An Explanation of the Birds

by António Lobo Antunes

Book Overview

"One of these days I'll beach right here, devoured by fish like a dead whale," muses Rui S., portly thirty-three-year-old political historian and hero of the latest dazzling novel by Ant"nio Lobo Antunes. Little do we or Rui S. realize how prophetic his whiny lamentation proves to be until the close of this beautifully realized masterpiece of remembrance.

Unable to accept the facts of his life"his mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802134203
• ISBN13: 9780802134202
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A ironic tale

This is a ironic tale of a ordinay fellow on a particular situation. The life of Rui is a very ordinary one, divorced and married again, college professor, communist or maybe not, an ordinay wife. Rich son married with a communist lower-class wife. Now he tries to change this. Get a new life but how?

Mesmerizing tale of a squandered past and bleak future

As Rui S., 33 year old professor of political science and failed husband, son, and lover, looks back on his limited accomplishments, he contemplates his future and finds it particularly bleak. The son of a powerful and wealthy industrialist, Rui turned his back on the family business, studied the liberal arts, and joined the Communist Party. He married Tucha, a beautiful shrew, and fathered two children. We spend the entire book following a torrent of memories that washes over and around and through glimpses of the present. What distinguishes An Explanation of the Birds from other novels of its type is the manner of the telling. Past and present inter-mingle on the page with no markings or divisions acting as cues to the reader. Scenes from the past share space with scenes from the present within the same paragraph. It's a remarkable strategy that demands the reader remain ever attentive, but the effect is mesmerizing and works in a manner reminiscent of the magic realism of Garcia Marquez or Donoso. The novel is also cynically critical of modern Portugal, and of politics in general. Rui S. emerges as pathetic, his female companions as heartless, and his family as emotionally vapid and effete. Not a pretty picture. It is a novel worth reading for its brilliant technique, not necessarily for the warmth of its characterizations.