Jerusalem (Portuguese Literature Series) [Paperback]

Gonçalo M. Tavares (Author), Anna Kushner (Translator), José Saramago (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Portuguese Literature Series | Publication Date: October 20, 2009

Hailed by José Saramago as the best writer of his generation and a likely future winner of the Nobel Prize, Dalkey Archive is proud to introduce Gonçalo M. Tavares and his breakthrough novel. One morning late in May, between three and six A.M., a group of lonely men and women wait to be brought together, like the elements in an equation. Ernst Spengler is about to throw himself out his window. Mylia, terminally ill and in enormous pain, goes out to visit a church. Hinnerk Obst, who's always been told by the neighborhood children that he looks like a murderer, walks the streets with a loaded gun.  As these characters are manipulated and brought together, a world of violence, fear, pain, and uncertainty is portrayed, where human nature itself, and the mechanisms determining our actions, our fictions, and the elements of our imagination, are laid bare. Jerusalem is a terrifying and grimly humorous summation of the possibilities and limits of the human condition at the beginning of the 21st century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tavares's herky-jerky style leaves a reader with sympathy for the characters—who wouldn't be mad if life moved in such a way? Taking place during one night in an unnamed city, the story—which follows a doctor, his ex-wife, her lover, their son and a killer pimp, among others—propels itself mainly through flashbacks relayed in short, choppy chapters and subchapters. Mylia, the ex-wife for whom everything was about herself, goes tumbling through the streets looking for a church, but instead finds a series of odd and dangerous predicaments. Most of what we learn about Mylia comes from memories of her stay at the Georg Rosenberg Asylum, disturbing, even for healthy people or a luxury hotel for the mentally ill, depending on whom you ask. Her ex-husband, famed researcher Theodor Busbeck, is revealed via his institution and reactions to Mylia; theirs is a frightening if realistic relationship, though the other characters feel less than realized. In what amounts to a long night's chase, Tavares hints at what could be a grander story, but this does not lead to the Promised Land. (Oct.)
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Review

"Jerusalem is a great book, and truly deserves a place among the great works of Western literature. Gonçalo M. Tavares has no right to be writing so well at the age of 35. One feels like punching him!" --José Saramago

"His writing is surreal, fun, poetic, profound, dramatic, a discourse of shock, a small bomb that pushes past the usual boundaries, the standard patterns." --Giulia Lancini

"One day, when the literary history of . . . Portugal comes to be written, the work of Gonçalo M. Tavares will assume an eminent position." --José Mário Silva, Diário de Notícias

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr; 1 Original edition (October 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564785556
• ISBN-13: 978-1564785558
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get in on Tavares in translation from the beginning., October 31, 2009

By 

Dick Johnson (Oklahoma USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jerusalem (Portuguese Literature Series) (Paperback)

Tavares received such praise from Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago that I pre-ordered this. I wasn't disappointed and it truly is quite a first book.

Please take the time to read the Product Description (click 'See all Editorial Reviews' above). Since this is such a quick read, there is little more to tell about the plot that wouldn't give away too much.

We are witnesses to unsettling mental, physical and even moral problems. The characters vary from the elite to the troubled. Dark events are sometimes related with dark humor as we are shocked by Tavares depiction of their lives.

This is a sad and moving book, but it is not a 'tear-jerker' - and it is very well written. While I wish the book had been longer, the story to be told was handled quite well in this length. I'm hoping more of his books get translated quickly.

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside Outside, October 2, 2011

By 

James W. Fonseca (Zanesville, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jerusalem (Portuguese Literature Series) (Paperback)

Much of this novel is set in a psychiatric asylum. Characters transition in and out of the asylum during the story and we are never quite sure at any given time if those who are in should be out and those who are out should be in. An unstable woman has a hard life, marries her psychiatrist and ends up institutionalized. He certainly hurt her more than he helped her. While institutionalized, she has a baby and then is sterilized without her consent. A murder of a young boy occurs and someone is sentenced for the murder, but it's not the murderer. The real murderer is not one of those who have been previously institutionalized. What does that tell us about how accurately this system of institutionalization functions? Will prison be any worse than the asylum for these damaged, borderline-functioning folks? That is pretty much the plot.

I wish I could say that there is a certain beauty in the lives of these damaged people but I don't see it - their lives are marginal and their stories are depressing. Every character in the book is profoundly sad. The characters go through the motions of living a life with their damaged capacities. What we do get are beautiful writing and some philosophical nuggets: "To be sick is to have made a mistake." "Working as a gravedigger means seeing your own future." "An animal that knew how to distance itself from empty pleasures would have a great biological advantage over human beings..." "At eighteen, Mylia already knew how to humiliate men." "...a single bullet weighs more than ten thousand words." "...the world inside and the world outside [the asylum] were like two separate languages - without a single phoneme in common."

While the work is translated from the Portuguese, there is no local color so it's not clear where the novel is set; obviously the intention of the author.