Night Train to Lisbon

Critics

• Book Review: Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier Share

  Let me say from the outset that Night Train to Lisbon is perhaps one of those books in which I cannot make up my mind, whether I like it or not. There were points about the book that I especially liked, but there were also aspects of the book that I ... (read full critics)

  blogcritics published on Sat, 16 Jul 2011

• Night Train to Lisbon By Pascal Mercier

  This Tip of the Ice Pick goes to Swiss writer Pascal Mercier for his darkly dreamlike Night Train to Lisbon. First published in German in 2004, Night Train to Lisbon has already been translated into 15 languages and appears in English courtesy of tra ... (read full critics)

  bookpage published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

3 Reviews

• 

  I read a book about a man reading a book. And the book he was reading was about a man who read a lot of books. Gregorius (the man reading the book) has lead the quiet and insignificant life that most of us will discover to have lived; his only eccentricity was his passion for classic books and trans ... (continue)

  I read a book about a man reading a book. And the book he was reading was about a man who read a lot of books. Gregorius (the man reading the book) has lead the quiet and insignificant life that most of us will discover to have lived; his only eccentricity was his passion for classic books and translation ancient Greek and Hebrew. A strange episode brings him to read a book in Portuguese, a language he does not know. Therefore Gregorius is not just reading, as he needs first to undergo the effort of translation; Gregorius is basically giving to the book the attention that every writer would dream of. Prado, the man who has written the book, could not care less. Writing for Prado was just an observation tool, a mechanism and a ritual in order to give meaning to his own life. The relation between reader and writer is therefore sublime, as Prado is basically giving color to Gregorius' life, and Gregorius is apparently the only man on earth really knowing Prado. A good book, intense, well built. The characters are strong, and able to create links beyond space and time between them, by the process of writing and reading. However not an excellent book, I am afraid. To make his story plausible, Mercier (the author of the book), has to use well-known mechanisms (for instance all-live savings well invested to allow Gregorius to spend a large amount of time doing nothing, or the fact that every person was always willing to give Gregorius a good interview, or the omnipresence of chess-game); this failed attempt to plausibility is futile and unnecessary, and subtract energy to the book. However, the existential questions which are posed by this atheist preacher, the deep investigation of the human soul, let us forgive and forget those literary blunders and support us in our mid-life crisis.

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  Peppuzzo said on Jan 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

• 

  After few pages I realized an ugly truth: I've been fooled.<br />The photography on the cover, the comparison to "shadow of the wind", everything was promising for a enchanting time spent between the pages.<br />The book is really hard to read, because of the poor translation and the eve ... (continue)

  After few pages I realized an ugly truth: I've been fooled.<br />The photography on the cover, the comparison to "shadow of the wind", everything was promising for a enchanting time spent between the pages.<br />The book is really hard to read, because of the poor translation and the even worse proof read (admitting it was done, and I highly doubt it).<br />The main character, Mungus, is very boring and so is his travel to Portugal. What could have been fascinating about the girl at the beginning of the story last only few pages. I really struggled to finish it but at least it tought me to bring at least a second book with me on short holidays.

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  zia virgi said on Aug 21, 2009 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  'A treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time' - Isabel Allende. And I totally agree with her comment. Although it's rather long and some parts a bit phylosophical, I read it in just over a week and I could hardly put it down. It tells the story of Raimund Gregorius, a Swis ... (continue)

  'A treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time' - Isabel Allende. And I totally agree with her comment. Although it's rather long and some parts a bit phylosophical, I read it in just over a week and I could hardly put it down. It tells the story of Raimund Gregorius, a Swiss, a timid middle-aged professor of ancient languages. One morning on his way to school he meets a mysterious Portuguese woman in a red coat and later the same that day he finds hidden in a dusty corner of a second-hand bookshop the journal of an enigmatic Portuguese aristocrat, Amadeu de Prado. All of a sudden he is seized by a restlessness that drives him to abandon his classroom then and there - shocking his students, and surprising even himself and embarking on a journey that will lead him to Lisbon and searching into Amadeu’s life. My only regret is not to have read it in its original German language.

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  Lunarossa said on May 6, 2009 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Paperback
• ISBN-10: 1843547120
• ISBN-13: 9781843547129
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Pub date: Feb 08, 2008
• Also available as: Hardcover, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, Libri Italiani, Nederlandse Boeken

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