From Publishers Weekly
Elaborately imagined, though often straining for effect, popular Italian novelist Tabucchi's (Pereira Declares) new offering is both a mini-catalogue of great artists' dreams and the author's interpretation of the last three days in the life of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. Some of the dreamers Tabucchi chooses to conjure up include Greek architect Daedalus; Carlo Collodi, author of Pinocchio; painter Caravaggio; poet Arthur Rimbaud; composer Debussy; and the father of dream analysis, Sigmund Freud. At their best, these short reveries center around memorable, jewellike details. In some cases, the glimpses into the dream lives of these figures are arresting: Daedalus teaches a Minotaur trapped in a maze on his Greek island how to fly; Rimbaud wanders the French countryside with his own amputated leg under his arm, wrapped in a newspaper printed with his poems. Other narratives fizzle, merely embellishing famous scenarios from the subjects' lives or works: Collodi dreams that he is swallowed by a huge shark (a whale in the original tale), as was his wooden hero; Freud imagines that he has become his own most famous patient, Dora, in an episode more farcical than epiphanic. The recreation of Pessoa's last days is a more complex and successful narrative. All of the alternate poetic personae the poet ever createdAincluding Antonio Mora, a mad philosopher; shy accountant Bernardo Soares; and the monarchist doctor, Ricardo ReisAvisit him on his deathbed. Through these conversations with his own multiple personalities, the poet at last achieves peace. Although some episodes are weaker than others, Tabucchi's rich language and his magical-realist charm tinge the volume with a visionary glow. (July) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Boston Review
"Elegant, cosmopolitan, inventive, and disquieting; his writing is, paradoxically, sensuous and economical."


From Kirkus Reviews
Two fetchingly lyrical short works by the Borges-like Italian author of Pereira Declares (1996), etc. The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa: A Delirium (1994) is an elegant threnody describing the great Portuguese poet's approach to death as a meditative series of meetings with his heteronyms (fictional alter egos) and reflections on his political and aesthetic ideals. Dreams of Dreams (1992) offers the imaginary dreams of eminent writers, artists, composers, and fictional and mythological characters. Coleridge's albatross, Collodi's Gepetto, and Rabelais's Pantagruel, for instance, are creations first encountered in dreams; others subtly express such salient personal traits as Chekhov's compassion and Robert Louis Stevenson's quiet fortitude; and, in Tabucchi's wittiest single invention, Daedalus affixes waxen wings to the Minotaur, liberating that creature from his maze, and inspiring a later, less successful flight. A lovely little book that keeps on ringing in your head long after you've finished it. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


St. Petersburg Times
"Wild it is and perfectly in the spirit of the Portuguese author."


Publishers Weekly
"Tabucchi’s rich language and magical-realist charm tinge the volume with a visionary glow."


Book Description
Antonio Tabucchi, one of Italy's most original prose stylists, gives us two ingenious works of fiction in lucid translations by Nancy J. Peters, copublisher of City Lights Books. This is the second volume in our new series of contemporary literature in translation from Italy, City Lights/Italian Voices.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian


From the Publisher
A sly variation on exemplary "lives" — from Plutarch to Jorge Luis Borges — Dreams of Dreams offers the dreams of twenty artists Antonio Tabucchi has loved, among them Ovid, Rimbaud, Debussy, Chekhov, Goya, and García Lorca. In this series of imaginative conjectures and philosophical meditations, François Villon wanders in the forest of the hanged and Freud dreams that he is Dora and perhaps learns something about "what women want." Tabucchi resumes his own dreaming with The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa, a metaphysical recounting of the end of the poet. On his deathbed, Pessoa is visited by his heteronyms, the poets he invented, whose poetry and voices invented him. Tabucchi is a distinguished scholar and Italian translator of the work of Fernando Pessoa, and here he pronounces a tender farewell to a man who was several of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.


About the Author
Antonio Tabucchi is the author of Indian Nocturne, Pereira Declares, Little Misunderstandings of No Importance, Requiem: A Hallucination, The Edge of the Horizon, Fernando Pessoa (with Maria José Lancastre), Letter from Casablanca, and The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro. He edited the Italian edition of Fernando Pessoa's complete works and has translated the poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

ANNOTATION

Antonio Tabucchi, one of Italy's most original prose stylists, gives us two ingenious works of fiction in lucid translations by Nancy J. Peters, copublisher of City Lights Books. This is the second volume in our new series of contemporary literature in translation from Italy, City Lights/Italian Voices.

SYNOPSIS

Antonio Tabucchi, one of Italy's most original prose stylists, gives us two ingenious works of fiction in lucid translations by Nancy J. Peters, copublisher of City Lights Books. This is the second volume in our new series of contemporary literature in translation from Italy, City Lights/Italian Voices.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

. . . when did you last find a novel this interesting? (The New York Times on Tabucchi￯﾿ﾽs The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro)

San Francisco Examiner

There is in Tabucchi￯﾿ﾽs stories the touch of the true magician, who astonishes us by never trying too hard for his subtle, elusive and remarkable effects. San Francisco Examiner

Boston Review

Elegant, cosmopolitan, inventive, and disquieting; his writing is, paradoxically, sensuous and economical.

Publisher Weekly

Meticulously crafted stories marked by wit, emotion, memory, and lost grandeur.

Kirkus Reviews

Two fetchingly lyrical short works by the Borges-like Italian author of Pereira Declares (1996), etc. "The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa: A Delirium" (1994) is an elegant threnody describing the great Portuguese poet's approach to death as a meditative series of "meetings" with his "heteronyms" (fictional alter egos) and reflections on his political and aesthetic ideals. "Dreams of Dreams" (1992) offers the imaginary dreams of eminent writers, artists, composers, and fictional and mythological characters. Coleridge's albatross, Collodi's Gepetto, and Rabelais's Pantagruel, for instance, are creations first encountered in dreams; others subtly express such salient personal traits as Chekhov's compassion and Robert Louis Stevenson's quiet fortitude; and, in Tabucchi's wittiest single invention, Daedalus affixes waxen wings to the Minotaur, liberating that creature from his maze, and inspiring a later, less successful flight. A lovely little book that keeps on ringing in your head long after you've finished it.