Pascal Mercier (1944–2023)

A title like Night Train to Lisbon might conjure up romantic visions of suspense, espionage, danger and intrigue along the lines of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and other titles that have cemented the lure of trains in the literary imagination. But this is to travel down the wrong track (pardon the pun). Leading down another wrong track are such books about books as Arturo Perez Reverte’s show more Club Dumas, Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot or Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind. To the contrary, Pascal Mercier has presented us with something very different.

Night Train to Lisbon is a book about two men, Gregorius and Prado, one of whom can only speak to the other through the written word — his books and letters — for he has been in the ground for thirty years. Yet the power of his words, this voice from the past which speaks to the other so directly and personally that it causes him to literally drop everything, to break the bonds of his quotidian routine, and to embark on a journey in search of an author but which in the end becomes a journey of self-discovery.

Night Train to Lisbon would be a bildungsroman were Raimund Gregorius not already in his fifties. Most of his life is behind him. He is a scholar and has taught classical languages for all of his adult life; he has been married and divorced. On the surface he has led a fairly conventional life albeit somewhat constricted, timid and reclusive. He is a functioning adult. But his self-awareness has been limited as though he had been sleep-walking through life.

One day Gregorius steps into a neighborhood bookshop where his attention is drawn to a book in Portuguese, a language he does not read. The bookseller, translating ad lib, reads the words that struck Gregorius with such force:

Of the thousand experiences we have, we find language for one at most and even this one merely by chance and without the care it deserves. Buried under all the mute experiences are those unseen ones that give our life its form, its color, and its melody. . . . That sounds strange, even bizarre, I know. But ever since I have seen the issue in this light, I have the feeling of being really awake and alive for the first time.

Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us — what happens with the rest?

“’I’d like to have the book,’ said Gregorius.”

The book was called A Goldsmith of Words (Um Ourives das Palavras) by Amadeu Inácio de Almeida Prado, an author unknown to the bookseller. This book, these words, this mysterious writer cause Gregorius to embark upon a search for Prado the man, a search which takes him from his quiet life in Bern via a night train to Lisbon.

He teaches himself enough Portuguese over the coming days and weeks that with the aid of a dictionary he is able to gradually translate Prado’s book wherein Gregorius discovers that it is an account of the writer’s own self-examination. Part of what is revealed in Prado’s self-exploration is the lucid yet forceful beauty of his writing and also a realization of the bankruptcy of his Catholic upbringing, yet he acknowledges the lingering aestheticism that survived his loss of faith:

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur. I need them against the vulgarity of the world. I want to look up at the illuminated church windows and let myself be blinded by the unearthly colors. I need their luster. . . . I need their imperious silence. . . . I want to hear the rustling of the organ, this deluge of ethereal tones. . . . I love praying people. I need the sight of them. . . . I want to read the powerful words of the Bible. I need the unreal force of their poetry. . . . A world without these things would be a world I would not want to live in.

But there is also another world I don’t want to live in: the world where the body and independent thought are disparaged, and the best things we can experience are denounced as sins. The world that demands the love of tyrants, slave masters and cutthroats. . . . What is most absurd is that people are exhorted from the pulpit to forgive such creatures and even to love them.

I revere the word of God for I love its poetic force. I loathe the word of God for I hate its cruelty. . . .

The poetry of the divine word is so overwhelming that it silences everything. . . . It is a joyless God far from life speaking out of it, a God who wants to constrict the enormous compass of human life.

The fundamental question Prado asks is: “How can we be happy without curiosity, without questions, doubts and arguments?” He became a doctor “to fight the cruelty of the world” as he perceived it under the corrupt authoritarian regimes that dominated Portugal during the early twentieth century.

Gregorius would pursue the elusive Prado through his written words and also by tracking down people in Lisbon who had known him. We come to understand through what unfolds that Prado’s goodness and love for his people led him ultimately to participate anonymously in the resistance, his activities known only to a very few. The truth behind Prado’s death was quite different from what was widely believed.

Gregorius conducts his exploration of Prado’s life in a surprisingly forward way considering the quiet and unassuming life he has been accustomed to. He boldly knocks on the doors of complete strangers in pursuit of understanding.

At the conclusion we know both men very well. And through it all, we hear not a single word of judgment from Gregorius. But it is unmistakable that his Lisbon experience has expanded his reality. “Of the thousand experiences we have . . . ,” he found language in the end for more than one. show less

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

A fascinating and frustrating novel, full of philosophical tangents, self-analysis, moral quandaries, loyalty, jealousy and love. The story is frustrating in its remoteness--not so much the plot (what little there is), as the manner in which it is told. Most of the characters talk about a story, their relationship with a doctor/philosopher/poet involved in the resistance to the Salazar dictatorship, brutal self-analysis, and a love triangle, from thirty years ago. These stories come through show more conversations with the central character, a not very sympathetic philologist searching for meaning in his own life through that of the doctor. From a distance, the novel seems like a broad desert valley; but there are rare insights, occasional blossoms of delight, scattered on the surface that compel the reader's interest. Ultimately, the story is rewarding, but it's not for everyone. show less

The author does a lovely job weaving the philosophical musings of an absent-but-pivotal character into a story that parallels and catalyzes the narrotor's journey. That said, I've always thought the trope of a hanging a story on a dead character's philosophical musings reflects authorial laziness, so I had a hard time not getting irritated. A well done example of a problemmatic genre.