{"id":307596,"date":"2018-01-12T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2018\/01\/12\/tabucchi-in-portugal-on-tabucchis-viaggi-e-altri-viaggi-an-essay-by-jeanne-bonner\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:57:17","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:57:17","slug":"tabucchi-in-portugal-on-tabucchis-viaggi-e-altri-viaggi-an-essay-by-jeanne-bonner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2018\/01\/12\/tabucchi-in-portugal-on-tabucchis-viaggi-e-altri-viaggi-an-essay-by-jeanne-bonner\/","title":{"rendered":"Tabucchi in Portugal: On Tabucchi’s “Viaggi e altri viaggi” [an essay by Jeanne Bonner]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeanne Bonner is a writer, editor and journalist, and translator from the Italian now based in Connecticut. In the fall, she began teaching Italian at the University of Connecticut where she is also working on several translation projects. You can find out more about Jeanne and her work at her website<\/em> here.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a travel writer\u2019s job to enchant us with tales of lands we\u2019ve never seen\u2014and which we may never see. But it seems like a particular phenomenon when the travel writer is enticing you to visit a land where he, too, is a foreigner. So infectious is Italian novelist Antonio Tabucchi\u2019s account of his travels in Portugal in the original Italian that one cannot wait until the book is translated into English to write a \u201creview\u201d of it.<\/p>\n

Not that Tabucchi sounded like a foreigner when he wrote lovingly of Portugal and of his second tongue, Portuguese. Quite the opposite. But that\u2019s often what acolytes and converts sound like: They are more fervent than the natives.<\/p>\n

And of course since we\u2019re dealing with a master of fiction, in this case the Italian branch, Tabucchi\u2019s ability to bring Portugal alive is almost unequaled. Hence this hybrid essay-review in advance of his collection of travel essays, Viaggi e altri viaggi<\/em>, which will soon be published by Archipelago Books in a much-awaited English translation by the accomplished translator Elizabeth Harris. It contains not one, but eight pieces on Portugal. One entire section to his adopted homeland is called \u201cOh, Portogallo!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

In these essays, published by Feltrinelli in 2010, he casually references a host of places and situations that literally make my literature-loving heart race, including the literary cafes of Lisbon (literary + caf\u00e9? Swooning), the brightly-lit ferries that roam the Tago river at dusk, the statues to the Portuguese poets Fernando Pessoa and Antonio Ribeiro Chiado, which stand a short distance from one another in Lisbon (something Tabucchi notes is \u201crare.\u201d And sure enough it is. Two poet statues in one spot in the same city? Wow). It\u2019s not surprising Tabucchi would pay such close attention to the statues\u2014he translated all of Pessoa\u2019s works into Italian.<\/p>\n

He even tells the story of coming upon an archeological dig of a patrician home from the Roman era where a mosaic depicting scenes from Virgil\u2019s Aeneid<\/em> so moves him, he feels as though he has been transformed into Anchises, Aeneas\u2019s father. That is the power of travel.<\/p>\n

Tabucchi\u2019s lifelong dedication to the Portuguese language included stints teaching the literature of Portugal (and beyond) at the Universities of Genoa and Siena. This in addition to being one of the most esteemed Italian authors of the past 100 years, writing such classics as Pereira Maintains<\/em>, about a Lisbon newspaper editor, and Time Ages in a Hurry<\/em> and Tristiano Dies<\/em>, both of which were also published in English by Archipelago. Tabucchi died in Lisbon in 2012.<\/p>\n

In writing about Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking world, Tabucchi manages to convey that yearning all travelers feel, but especially those who learn the language of the country they\u2019re visiting, and who experience a sense of disorientation, even unconsciously, of having only discovered this land (and its language) as an adult. Of forever being even at just a slight remove in a place that lights a fire in our bellies. In an essay on the Azores, he writes that a place is never just \u201cthat place.\u201d Rather \u201cthat place\u201d becomes infused with a part of us because somehow, even unbeknownst to us, we\u2019re carrying it around with us.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been to Portugal. But having read Tabucchi\u2019s essays, I\u2019m now obsessed with several aspects of Portuguese culture I previously knew nothing about, including the fact, as the Italian author tells us, that Portuguese literature has historically been rich in tales of the sea, but lean on \u201cland-based\u201d narratives, befitting, of course, a country that was so dependent on maritime industry and adventure. Categorizing the literature of a country based on whether the narratives are land-based or seafaring? Stunning.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I\u2019m obsessed even more with something that emerges in the book that wasn\u2019t new to me, but which Tabucchi illuminates in a particular way, and that\u2019s saudade<\/em>. It\u2019s a word\u2014a concept, really\u2014as Tabucchi points out, that\u2019s not easily translated, into Italian or English. He tells us that most Italian-Portuguese dictionaries translate the word as \u201cnostalgia,\u201d which he dismisses as \u201ctoo new a word . . . for something as ancient as saudade<\/em>.\u201d (\u201cNostalgia,\u201d he tells us, was coined in the 1700s by a Swiss physician). It also may fail to register the presence of solitude, which is a critical element; nostalgia, after all, can be collectively felt. Saudade<\/em> tends to be something one feels alone.<\/p>\n

Many others have also tried their hand at rendering this distinctly Portuguese concept in English. Writing for NPR\u2019s \u201cAlt Latino\u201d music and culture show, Jasmine Garsd floated the idea that saudade<\/em> \u201ccarries an assurance that this thing you feel nostalgic for will never happen again.\u201d She then quotes a definition of saudade<\/em> by Portuguese writer Manuel de Melo: \u201ca pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy.\u201d A-ha!<\/p>\n

Tabucchi, instead, offers the definition found in a Portuguese dictionary: \u201cMelancholy caused by the remembrance of something precious that was lost; sorrow brought on by the absence of a beloved object; bittersweet memories of someone who was dear.\u201d He adds that it\u2019s therefore something excruciating that pierces your heart, but which can also be quite moving.<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t end there. Tabucchi goes on to say that future events are within the temporal range of what the word saudade<\/em> aims to describe. It can be used to \u201cexpress a wish for something you hope will happen.\u201d And as Tabucchi so aptly concludes, \u201cThat\u2019s where things begin to get complicated because nostalgia for the future is a paradox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tabucchi\u2019s essay so moved me, I think, because it\u2019s my story, too. Having lived in Florence after college, I\u2019m forever tethered to the Italian language and to Italy, a land where I am not a native, but which owns me completely. Tabucchi, I believe, would understand the sentiment when I say Italian is like a person in my life, a twin who accompanies me everywhere\u2014for better or for worse.
\nIndeed, if Tabucchi\u2019s ghost will allow me, I\u2019ll tell you that I\u2019ve spent hundreds of bittersweet hours in Italy, knowing I\u2019ll never be able to stay forever, that my roots were elsewhere, and that the only people with the right to settle in for good were Italians. Something I would never be. So when I was meant to be reveling in the country\u2019s sunshine, in its superb cuisine, in the postcard-ready streets of cities large and small, I was sometimes already looking ahead to when it would be over. As Tabucchi tells it, that\u2019s textbook saudade<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tabucchi is moved to ponder the concept while strolling along a tiny street in Lisbon called, appropriately, rua da Saudade. Perched as it is high above the castle of S\u00e3o Jorge, which naturally draws tourists, it\u2019s a street he says most visitors will overlook.<\/p>\n

As he writes in this essay named for the rua<\/em> in Lisbon that so captivated him, streets left out of guidebooks often offer many reasons for visiting. (That line alone convinced me I had bought the right book, even though it was purchased on a whim; indeed, that line actually made me ache slightly at the thought of what would have happened, had I not bought the book. The literary equivalent of _saudade_\u2014but I digress).<\/p>\n

In the case of rua da Saudade, one reason to visit is the view. From high above the city, the tiny street offers a vista that takes in all of Lisbon and the river (in the Italian, he says, \u201clo sguardo abbraccia tutta la<\/em>\u2019\u201d\u2014literally, one\u2019s gaze hugs the entire city<\/em>). Tabucchi notes that when the evening streetlights go on and \u201ca veil falls over the city,\u201d a visitor gazing out at that view will be overcome by a kind of anguish\u2014a longing\u2014that\u2019s part and parcel of saudade<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While walking on this street, Tabucchi tells us, our imagination will time-travel ahead, to when we\u2019ve returned from our trip and resumed our workaday lives. We\u2019ll feel nostalgic for the privilege of having visited \u201csuch a beautiful and solitary little street in Lisbon,\u201d he writes, to see \u201ca view that\u2019s heartbreakingly sublime.\u201d At that point, he says, it\u2019s all over. \u201cYou\u2019re feeling nostalgic for the very moment you\u2019re living right now,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt\u2019s nostalgia for the future. You\u2019ve personally experienced saudade<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dear reader, you\u2019re feeling _saudade right now, aren\u2019t you? Possibly for a place you\u2019ve never visited. Me, too. Me, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeanne Bonner is a writer, editor and journalist, and translator from the Italian now based in Connecticut. In the fall, she began teaching Italian at the University of Connecticut where she is also working on several translation projects. You can find out more about Jeanne and her work at her website here. It\u2019s a travel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[1646],"class_list":["post-307596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307596"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332126,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307596\/revisions\/332126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}