Customer Reviews

Dreams of Dreams and the Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa

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This book is a collection of short stories of dreams of various major artists or influences on the arts - from Daedalus to Freud. It is a book that makes me wish to be more broadly educated in European literature - for when I was familiar with the biography and works of the individual, the matching of the imagined dream to the individual was more clear. For example, the dream of Federico Garcia Lorca picks up on his work regarding deepsong. Lorca is on stage singing a Gypsy song "a song about duels and orange groses, passion and death" ... A small black dog leads him towards his death as a traitor ... The dream is a wonderful mix of clarity and chaotic jumps, as are real dreams.

Tabucchi writes in his normal taut prose - with wonderful lines to mull over: "Life is indecipherable, answered Pessoa. Never ask and never believe. Everything is hidden."

But this book, unlike his other works requires significant knowledge of his reader. If you've never read Tabucchi, I would suggest that you begin with any of his other books. If you are a Tabucchi fan, this new book will not disappoint you.

I was very disappointed by the Tabucchi's Dreams. The author attempts to recreate the dreams of twenty or so canonical figures from Western civilization. I felt that author made no effort to penetrate the psyche of these great human beings. The dreams were recreated by an obviously shallow reading of bio-sketches. If you want to know what I mean, select one of the characters you know very well and read his dream. I am familiar with Debussy's music and have no qualms about suggesting that Debussy's dream is a mediocre parody of his "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun".

The same problems persist in the Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa. This short work offended me more than the Dreams. I adore Pessoa and his poetry. It was heartbreaking to see all his heteronyms turn into colorless characters that stroll through this story. I consider Ricardo Reis to be the heteronym closest to Pessoa's personality. Unfortunately Reis comes back to the dying Pessoa to tell him that he didn't leave Portugal. Am I missing something here?? In short, any average reader of Pessoa can write a better book on the confrontations of the heteronyms with their creator.