Maybe this lost something in translation. It certainly didn't live up to the recommendations emblazoned on the cover. It opened with promise when the staid predictable teacher walked out of class and took off on a whim, catching the train to Lisbon. I finished the book, but was disappointed with it. ( )

tedious beyond belief ( )

I loved this book, it is so wonderful, a old man, a teacher of classical languages changes his life and takes a great advanture but it much more then that it looks at language, ethics, love duty all that is life ( )

geschichte eines aus den fugen geratenen lehrers, der sich nach lissabonn aufmacht.

Mitten im Unterricht verlässt ein Lehrer seine Schule und macht sich auf den Weg nach Lissabon, um den Spuren eines geheimnisvollen Autors zu folgen. Immer tiefer zieht es ihn in dessen Aufzeichnungen und Reflexionen, immer mehr Menschen lernt er kennen, die von diesem Mann, den ein dunkles Geheimnis umgibt, zutiefst beeindruckt waren. Eine wundervolle Reise - die vergeblich sein muss und deren Bedrohungen der Reisende nicht gewachsen ist. Endlich kann er wieder fühlen, endlich hat er von seinem Leben zwischen Büchern aufgeblickt - aber was er sieht, könnte ihn das Leben kosten. ( )

The book is mostly a study in philosophy and becomes a bit tedious. The plot is essentially a Portuguese doctor's life as told to a Swiss teacher who travels to Portugal as a result of a midlife crisis; this is in pieces and in retrospect by those who admired him.

Relative to the mid-life crisis; things which resonated with me:
- How fundamental changes to one's life occur because of small, soft, hidden things as opposed to "big moments".
- The wish to go back to moments in life and take a completely different direction, one that is more true to oneself.
- The arbitrariness of one's life; how accidents and chance lead to the path one takes.

Relative to philosophy, among other things:
- The inability to truly understand the inner workings of the people around us, or to change their viewpoint when communicating with them. The ridiculous stories we invent to explain people or our life when reality is far more complicated.
- The stupidity of vanity. "...you have to forget the cosmic meaninglessness of all our acts to be able to be vain and that's a glaring form of stupidity."
- The reverence and loathing for the word of God. This speech is the high point of the book; the conflict felt between needing the poetry of the Bible and religion which disparages man's innate reason and physical urges. (unfortunately this is at p.168 of 438).
- "life is not what we live, it's what we imagine living."

They're interwoven and common to both is the persistence of memory; how events and what people said at various points in life are always with us in the present.

It's all pretty contrived - the travel set in motion initially by an encounter with a woman who really has no relevance, how the teacher is able to track down all of the major characters in the doctor's life and get them to produce various "unopened letters" and the like that reveal more of the philosophy, and the characters themselves, who often don't seem realistic.

I think I would rate it higher had it been significantly pared down in length. The ending is a nice touch; I'm surprised others don't read what I do into it and wonder what's next. ( )