The most interesting part of the book, as the title indicates, is that the author inserted a lot of "Pereira declares" in the text. This phrase, judging from its surface meaning, expressed a sense of certainty. It is a declaration, which is by definition "a formal or explicit statement or announcement". This phrase adds additional seriousness to Pereira's decisions and thoughts.
To better understand this book, it is very important to understand the historical background of the book. The setting of the story is in 1938, during Salazar's dictatorship. Salazar is a right-wing politician. Even though Samuel Hoare, the author of Ambassador on Special Mission commented Salazar as someone who “ 'detested Hitler and all his works' ” and "that his corporative state was fundamentally different from Nazism and Fascism" (Wikipedia), it is not necessarily the case. During the world war II, Salazar not only remained neutral, but also admitted the fascism in Spain. Therefore, in the book, Monteiro Rossi, an anti-fascist and leftist, was against the mainstream mentality.
The main character, Pereira, is a journalist who worked for the Lisboa, "a Lisbon newspaper founded a few months ago, non-political and independent but believe in the soul, that is to say that it has Roman Catholic tendencies". The whole novel started off as Pereira reflecting on death and the resurrection of the body. Then, he came across a thesis written by a philosophy major student Monteiro Rossi, and started contacting him about the cultural column. The cultural column had just been newly added to The Lisboa, and Pereira was the only one who was in charge of the column.
I agree with you that the phrase, "Pereira Declares" is an important phrase throughout the novel, but I'm not sure if it's sole purpose is to bring a level of seriousness to the novel. At some points, it seems as though this phrase is almost ironic because Pereira never truly says anything of note until the last few pages when he writes his last article. When Pereira writes this article, which reveals the corruption within the Portuguese government, he is finally making a claim about Portuguese culture that is relevant and true. It can be argued that although Pereira declares things throughout the entire novel, he never really makes a declaration until the very end.
ReplyDeleteI think another interesting point to note is what was brought up in class with the Italian translation being that Pereira maintains, hence, by using this phrase after everything that he says throughout the book he is remembering a memory. He is recalling all these statements that he is finally saying out loud rather than thinking in his head. By doing this the reader sees Pereira's thoughts verses what he actually says, so by looking at what he thinks and does not say or what he thinks and actually says can be another lens to look through to think about why Tabucchi writes declares after every comment. This phrase obviously makes the novel what it is and how the reader is supposed to perceive it. I agree with Lauren that he doesn't actually declare anything till the end, but I also think this phrase it working on multi-levels for the book.
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