Eddie Watkins's Reviews > The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

And I just mentioned him yesterday... Ciao.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/boo...

From the Portuguese literary tradition, with which he became enchanted as a young man, Mr. Tabucchi appears to have fully assimilated the concept of “saudade.” The word embraces nostalgia, wistfulness and a yearning for what is lost, evanescent and perhaps unattainable. The idea of saudade has long been thought to suffuse Portugal’s national character.

Very enjoyable, if kind of light, though the kind of light that's the product of a sharp mind. Tabucchi gets a little metaphysical, touching on the topic of mental versus physical reality without getting too annoyingly heady (as it's missing...) about it, and suffusing the book is a humanism that does its part to remind us that all of us are equal as humans, from gypsies and prostitutes to lawyers and reporters.

If not being able to put a book down is an endorsement, and when once put down there's not a feeling of shame and muzziness, then I wholeheartedly endorse it! It's a true intellectual thriller, con frizzante.

Reading it has made me want to read Queneau again, who has a similar lightness of touch and peculiarly innocent style of investigation into basic questions of existence.