Pascal Mercier (1944–2023)

It is interesting to see the difference an ocean makes in book reviews. I don't mean the reviews here on Goodreads, but in such papers as the NY Times and Washington Post. Reviews of Pascal Mercier's Night Train to Lisbon written abroad are positive, while American reviews are negative or dismissive.

I love words. I love thinking about the role words play in the development of our psyche. The role they play in the development of our identity. If you do not share this fascination, NTTL may be show more a non-starter for you. Raimund Gregorious, called Mundus for short, or Papyrus as a joke, becomes bewitched by the sound of a single word, "português." For USA speakers who say "Port-chew-geese," this may be a stretch. Feed the word into a Portuguese translator, and you will get a better idea of the soft, sensual beauty of the word. Gregorious is a scholar of classical languages, a man highly attuned to language. In fact, his world, his religion is utterly tied to language. Before too long Gregorius has made his way to a Spanish language bookstore. I suppose finding Portuguese books in Bern, Switzerland is like finding Português wine in a U.S. grocery. File under Spain. Can't tell you how many people think I am Spanish. "You mean, Spanish and Portuguese aren't pretty much same?" There he happens upon book of essays written by a Português man with a very romantic name, Amandeu de Prado. Dictionary and language records at hand, he begins to translate the essays. Of course, this propels him on a journey to Lisbon to seek out this man whose words speak so directly to him. Just like when I first fell under the spell of Calvino, I hightailed it to Italy. Right. Here you must just go along with the author and accept that Gregorious, a man who probably has worn the same style of underwear since potty training days, drops his job, locks up his apartment, sends a letter to the school head and goes to Lisbon in search of an unknown writer. He barely speaks any Português beyond "obrigado." True, he has an uncanny facility for language. I recommend that you buy into this premise. Far more far-fetched things have happened in the world of books.

Hang on because it is a fascinating journey in which Gregorious pieces together the life of a remarkable man who would go from venerated doctor to a participant in the resistance movement against Portugal's fascist government. Salazar, the Dean of Dictators, held sway over his country longer than any other dictator in Europe. While Portugal's brand of fascism eschewed the racist tendencies of Germany and Italy, while prior to Salazar's regime Portugal was a festering mess, while Salazar kept Portugal out of WWII, thus allowing Portugal to be a safe haven for those fleeing the Holocaust, a gateway out of Europe, his reform government was still a rigid, brutal regime which kept citizens in check by use of savage secret police. As Gregorious's reads Amandeu's work, meets the people who loved him, reader enters into both Gregorious's and Amandeu's philosophic and emotional progress which become entwined.

This is a book with a bunch of words. Bunches of words about words. I happen to like that. There is not a great deal of immediate action. People talk and read and talk about what they read. I happen to like that too. Night Train is an idea driven novel. Again, I happen to like that. On the other hand, I can see why this book might be as dry as papyrus to another reader. show less

Und plötzlich ist nicht nur der Körper gelähmt, sondern auch die Stimme ist weg. Er kann die Worte nicht mehr sagen, die doch sein Leben bedeuten. Der Engländer Simon Leyland kommt in Triest in die Klinik, doch die Hoffnung, dass der Anfall nur eine Migraine accompagnée sei, wird durch den untrüglichen Blick des Arztes zunichtegemacht. Da ist etwas in seinem Kopf, dass da nicht hingehört und mehr als ein paar Monate werden dem Verleger und Übersetzer nicht mehr bleiben. Er erinnert show more sich zurück an die Zeit mit seiner Frau Livia, als sie mit den Kindern in London wohnten, dann nach dem Tod von Livias Vater und der Übernahme seines Verlages nach Triest kamen, einer seiner Sehnsuchtsstädte, denn als Junge schon stand Simon vor einer Karte und beschloss, alle Sprachen zu lernen, die rund um das Mittelmeer gesprochen werden und nun sollte er direkt an dieses ziehen. Mit der Diagnose jedoch geht das Leben, wie er es kannte zu Ende. Womöglich jedoch ist da aber noch ein Fünkchen Hoffnung darauf, dass er eine Chance auf ein zweites bekommt und jemand zu ihm sagt „Welcome home, Sir!“.

Pascal Mercier, schriftstellerisches Pseudonym des Schweizer Philosophen Peter Bieri, ist ein Virtuose im Umgang mit Worten. Sein aktueller Roman ist eine Hommage an alle Liebhaber der Literatur und Linguistik, denn im Zentrum der Gedanken seines Protagonisten stehen die Worte mit ihren Bedeutungen, Konnotationen und den Emotionen, die sie auslösen, sowie die Frage, ob man den Gedanken einer Sprache adäquat auch in einer anderen wiedergeben kann und wo sich letztlich die Grenze der Sprache befindet. Es ist eine Reise durch die Literatur und die Sprachen des Mittelmeerraums, die eingebunden ist in eine Handlung voller Schmerz, Trauer und Hoffnung gleichermaßen.

Man kann den Inhalt kaum angemessen zusammenfassen, einerseits ob der Fülle der Gedankengänge, die sich um die perfekte Übersetzung und den vollkommenen Ausdruck drehen, andererseits ohne einen wesentlichen Aspekt der Handlung vorwegzunehmen, der für Leyland essentiell werden wird. Es gibt ein Vorher, vor dem Anfall, als sein Leben geprägt ist durch Jagd nach Worten und von Begegnungen mit den unterschiedlichsten Menschen, denen allerlei fremde Worte eigen sind und die sie mit ihm teilen. Es gibt aber auch ein Danach, als plötzlich die Menschen viel mehr in seinen Blick geraten und aller Fatalität zum Trotz immer ein Neubeginn möglich scheint.

Den knapp 600 Seiten langen Roman liest Markus Hoffmann in über 22 Stunden mit einer leisen und prononcierten Stimme, die hervorragend als Erzählstimme von Simon Leyland gewählt ist. So gerne man ihm zuhört, liegen hier aber für mich auch die einzigen beiden Kritikpunkte: ich hätte mir gewünscht, dass seine fremdsprachigen Einwürfe ebenso flüssig klingen wie die deutsche Stimme, aber leider wirken sein Englisch wie auch sein Italienisch oder das portugiesische Vorwort sehr angestrengt und bemüht. So sehr mich der Roman begeisterte und ich den mäandernden Überlegungen Leylands folgte, so ist das Hörbuch doch etwas zu lange und irgendwann wünscht man sich doch ein etwas zielgerichteteres Erzählen ohne die zahlreichen Wiederholungen bereits geschilderter Episoden. show less

"Our life, those are fleeting formations of quicksand formed by one gust of wind, destroyed by the next. Images of futility that blow away even before they have properly formed”.

I cracked open Pascal Mercier’s book with some trepidation, not really in the mood to read yet another novel written by a philosophy lecturer that specialised in wise words on the meaning or otherwise of our existence. This one has our hero picking up a book in a foreign bookstore and setting out on a hunt to show more meet the author; the purveyor of wisdom. There have been a number of these literary detection novels where a little known writer is tracked down by afictionado’s in search of literary fame. Possession by A S Byatt springs to mind. I feared that Night Train to Lisbon would be an uneasy amalgamation of one of these with some philosophical thoughts as evinced in my recently read of The Elegance of a Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. The snippets from critical reviews on the inside cover claiming the book would be a life changing experience written by a visionary author, also did not bode well.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself completely caught up in this novel’s milieu from the moment that Raimund Gregorius stepped into a Spanish book shop in his home town of Bern Switzerland with his head ringing with the sound of the Portuguese language. The bookshop “smelt wonderfully of old leather and dust” as Gregorius picks from a shelf; UM OURIVES DAS PALAVARAS by AMADEU INACIO DE ALMEIDA PRADO, LISBOA 1975. He does not read Portuguese but the book seller reads out loud for him the title and a short introduction. Gregorius is captivated by the sound of the language and when the book seller translates a passage including the sentence “Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us” he realises he must have this book. He rushes home armed with a Portuguese dictionary so that he can make his own translations.

As lovers of books and bookshops, that we all are, who has not had that moment of discovery similar to Gregorius’s; Mercier’s sympathetically well drawn leading character, who has spent his life as a student and then a teacher of classical languages. Gregorius’s careful translations reveals an exotic world of modern thought and investigations into language and the use of words. He wants to know more, he wants to meet the author, he wants to be in Portugal and so he walks away from his job and his life in Bern and boards a train to Lisbon. I have done something similar in my life a couple of times and so I was travelling hopefully with Gregorius. I was still concerned however that Mercier’s book might either sink under a weight of cod philosophy or that Gregorius the 57 year old scholar would prove to be so capable and resourceful that he would become totally unbelievable. I needn’t have worried I was in safe hands.

A chance meeting on the Lisbon train with a business man gives Gregorius some contacts and a foothold in the city, Gregorius says:

“There were those people who read and there were others, whether you were a reader or a non-reader, it was soon apparent. There was no greater distinction between people. People were amazed when he asserted this and many shook their heads at such crankiness, but that’s how it was and Gregorius knew it. He knew it.”

The city of Lisbon is explored not by its tourist sights, but by its bookshops. Gregorius soon learns that Amandeu had died in 1973, but his publisher puts him in contact with members of his family. He continues to translate chapters from the book as he tracks down two sisters. The elder sister Adriana is still under the power of her brother. The house where she assisted his work as a doctor remains untouched since the day of his death. It is a shrine. In contrast Melodie still living in the family house is a girl “who didn’t seem to touch the ground”. Friends and lovers are contacted and it soon becomes apparent that Amandeu was involved in the resistance movement against the Portuguese dictator Salazar. Amandeu was a charismatic man who touched the lives of almost everybody he met. Gregorius finds his old school; the Liceu, where some of the teachers were priests in the old Jesuit tradition. He translates his speech that was made to the school on Diploma day, which Amadeu had entitled “Reverence and Loathing for the word of God. At 17 years old Amandeu was already a powerful thinker who was not afraid to speak his mind. His tour de force of a speech touches on issues that were to occupy his thoughts for the rest of his life: the inside and outside of people and how we appear to others and how we appear to ourselves, the use of words, the need for secrets, secrets even from an omnipresent God, he rails against the human condition and the existential nature of his thoughts are already evident.

Pascal Mercier skillfully weaves Gregorius’s translations into the narrative of his search and so we witness the effect of the events discovered about Amandeu's life on his thoughts and actions through his writings. We are already aware that the star pupil at school is a troubled man; pressure from his family pushes him into a medical career, he is uneasy about his relationship with his doting sister, he joins the resistance movement where friendships are stretched to breaking point and betrayals are common place. Imprisonment and torture are just a step away and his writings reflect the damage to his health and his character. The titles of the essays will give a flavour of his state of mind: “The Shadow of the Soul, Treacherous Words, The Disconcerting shadow of Death and finally Furious Loneliness”.

Gregorius is deeply affected by the careful translation he is making and when he digs further and finds unsent letters and memos in locked drawers, that reveal more of Amandeu’s personal anguish, then it causes Gregorius to think about his own life. Grgorius becomes ill with a condition that is similar to one that Amandeu suffered as Amandeu seems to reach out to him beyond the grave. Mercier’s thought provoking book has many layers and calls for careful reading.

Mercier has used italics to highlight the sections that are the translations made by Gregorius of Amandeu’s writings. As soon as I had finished the novel, I went back through to read these passages in isolation and found new depths in the writing. Many of these short essays can stand alone and the quality of thought in them is at times outstanding. The extended metaphor of “I Live in Myself as a Moving Train” is writing at its best.

For a book that has language and the use of words as a key theme it is interesting to think about the fact that Gregorius is making translations from the Portuguese with the aid of dictionaries and occasionally native speakers. In addition Mercier’s book was originally written in German and I was reading an English translation by Barbara Harshav; treacherous words indeed perhaps or as Amandeu says “In the changing light of the words the same things can look different”

This is an excellent novel and one that I will keep to read again. Some beautiful and intelligent writing, with its layers of meaning makes this a book for grown-up people.
Not a life changing experience but still a 4.5 star read. show less

I absolutely loved this book. If you read all the reviews here, you will find they are almost bi-polar, or in the words of a beer ad slogn, "those who like it, like it a lot." If you don't love it, chances are you will hate it.

Raimundo Gregorius has a chance encounter with a Potuguese woman, then finds a book written by a Portuguese author (Prado) with a title that grabs him. On the spot, he leaves his long-held teaching position and travels to Portugal to learn more about the author. Once show more there, he meets people who knew the now-deceased author and finds out about the Portuguese resistance movement.

Prado's writings are deeply introspective and philosophical. I think readers who like a fast-moving plot may find them distracting. But I also think they mirror Gregorius's own search...his attempt to find something beyond his routine life in Switzerland.

There really are two stories here: Gregorious's obsession with Prado, and Prado's obsession with the workings of the mind; and the Portuguese resistance movement.

Now, the rest is hard to say without spoilers, so this may be a bit cryptic. Gregorius's decision to shut down his Switzerland life may be more than a mid-life crisis. And this may be the saddest book I've ever read...or not...depending on what happens immediately after the ending. And I loved the way it ended...the uncertainty that I was faced with is exactly what Gregorius, who I've come to know and feel close to, is facing. I'm there with him, and he is a character that will stay with me. show less