He winds up in a Spanish bookstore -- familiar because Spanish had been his former wife's field -- and stumbles across a Portuguese book there, written by an Amadeu de Prado and published in 1975, 'A Goldsmith of Words'.

Book Marks reviews of Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier Book Marks reviews of Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

A teacher of dead languages (Latin, Greek) at a Swiss prep school has no real friends or even much of a life. One day he stops a despondent young woman from jumping off a bridge. She is Portuguese and he then begins reading a fictitious philosophy book by a Portuguese author. He becomes obsessed with finding out about the author. He quits his dull job of many years (in the same school he attended as a boy) and hops a train to Lisbon even though he doesn’t even speak Portuguese. Lisbon has two main train stations: Santa Apolonia and Oriente. The first was inaugurated in 1865, with a single platform, and is located in the centre of the city, with easy access to the main places of interest. A very different architectural style is the second one, located to the east and designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. It was inaugurated in 1998 so that it could be used during the Expo. Both stations are accessible for people with reduced mobility and offer services such as waiting rooms, luggage storage, bars and restaurants, shopping area and car rental. Vanity's] an unrecognized form of stupidity... you have to forget the cosmic meaninglessness of all our acts to be able to be vain and that’s a glaring form of stupidity.”I hope you will find some interesting book recommendations here and you will be inspired to read more. That words could cause something in the world, make someone move or stop, laugh or cry: even as a child he had found it extraordinary and it never stopped impressing him. How did words do that? Wasn't it like magic?” Night Train to Lisbon spends considerable time contemplating ideas, exploring on one hand Gregorious' contemplation of self and the other de Prado's journal and philosophies. [3] Epigraphs include Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Second Book, I, “De l’inconstance de nos actions” and Fernando Pessoa, Livro do Desassossego (Portuguese: Book of Disquiet/Restlessness).

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier | Goodreads

Night Train to Lisbon centres on a high school classics teacher from Berne who has spent almost his entire life -- first as a pupil, then as a teacher -- at the same school in Berne. It's a long trip of self-discovery -- and of trying to discover another (in this case the Portuguese doctor) -- but Mercier manages to sustain the reader's interest. Amadeu de Prado lived in Lisbon, so Raimund searches for him, hoping that this will lead to the woman. He finds Amadeu's home, where the writer's sister, Adriana, welcomes Raimund; she gives him the impression her brother still lives there. Raimund learns that Amadeu was a doctor, and that only 100 copies of his book were printed after his death. When Raimund asks what happened to their father, Adriana's reaction is hostile. As Raimund is leaving, the maid informs him that he can find Amadeu in the town's cemetery. Raimund finds the tomb: Amadeu had died in 1974. a b c Johnson, Daniel (24 February 2008). "Throwing in one life to look for another". Telegraph (UK) . Retrieved 10 March 2021. What is it that we call loneliness. It can't simply be the absence of others, you can be alone and not lonely, and you can be among people and yet be lonely. So what is it? ... it isn't only that others are there, that they fill up the space next to us. But even when they celebrate us or give advice in a friendly conversation, clever, sensitive advice: even then we can be lonely. So loneliness is not something simply connected with the presence of others or with what they do. Then what? What on earth?”Mercier’s novel has already sold two million copies since its publication in German four years ago, but it is hampered by an inelegant translation. Even so, this cannot explain the absence of narrative tension, or Mercier’s grandiose style (...). They make the novel particularly ponderous." - Katharine Hibbert, New Statesman Taxis: In Lisbon, there are also many taxis, beige and, generally, cheaper than those of other cities in Europe. The protagonist, a teacher of dead languages in Bern, is inspired by this book he comes across to quit his job and travel to Portugal to find out more about the writer of the book, Prado. Many reviewers who hated this novel have commented how utterly new-ageishly purile the comments in the book are, more like the thoughts of an emo-goth teen than the profound workings of the inner mind of brilliant doctor-cum-resistance-fighter.

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When we talk about ourselves, about others, or simply about things, we want- it could be said – to reveal ourselves in our words: We want to show what we think and feel. We let other have a glimpse into our soul.” Paul, Steve (9 June 2008). "Suggestions for all you Night time readers". The Kansas City Star. (Accessed in NewsBank Database (Requires Subscription)) What could it mean to deal appropriately with anger? We really don't want to be soulless creatures who remain thoroughly indifferent to what they come across, creatures whose appraisals consist only of cool, anemic judgments and nothing can shake them up because nothing really bothers them. Therefore, we can't seriously wish not to know the experience of anger and instead persist in an equanimity that wouldn't be distinguished from tedious insensibility. Anger also teaches us something about who we are. Therefore this is what I'd like to know: What can it mean to train ourselves in anger and imagine that we take advantage of its knowledge without being addicted to its poison?I LOVED this book. I've been running around quoting "Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us - what happens to the rest?" Interestingly, the city of Lisbon is not only a geographical place where most of the narrative takes place, but it is also a character in the book. The occurring question throughout is about the role the place plays in our lives and its impact on who we are and what we can do in our lives. Later, as a member of the resistance, he is asked to kill a fellow resistance fighter whose identity has been betrayed. The woman, who he has fallen in love with, is a danger to the resistance because she holds in her photographic memory details of the entire resistance network. Kill the woman or take the chance that he can hide her away safely for an indefinite period even though the risk to the resistance network was very high? I think the dilemma there, actually, was a little weighted in favour of saving the woman’s life. What if, instead, he were the doctor who was asked to tend to her in prison where she was due to be tortured? Should he kill her or let her go on to spill the beans under torture? But oh yes, I was forgetting, I need to justify myself. I am not, of course, comparing the very mild form of censorship that Goodreads has recently been practising with the horrors of the Salazar regime. That would be an absurd insult to all the brave people who resisted this appalling dictator, whose unashamedly Fascist government managed to cling to power until 1974, four years after Salazar's death. I would like to know more about how they succeeded in doing that. Presumably there were enough people on the inside supporting them, and they were sufficiently brutal about eliminating anyone on the outside who spoke up against them, that the large mass of citizens who just wanted to live quiet lives figured it was better to accept the status quo. Pascal Mercier offers an astonishing philosophical narrative about the possibility of truly understanding another person, the ability of words to define our very selves and making a journey into the depths of our shared humanity. Night Train to Lisbon compels a reader to look inwards.

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier | Goodreads Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier | Goodreads

He throws himself into the tasks with vigour, helped along by some acquaintances he makes along the way, who also hand him off to others.The most comfortable travel option on night trains, sleeper cabins are almost like staying in a moving hotel. Available as one, two, three and sometimes four berth carriages, during the day these rooms can act as a sitting room with comfortable seating and a small table. At night, beds are freshly made with pillows, duvets or blankets.