1980, es un descenso justamente al tétrico submundo, donde locos y cuerdos (psiquiatras y pacientes, soldados y civiles) se confunden: la guerra, aquella que el autor vivió de manera personal en Angola (uno de los temas centrales de su obra), es ese infierno donde la cordura desaparece y la selva, son los pasillos de un manicomio olvidado en algún lugar de Portugal.

Nunca se olvidaría de la mujer con mechones incoloros y largos dedos tan blancos como los de las infantas en las criptas, precipitada desde el marco de una puerta para declamarles, con los gestos desarticulados de las marionetas, los versos de William Butler Yeats When you are grey and old and full of sleep, con un timbre irreal que otorgaba a cada palabra la vertiginosa profundidad de un pozo.

[Sini · Rating 5 out of 5]

De vroege, derde roman van Lobo Antunes, prachtig vertaald als "Reis naar het einde" maar met een titel die letterlijk "Kennis van de hel" betekent, begint aldus: "De zee van de Algarve is van karton, net als in toneeldecors, en de Engelse toeristen hebben dat niet in de gaten: ze spreiden braaf hun handdoek uit op het zaagsel van het zand, zetten een donkere bril op tegen de papieren zon, wandelen verrukt over het podium van Albufeira, waar als carnavalshippies verklede ambtenaren hun hurkend op de grond Marokkaanse halskettingen aansmeren die heimelijk zijn vervaardigd door de plaatselijke VVV, en strijken aan het eind van de middag neer op nepterrasjes, waar ze verzonnen drankjes nuttigen uit niet-bestaande glazen, die de kleffe smaak achterlaten van de whisky die figuranten van televisieseries aangeboden krijgen". Dit is nog niet de Lobo Antunes die we in zijn laatste romans zien: daar raast zo'n zin wel 10 tot 20 pagina's door, als een soort verbijsterde innerlijke monoloog die weigert tot rust te komen in een punt en die alleen door allerlei geciteerde uitroepen van anderen doorbroken wordt. In deze vroege roman, die kennelijk het derde deel is van een trilogie waarvan ook zijn debuutroman "Judaskus" onderdeel is, zijn de zinnen korter. Maar de woekering van over elkaar duikelende grillige associaties en onnavolgbaar barokke beelden is minstens zo heftig, en naar mijn smaak zelfs heftiger en ongrijpbaarder. Dit boek is meer groteske beelden gevuld dan schilderijen van Jeroen Bosch, doordesemd van even hilarische als pikzwarte carnavaleske humor, en doordrenkt van unheimliche uitvergrotingen en vervormingen.

De lezer wordt meer en meer ondergedompeld in een delirerende innerlijke monoloog, die steeds waanzinniger en woedender wordt. Of, zoals vertaler Harrie Lemmens in zijn mooie nawoord suggereert, een "bouffée delirante": een aandoening waarbij de patiënt uitbarst in zeer hevige verbale agressie, die gepaard gaat met extreme fantasiebeelden en waanvoorstellingen. Uit de boven geciteerde openingszin wordt dat misschien niet meteen duidelijk. Maar later des te meer. Bijvoorbeeld in de volgende passage over waanzinnigen in een gesticht: "Nou ja, mijn opwinding raak ik sowieso kwijt als ze de dosis verdubbelen: met die medicijnen hier kun je een heel leger castreren, ze veranderen de mensen in treurige ossen die in de wei hun tamme verdriet uitloeien. Misschien hadden ze wel zin om te janken, te huilen, te blaffen, de verplegers te wurgen, alle ruiten in te gooien. Misschien hadden ze wel zin om dood te gaan, maar de geneesmiddelen van het gesticht kappen zelfs de eenvoudige, woedende, natuurlijke, bijna prettige zin om te sterven, ze stoppen het stromen van het bloed, schorten de gebaren op, verschrompelen de glimlachen, herleiden de voetstappen tot het aarzelende waggelen van een peuter: gekkenhuizen zijn niet meer dan tuinen met menselijke koolstronken, besproeid met de mest van spuiten. Hij liet zijn billen van de stoel glijden tot hij op zijn knieën op het linoleum zat: 'Ik wil geen os worden, ik wil geen groente worden, ik wil niet buiten in de zon gaan liggen als een lijk vaneen treinongeluk. Ik wil geen bezoek op zondag, geen uitstapjes naar de dierentuin, geen kerstprogramma op de televisie. Ik wil niet dammen met de doden'".

Het verhaal draait om de innerlijke monoloog van een psychiater, die - net als Lobo Antunes zelf- zeer gekweld wordt door het brute oorlogsgeweld in Angola en zijn eigen rol daarin, en misschien nog wel meer - eveneens net als Lobo Antunes zelf- door de wantoestanden die hij na repatriëring aantrof in de Portugese psychiatrie. Het hele boek door is hij in zijn auto op weg naar zijn ouderlijk huis, en herbeleeft hij diverse over elkaar heen buitelende scenes uit zijn verleden. Het lijkt, als we zijn herbelevingen proberen te volgen, alsof in zijn ervaring de Angolese oorlogswaanzin is herleefd in de manier waarop de patiënten worden platgespoten en voor de rest worden genegeerd. En ook in de deliriums van die patiënten uiteraard, te meer omdat daar de nodige mensen tussen zitten met oorlogstrauma's. Alle intens herbeleefde woede, onmacht en ontzetting over dat oorlogsgeweld, en over de misdeelde en ook door de hoofdpersoon slecht behandelde psychiatrische patiënten, spat in deze monoloog van de pagina's. Eigenlijk al in de openingszin, waarin woest gefoeterd wordt op de zee van karton, op de papieren zon, en op drankjes die uit niet- bestaande glazen worden genuttigd. Op de schijn, dus. De schijn, de volkomen onzekere wereld waarin alles steeds anders is dan normaal en ook steeds verandert, de van onwerkelijkheid doordesemde schijnwereld kortom waarin waanzinnigen moeten leven. Maar misschien ook "schijn" in de zin van: de zogenaamd normale wereld van toeristen is zo onwerkelijk als een toneeldecor, de enige werkelijke wereld is die van de waanzin. Oftewel: die toeristen op het strand zijn pas echt onwerkelijk, want ze kennen de waanzin niet, terwijl er slechts een dunne lijn is tussen hun toeristenvermaak en de gillende doodsangst van iemand die door totale redeloosheid en onwerkelijkheid is getroffen.

De hoofdfiguur dompelt zich in elk geval steeds meer in de waanzin onder, identificeert zich met de waanzin en de waanzinnigen, spreekt meer en meer de taal van de waanzin. Bijvoorbeeld door in steeds langere zinnen de onnavolgbaar barokke beelden meer en meer over elkaar te laten buitelen, op een voor mij vaak onnavolgbare maar wel enorm meeslepende manier. Maar ook door voortdurend de ik- vorm en de hij- vorm af te wisselen. De ik- vorm kan dan nog een zekere mate van reflectie en nabijheid inhouden, terwijl de hij- vorm meteen afstand schept en volgens mij zelfs vervreemding benadrukt: de verbijstering van de ik over alles wat hij aan waanzin in zichzelf waarneemt en dus niet kan rijmen met zijn herkenbare ik. Vaak is wat hij herbeleeft ook puur hallucinatoir: hij beschrijft bijvoorbeeld hoe hij op bijna carnavaleske wijze gecastreerd wordt ("En met één houw, ondersteund door een wraaklustig enthousiast applaus, ontdeed ze me van honderd nutteloze gram vlees".), maar ook hoe hij voor lijk ligt, of hoe hijzelf als psychiatrisch patiënt wordt opgesloten, weggehoond en platgespoten. Bovendien worden in zijn koortsachtige monoloog soms meerdere tijdslagen hallucinatoir vermengd: oorlogsverleden smelt samen met een voorval met patiënten, de ik- figuur (die snel daarna een hij- figuur is) versmelt met een patiënt, enzovoort.

De hoofdpersoon delireert kortom met de delirerenden, is waanzinnig met de waanzinnigen. Precies dat weet Lobo Antunes met zijn stijl als weinig anderen voelbaar te maken. Daardoor roept hij ook heel pregnant de waanzin en barokke grilligheid op die zijns inziens zo welig tiert in de wereld, ook die van ons. Hij maakt, juist door de uitzinnigheid van zijn stijl, voelbaar wat voor werelden van gillende waanzin er schuil kunnen gaan vlak onder het oppervlak van ons ogenschijnlijk zo ordelijke bestaantje. Zijn stijl inviteert ons kortom om ons eveneens onder te dompelen in waanzin en delirium, net als de hoofdpersoon. Daarmee voedt hij volgens mij onze compassie voor redeloosheid, en wellicht ook de zelfcompassie voor de redeloze spookfiguren in onszelf.

[Benny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knots, boenk, pataat!

Deze vroege Antunes barst van de zinnen die wil inkaderen, beelden die je wil uitslijpen. Zeelucht ademt en kronkelt monkelend om je voeten. Het landschap geurt als een lijk.

Als je Antunes’ later werk kent, merk je dat hij hier zijn stijl nog aan het polijsten is, nog een beetje zoekende is naar de beste manier om de gelijktijdigheid van alles te vatten. Als je dat werk niet kent, of even doet alsof, merk je daar niets van en is dit gewoon een meesterwerk.

Heden en vele verledens vloeien in mekaar door via overlappende beeldspraak, beelden waarmee een autobestuurder wisselend scherp stelt op het heden (een nogal saaie autorit door het zuiden van Portugal) of zijn onthutsende herinneringen aan zijn werk als psychiater, beelden die je niet kan of wil wissen, beelden die opdoemen als overstekend wild in de koplampen van een nachtrit.

De gedachtestroom is een hallucinante afdaling in zijn persoonlijke hel. De kern van het boek vormt een vlijmende kritiek op de psychiatrie zoals hij die beleefd heeft. Die gruwel neemt soms groteske vormen aan (wat het leesplezier alleen maar ten goede komt).

Reis naar het Einde is een onthutsend zelfportret van een man op een kantelmoment: waanzin of kunst?

Antunes lezen is altijd een intense ervaring. Je moet er tijd en ruimte voor maken. Vanuit akelig wisselende perspectieven krijg je twee drie soms zelfs vier verhalen tegelijkertijd te lezen, en daar is je volle aandacht voor nodig. Als je die kan opbrengen – en dat is het telkens weer waard – ontdek je een magistraal oeuvre.

Hoed af ook voor Harrie Lemmens die hiermee een zoveelste sublieme vertaling aflevert. Met schrijvers als Saramago, Ribeiro en Antunes is zijn vertaalwerk binnen het Nederlands taalgebied uitgegroeid tot een kwaliteitslabel.

[dannymac · Rating 5 out of 5]

antonio lobo antunes; now I'd been drawn to saramago these last few years and had no idea that he had such a ferocious contender scribbling in an orbit of mere obscurity and quite a contender he is. In fact, he is such a formidable opponent for Jose that I must admit to being drawn in favor of Antonio. He is a probably the most poetically writerly author I've read since discovering Henry Miller years ago. What a way he has with words and images!!! -they were scattered like butterfly dust- is just one of his phrases that comes to mind, but what a picture!!. The man's a genius and as others have before me, I must also concede that he was tragically overlooked in the awarding of the nobel prize to literature to saramago; while no slouch himself, I'm no an official convert to the world of Antunes. A brilliant master of lyrical fiction, for those who love that sort of thing, he is a must read.

[Isla McKetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much I started reading it over again the minute I finished it just to soak it in and understand it on a new level. Beautiful language and effortless transitions between three or more stories in a fictional dream.

[Cata Campos Varela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un monólogo extenso, confuso y demasiado decorado que no deja ver la crítica a la psiquiatría. A pesar de mis expectativas, sobre un autor que comparan con Saramago, está fue una lectura aburrida y difícil de terminar

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este livro é exorcismo puro. Fantasmas de guerra e trabalho que são moídos e remoídos. A filha Joana é âncora que o prende à realidade, tudo o resto é negritude racionalizada. Apesar de criar ambientes claustrofóbicos polvilha-os com tais doses de humor que de forma alguma a leitura se torna depressiva. Aliás, já não me lembro de qual foi o último livro em que me ri tanto, momentos às vezes estapafúrdios, relacionados com a própria projecção da morte do narrador, mas que são de uma comicidade extrema. A escrita parece difícil, mas nada disso, descreve-nos imagens provavelmente impossíveis de o fazer de outra forma, é complicado no inicio mas depressa aprendemos a entender esta nova linguagem.

[Rafa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acabo mareado como un púgil sonado por los golpes.

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mental institution as hell. The Angolan war as hell. Modern plastic society as hell. This is one hell of a novel!

[Reyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nederlands (English below)

In Reis naar het einde (1980) betreedt de Portugese schrijver António Lobo Antunes het domein van de herinnering en de verbeelding: de voortrazende gedachtestroom van zijn alter ego tijdens een trip naar Praia das Maçãs deed mij nog het meest denken aan een aaneenschakeling van hallucinaties. (Vertaler Harrie Lemmens omschrijft het in het nawoord waarschijnlijk treffender als ‘één lange ijlende verzuchting’.)

De schrijver grijpt de onbegrensde vrijheid van het domein met beide handen aan. Zijn alter ego worstelt met dezelfde teleurstellingen – de oorlog in Angola, de psychiatrische inrichtingen waar hij werkte – van waaruit zijn fantasie op hol slaat. Dat levert beeldspraak op die niet altijd makkelijk te volgen is, en soms zelfs klinkklare nonsens bevat, maar die wel getuigt van een rijk taalgebruik en een onvergetelijke tirade jegens de pierrots van de psychiatrie. Dat ik het boek drie in plaats van vier sterren heb gegeven, zal het gevolg zijn van mijn onbegrip. Mogelijk biedt Licht op Lissabon van Lemmens me hierna meer inzicht.

'Was jij dat die zei dat psychiatrie de edelste van alle medische specialisaties is?’ vroeg hij. ‘God zeg, als ik toen geweten had wat ik nu weet was ik tandarts geworden.’

English

In Knowledge of Hell, António Lobo Antunes captured some of his worst memories of his time in a military hospital during the colonial war in Angola, and as a psychiatrist in Portugal’s mental health institutions. His stream of consciousness has a hallucinatory effect. I appreciated Lobo Antunes’ attempt to defy the boundaries of literary freedom, even though he is often hard to follow and his words sometimes seem to drift away.

[Emanuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Os nossos grandes livros (ou os favoritos), provavelmente, são aqueles que sobrevivem à releitura. Se o “Memória de Elefante” e “Os Cus de Judas” não desiludiram, “Conhecimento do Inferno” é o primeiro que para mim destaca-se e aguenta-se das canetas, ainda surpreendeu na releitura.

[Rui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puro e duro como só o autor sabe ser. Sempre no limiar da loucura. O pior é quando nos identificamos com as cenas loucas que lhe passam pela cabeça. Obrigado, António. Não há cabimento à coragem necessária para seguir em frente quando vemos que o mundo está todo fodido. Repito-me: obrigado António.

[Chico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult to understand how he hasn't won the Nobel... Yet!!!

[Carolina Gavancho · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3,5/5)

[Esquejes Lunares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es lo primero que leo de António Lobo Antunes y sólo puedo decir que, nada más que por esta novela, ya merecería ese Premio Nobel que nunca le dan.

[Slavena]

придобих така наречения от възрастните практически житейски усет, което всъщност ще рече автоматизъм на безполезността, и загубих като дарба приветливото и озадачено внимание на децата, в което отекват, както и в сънищата, огромните смесени крачки на радостта и страха. видях мириса на морето, седнал на парапета, да ме гледа със смирените си конски зеници.

.. и тво��т прозрачен профил леко оцветен от мургавия оттенък на кожата ти, по която слънцето бавно зрееше, като по кората на наровете.

светлината на алгарве към четири следобед започва да се смекчава меланхолично с приближаването на залеза, а къщите започват бавно да се разтварят подобно на нощни венчета с ритъма на стенни часовници, с които туптят отмерено големите мудни сърца на спящите волове.

.. липсата на море е толкова пълна, че вятърът свисти с бронхитни хрипове в гърлата на улиците. тъжен вятър, като кашлица на библиотекар или на вдовица.

щеше ми се да съм далеч от дълбоката душевна нищета на хората, от тяхната крехкост и техния страх, щеше ми се да потъна като пожарникаря в детски сън без угризения и сутринта да си изплакна зъбите от розова чашка с щампован мики маус, без никакви обещания за очакващ ме ад.

може би войната продължава по някакъв начин вътре в нас, може би аз оставам зает единствено с огромната, отчайваща, трагична задача да оцелея, да оцелея без ропот, без бунт, да оцелея в страх като болните от пето отделение на болница "мигел бомбарда", втренчени в психиатрите с чудна смес от надежда и ужас: който се държи добре, има право на домашен отпуск, който не се държи добре, бива незабавно наказан с инжекции и потъва в химически сънища, обвити в непрогледна тъма, в толкова пълна чернота, колкото нощите на слепците, чиито очи приличат на мъртви птички, проснати в клетките на миглите.

болният, който се смяташе за самолет, избръмча покрай верандата: щом кацнеше под чинарите щеше както обикновено да вдигне от земята облак жълтеникав прах. тук отдолу друг болен, повишен в контролна кула, насочваше маневрата, като описваше големи кръгове с ръце. трети се въртеше около себе си, имитирайки радар. мъжът който се смяташе за самолет никога не летеше нощем: седеше си в леглото с вирнати лакти, а големите му искрящи очи блещукаха в тъмнината. от време на време прокашляше бронхита на витлата.

събота сутрин е и ще вали. ще вали цяла събота еднообразно, неизменният, равен, тих, майски дъжд, лек и навяващ тъга като спомена за дядо ми, за когото се сещам понякога когато съм сам и пресъздавам на тавана крехката архитектура на миналото. събота сутрин е и ме чака точене през фуния на отчайващи часове.

точно тогава реши да стане психиатър, за да живее сред изкривени хора като явяващите ни се насън и да проумее лунатичните им приказки или развълнуваните или сърдити аквариуми в мозъците им, където берат душа рибите на страха.

а терасите пред заведенията му се сториха изведнъж претъпкани с трупове, кротуващи трупове в очакване на някакво възкресение, трупове, които разговаряха и пиеха, навеждаха се едни към други, отдръпваха се, отпращаха мъртвия продавач на лотарийни билети, който се опитваше да пробута мечтата от маса на маса, забравил, че умрелите не мечтаят, ненавиждат мечтата, кроежите, бъдещето, което ги изключва, че мразят онова, което не познават, което не владеят, което убягва на тесногръдото им мислене, и седят упорито в старинни салончета, наблюдавайкки се безмълвно, с чаши небитие върху коленете.

и някакъв дребен плешив човечец с карирана риза изникна от стъклената будка, заклатушка се към него и се увеси радушно на ръката му с разполовено лице от огромната зейнала рана на усмивката.

слушам JFDR - Orange (String Version)

[Rita Gutierrez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terceiro romance de Lobo Antunes, publicado em 1980, que nos convida a acompanhar uma viagem de automóvel, no final das férias de verão, desde Albufeira até à Praia das Maçãs. Inicialmente podem estranhar-se as oscilações de um narrador ora autodiegético, ora heterodiegético, que nos introduz a uma ação tripartida: o internato de Psiquiatria no Hospital Miguel Bombarda, cenários de guerra colonial em Angola e, por fim, alguns episódios familiares resgatados a lembranças escondidas.
​O livro é orientado por uma questão central associada a uma angústia assumida pelo narrador e que se prende com as fronteiras incertas que demarcam dicotomias arriscadas como o “equilíbrio mental” versus “desequilíbrio mental”, o “nós” versus “eles”, “os sãos” versus “os loucos”. A dúvida constante sobre essas (in)questionáveis e securizantes demarcações impõe ao narrador uma agonizante indefinição. Não se aceita como integrante da barricada dos profissionais de saúde – nem no Hospital, nem no cenário de Angola e muito menos nas cenas familiares – protegidos pelas teorias e pela autoritária doutrina da ciência que atrofia e espezinha a empatia, capacidade de escutar e amar o outro, identificando-se com a espontaneidade, crueza e força bruta de humanidade que observa nos doentes (“os loucos”). Esta identificação encerra, contudo, o medo recorrente do abismo sem retorno que reconhece nas pessoas que é responsável por tratar – excessivamente medicadas, anestesiadas, adormecidas como sonâmbulos, consequência da aplicação de uma conceção disparatadamente medicalizada da doença mental.
​Começamos então a desvendar o motivo da oscilação recorrente na diegese: ela ilustra precisamente o movimento pendular do pensamento do narrador e capta, com uma precisão cirúrgica, a ambivalência patente. Esta, por seu turno, embora seja apenas abertamente assumida por parte do narrador, é também imputada aos demais profissionais de saúde através de um episódio de antropofagia ritualística que permite que nos interroguemos se “os sãos” procuram aniquilar “os loucos” (pela ameaça que estes podem representar às certezas inseguras do que é “ser saudável”, “equilibrado”) ou, ao contrário, consumi-los na esperança de adquirir uma parte das suas caraterísticas (poderes?) tão humanas, tão autênticas e virgens de vivenciar os sentimentos, assumindo-os na sua total crueza. Também neste episódio o narrador se coloca simultaneamente numa posição ativa e passiva, corroborando assim a luta interna na identificação com a classe profissional (ou patente hierárquica) a que pertence.
​Cumpre deixar uma nota sobre o ritmo estimulante da escrita e sobre o estilo tão rico que Lobo Antunes imprime ao romance – na verdade presente também no primeiro e segundo livros que publicou, ainda que se tenha tornado mais evidente neste livro: o risco de deixar que à laia de associação livre se fundam os episódios que vai narrando, sem se perder o fio condutor de cada um e, ao mesmo tempo, desvendando-se aos poucos a imagem completa e vívida que se constrói nessa fusão de espaços e tempos permite uma representação surpreendente do pensamento. Para além disto, pela exigência de um certo esforço e concentração na leitura somos convidados – talvez mesmo convocados – a entrar no pensamento do narrador não como observadores que escutam um relato, mas como sujeitos desse mesmo pensamento.
​Parece que em Memória de Elefante tivemos acesso aos mesmos três componentes da ação, embora o tema dominante seja o dos episódios familiares; em Os Cus de Judas domina o cenário de guerra; e no Conhecimento do Inferno o pendor recai sobre o internato de psiquiatria e a vivência do Hospital Miguel Bombarda. Vejamos o que nos reserva a Explicação dos Pássaros.

[Antonio Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

El talento y brillantez de Lobo Antunes es estratosférico. Al menos 20 años como uno de los escritores firmes candidatos al Nobel. Es un reconocimiento que se le quedaría corto, aunque podría (quizá tristemente depender de ello) impulsar su obra de un modo considerable.

"Conocimiento del infierno" es un libro arrollador. Puede resultar exigente acostumbrarse a la prosa de Lobo Antunes, debido a motivos como el lenguaje altamente poético (plagado de metáforas, símiles), el empleo de la ironía, la no linealidad del relato, falta de contexto y la estructura heterodoxa. Es un esfuerzo absolutamente recompensado.

Aquí comparto uno de los fragmentos que he seleccionado de la obra:

«(...), no sabía nada del sufrimiento de los hombres, del miserable, lacerante, injusto sufrimiento de los hombres, y me quedaba de pie, en medio de la sala, enrollando las gomas del estetoscopio en las manos, indignado por mi joven ciencia inútil, por mi impotencia y por mi asombro, de pie en medio de la sala de grandes ventanas más allá de las cuales Lisboa remolineaba en la luz con una lentitud convulsa de tiovivo, haciendo girar sus movimientos complicados y feos a la manera de jirafas de madera. Los enfermos del Hospital Miguel Bombarda, pensó mirando a su alrededor la multitud de los camisones sentados en silencio en las sillas de formica, no sollozan, no protestan, no lloran: son cadáveres grises, pobres cadáveres castrados que respiran levemente, atosigados de calmantes, rebosantes de comprimidos y cápsulas, moviéndose con lentos ademanes de algas de compartimiento en compartimiento, arrastrando las alpargatas por las tablas, cóncavas del uso, de la tarima».

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a complex book written as the free flowing thoughts of a man who is extremely cynical and frustrated with people... with the falseness and lack of depth—the absence of anything genuine or meaningful. He is especially critical of the field of psychiatry (he himself is a psychiatrist who is exactly what he hates) and of the Meaninglessness of war (specifically of the role of the Portuguese in Angola). While condemning the bland shallow lives of humanity, the author uses amusing, harsh, and eloquent details. I loved reading some of the descriptions, he made cynicism lyrical. This was a book for someone who really knows how to love a sentence...who loves to read and think. It takes some effort as it’s not linear, but well worth the effort to read.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first exposure to Antunes. The only other Portugese author I've read is Saramago, and it's easy to draw comparisons to his writing style here, especially the passages of long, run-on sentences and paragraphs. Antunes brings a much more palpable sense of despair to the table; his descriptions of war and mental hospitals do indeed impart a specific knowledge of hell to the reader. I'll definitely be tracking down more of his work.

[Catarina Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Da guerra para o manicómio. O personagem chamado António Lobo Antunes aterra como psiquiatra recém-encartado no hospital psiquiátrico Bombarda, onde conhecerá um novo tipo de inferno, depois do que viveu na Guerra Colonial em Angola, e com o qual faz constantes paralelismos. Lá dentro, mergulha num espaço murado e sem saídas. Aquele que será o seu espaço de trabalho é um lugar onde a filha criança não quer entrar por ter medo dos doentes, daqueles doentes.

[Alan]

With regret I must stop reading this most lovely written piece of literature ever. But, to call it a novel is wrong. Atunes' sentences may be the most gorgeously sentences ever written, each one a poem in itself. Unfortunately, trying to follow a narrative while reading them is next to impossible because the images within are so lush and evocative. My head is exploding.

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

What happened to me? I'd read A.L. Antunes before and loved his stuff; "Conhecimento do Inferno", not so much. I was ok with the contents (wouldn't call it a plot), especially all the scenes set in the "insane" asylum; but the rest was a turn-off: I didn't care about Africa or about his personal life. And by "his" I mean the author's: it was a little too autobiographical for me

[Albena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Разкошна.
Но не е моето, поне не в момента.