Fado Alexandrino

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 don'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.

Late one night in Lisbon, Portugal, five army men are reunited on the tenth anniversary of their battalion's return from Mozambique. Since the horror of Africa, some of the men have been promoted, some divorced, married, remarried, demoted, fired, started a business, looked after family members, buried family members. They discuss their lives over wine, tongues loosening as the alcohol flows. In a few hours, one of the men will be dead, murdered, stabbed in the back by one of the other soldiers. To boil down the plot to its very essence, the above paragraph encapsulates Fado Alexandrino. But this sprawling, extravagant, difficult novel covers so much more with every one of its nearly five hundred pages. The impact of this novel is not what is said, but how it is said, the way Antunes manages to weave five very different lives together into a coherent whole, spanning more than a decade of time. Antunes uses an interesting style of extremely long paragraphs, broken up by the very rare period, but littered with commas. In one paragraph - this is not rare - a character will begin thinking about something, his thoughts triggered by an off-hand comment, and his mind will wander back to five years ago, or ten, or yesterday, and the focus of the paragraph will switch to this new scene, with new characters, without changing tense, staying in the 'present', and then another character will begin thinking, and they will take over the scene, they will direct the paragraph to another place and time, they will be the focus. This happens again and again, we constantly change from early times, when the soldiers were young and inexperienced, to the moderate years, with wives and children, unhappy or not, to the 'present', the reunion, when some are old and some are older, but all are weary in their own way. Yet somehow it works. It is a testament to Antunes literary skill that we are never completely lost, that there is always a thread to hold the path, that even with rapid, unflagged changes of point-of-view character, or scene, of time, of focus, we can stay on par with the course and understand what is happening. A good example of this shifting focus: What sad pusses dead people have, the soldier thought, what soft rubbery mouths, like a sick clown's, and their hands, Captain, so quiet like that, hanging down, pale, whether it was from the vitamin pills or the ampules, I was soon able to stand on my pins and shuffle along from room to room without any help, the day after tomorrow the little man with the briefcase will dump the furniture into the street and take over the house, the day after tomorrow, the soldier thought, they're going to kill my uncle for good, Odete stopped visiting me, waving, smiling, I'm fine, he remember Olavo in the apartment in Cova da Piedade, newspaper open on his knees, staring at him a little unwillingly with furtive eyes that tried unsuccessfully to congratulate themselves, to be happy, the ferry shaking and leaping on the waves,

I agree with the previous reviewer. Antunes is a marvellous writer. Once you get into his way of writing it is hard to put the book down. His poetic language is so filled with images that you could actually feel the smell of Lisbon. In this story we follow the life stories of a couple of war veterans before, during and after the revolution in 1974. They come from different social backgrounds, so Antunes succeeds in portraying many aspects of his society. But to me is that not the main issue, no it is the moving life-stories of his characters. It is not an easy read but he can also be very amusing in a rather absurd way. Antunes has bee critizised for writing the same book over and over again. This is the second novel I read. His style is very similar but once I get into it I'm moved by the beauty and captivated by the energy of his prose.Anyone interested in modern fiction must have a go at Antunes.

Secker published a couple of Antunes' books in the UK in the late eighties, but then they dropped him. On a trip to the US I found Fado Alexandrino. I was astonished. It is rare that you come across an experimental novel which is a page turner too. It is the story of a handful of army vets who have a reunion. The narrative weaves from one man's disturbed thoughts to the next man's. This creates a confusion in who is speaking, but - like I say - this is not off putting: it adds to the effect of the novel. The book looks daunting, but I unreservedly recommend it. It is moving. It is well written. It is thought provoking. Antunes is a devastating writer.