Sostiene Pereira – Antonio Tabucchi

Often people forget that, in the sea of mediocrity that has been the Italian literary landscape for the last 20 years or so, some great books have still been written. And that’s a shame. Often people forget that – though softer than many of its contemporaries – Salazar’s Estado Novo was still a Fascist regime. And that’s probably an even greater shame.

Sostiene Pereira is an excellent book. The reader feels for the uncertainties, aloofness and naivety of old Pereira and at the same time falls in love with the charming and young Monteiro Rossi. The constant repetition of the fact that “Pereira maintains” most of the things happening in the book is a wonderful way to keep the pace of the novel. Lisbon’s melancholy comes alive in Tabucchi’s pages (even more so than in Saramago’s ones in my opinion). And the clarification, in a note at the end of the book, on the racial/religious connotations of Portuguese surnames coming from names for fruit trees (“Pereira” means “pear tree” in Portuguese) puts the novel under a different light.

The movie by Roberto Faenza is also something that should have enjoyed more success than it did, seeing together some of the greatest European actors of the last 30 years (and more): Stefano Dionisi (already mentioned for his role in Il Paritigiano Johnny), the inimitable Marcello Mastroianni, Daniel Auteuil, and Joaquim De Almeida. Ah, and also Nicoletta Braschi, who I think has made a career just out of being Benigni’s wife (why even Jim Jarmusch felt like giving her important roles in some of his movies is just beyond me).