Items related to An Explanation of the Birds: A Novel
Synopsis
Disatisfied with his life, Rui S. decides to change things, starting with a divorce from his nagging wife, Marilia, but before he can find the courage to speak, she decides to leave him
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Reviews
The Portuguese author of Fado Alexandrino offers a dizzying, kaleidoscopic portrait of a weak-willed man destroyed by the bourgeois expectations of his wealthy family. During the course of the novel, Rui S. suffers a mental breakdown, and the distinctions between fact and fiction, between past, present and future, blur in Antunes's brilliant narration. Rui imagines his family as circus performers; ruthlessly stripped of their pretensions, they regard his own suicidal tendencies as worthy of ring-side attention. These surrealistic musings are contrasted to Rui's own pathetic history, which is presented in the form of cynical testimonials by his relatives. When his first marriage (to a woman of his own class) fails, Rui, a candidate for a doctorate in history, falls in love with and marries Marilia, a Communist, working-class professor of semiotics, even though his family, and later Rui himself, realize that this relationship, too, is destined to fail. Marilia tries to induct him into her Communist cell, but the other members scornfully reject Rui because of his background. His brief flirtation with radical politics ends when he is jailed and has to be bailed out by his industrialist father. Rui fails even at his attempt to end his second marriage. At the beach resort he's chosen for the denouement, Marilia turns the tables and announces that she intends to leave him. The disintegration of Rui's personality proceeds rapidly from this point, but not before Antunes has a chance to explore the uneasy social politics of Portugal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A novel of dark, often bitter, humor and remembrance from Portuguese writer Antunes (Fado Alexandrino, 1990), whose hapless hero here represents all that's wrong with post-revolutionary Lisbon. Between a Thursday and a Sunday, Rui S.--a 33-year-old political historian and the son of a leading industrialist who has rebelled against his bourgeois family--recalls his unhappy past and anticipates a different future. Nothing has ever gone right for poor Rui. A failure in high school, expelled by the Communist Party for being too bourgeois, deserted by his first wife, and ignored by his second (a hard-line Communist and genuine member of the proletariat), Rui has only one happy memory to sustain him--talking about birds as a child with his father. And now that his mother is dying--while his philandering father is traveling as usual--Rui decides that he must somehow change his life, beginning with the upcoming weekend when he and his wife are away at a conference. At an appropriate moment he will tell her that he is going to leave her. Instead, the two end up at a run-down inn on the coast where the beach is home to hundreds of gulls--which, in turn, remind Rui of his one happy moment. Then, when his wife announces first that she's leaving him, Rui has no alternative but to do what he's already imagined. Surrounded by circling sea gulls, Rui ends his life--his one successful accomplishment. Antunes evokes a corrupt and dying world, infused with yearning for lost innocence, where even the food and weather are foul and where only suicide, however melodramatic, makes sense. A remarkable combination of angry satire and elegiac tenderness. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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An Explanation of the Birds
Published by
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated, 1991
ISBN 10: 0802113397
ISBN 13: 9780802113399
Used
Hardcover
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. First American edition, first printing. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 5892355-6
Stock Image
An Explanation of the Birds
Published by
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated, 1991
ISBN 10: 0802113397
ISBN 13: 9780802113399
Used
Hardcover
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. First American edition, first printing. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # GRP17145035
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An Explanation of the Birds
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Very Good. 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 Antnio 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 lifehis mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement from his bourgeois family, especially his industrialist father; and his blunt rejection by his first wife and two childrenRui S. decides to change things. Now married to the nagging, dogmatic Communist Marilia, Rui S. puts together a weak-kneed agenda for change: he decides to skip yet another dull and pompous academic conference, escape to a resort town north of Lisbon, and there dump his homely wife. Marilia, however, beats him to the punch, announcing that she wants out of the marriage before he can summon the courage to speak. Returning again and again to the only memory he has of being lovedwalking with his father as a young boy and listening to him explain the behavior of birds'Rui S. tries in vain to make sense of himself. In An Explanation of the Birds, Lobo Antunes has once again proved himself a master of the surreal, creating both a circus-like dream and a mournful eulogy for the lost ideals of post-revolutionary Lisbon. Seller Inventory # CIN0802113397VG
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An Explanation of the Birds
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Fair. 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 Antnio 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 lifehis mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement from his bourgeois family, especially his industrialist father; and his blunt rejection by his first wife and two childrenRui S. decides to change things. Now married to the nagging, dogmatic Communist Marilia, Rui S. puts together a weak-kneed agenda for change: he decides to skip yet another dull and pompous academic conference, escape to a resort town north of Lisbon, and there dump his homely wife. Marilia, however, beats him to the punch, announcing that she wants out of the marriage before he can summon the courage to speak. Returning again and again to the only memory he has of being lovedwalking with his father as a young boy and listening to him explain the behavior of birds'Rui S. tries in vain to make sense of himself. In An Explanation of the Birds, Lobo Antunes has once again proved himself a master of the surreal, creating both a circus-like dream and a mournful eulogy for the lost ideals of post-revolutionary Lisbon. Seller Inventory # 00105214496
Stock Image
An Explanation of the Birds
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Good. 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 Antnio 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 lifehis mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement from his bourgeois family, especially his industrialist father; and his blunt rejection by his first wife and two childrenRui S. decides to change things. Now married to the nagging, dogmatic Communist Marilia, Rui S. puts together a weak-kneed agenda for change: he decides to skip yet another dull and pompous academic conference, escape to a resort town north of Lisbon, and there dump his homely wife. Marilia, however, beats him to the punch, announcing that she wants out of the marriage before he can summon the courage to speak. Returning again and again to the only memory he has of being lovedwalking with his father as a young boy and listening to him explain the behavior of birds'Rui S. tries in vain to make sense of himself. In An Explanation of the Birds, Lobo Antunes has once again proved himself a master of the surreal, creating both a circus-like dream and a mournful eulogy for the lost ideals of post-revolutionary Lisbon. Seller Inventory # CIN0802113397G
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An Explanation of the Birds: A Novel
Seller: BooksRun, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. With dust jacket. It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting. Seller Inventory # 0802113397-11-1-29
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An Explanation of the Birds: A Novel
Published by
Grove Press, New York, 1991
ISBN 10: 0802113397
ISBN 13: 9780802113399
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Bookplate, Chestertown, MD, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. P/O name in ink to FFEP, scattered foxing to prelims o/w clean, tight copy with DJ in Good+ condition. BP/Fiction. Seller Inventory # ABE-1636483113668
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An Explanation of the Birds
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Fair. 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 Antnio 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 lifehis mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement from his bourgeois family, especially his industrialist father; and his blunt rejection by his first wife and two childrenRui S. decides to change things. Now married to the nagging, dogmatic Communist Marilia, Rui S. puts together a weak-kneed agenda for change: he decides to skip yet another dull and pompous academic conference, escape to a resort town north of Lisbon, and there dump his homely wife. Marilia, however, beats him to the punch, announcing that she wants out of the marriage before he can summon the courage to speak. Returning again and again to the only memory he has of being lovedwalking with his father as a young boy and listening to him explain the behavior of birds'Rui S. tries in vain to make sense of himself. In An Explanation of the Birds, Lobo Antunes has once again proved himself a master of the surreal, creating both a circus-like dream and a mournful eulogy for the lost ideals of post-revolutionary Lisbon. Seller Inventory # CIN0802113397A
Stock Image
An Explanation of the Birds
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Very Good. 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 Antnio 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 lifehis mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement from his bourgeois family, especially his industrialist father; and his blunt rejection by his first wife and two childrenRui S. decides to change things. Now married to the nagging, dogmatic Communist Marilia, Rui S. puts together a weak-kneed agenda for change: he decides to skip yet another dull and pompous academic conference, escape to a resort town north of Lisbon, and there dump his homely wife. Marilia, however, beats him to the punch, announcing that she wants out of the marriage before he can summon the courage to speak. Returning again and again to the only memory he has of being lovedwalking with his father as a young boy and listening to him explain the behavior of birds'Rui S. tries in vain to make sense of himself. In An Explanation of the Birds, Lobo Antunes has once again proved himself a master of the surreal, creating both a circus-like dream and a mournful eulogy for the lost ideals of post-revolutionary Lisbon. Seller Inventory # CIN0802113397VG
Stock Image
An Explanation of the Birds
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Good. 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 Antnio 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 lifehis mother's imminent death by cancer; his estrangement from his bourgeois family, especially his industrialist father; and his blunt rejection by his first wife and two childrenRui S. decides to change things. Now married to the nagging, dogmatic Communist Marilia, Rui S. puts together a weak-kneed agenda for change: he decides to skip yet another dull and pompous academic conference, escape to a resort town north of Lisbon, and there dump his homely wife. Marilia, however, beats him to the punch, announcing that she wants out of the marriage before he can summon the courage to speak. Returning again and again to the only memory he has of being lovedwalking with his father as a young boy and listening to him explain the behavior of birds'Rui S. tries in vain to make sense of himself. In An Explanation of the Birds, Lobo Antunes has once again proved himself a master of the surreal, creating both a circus-like dream and a mournful eulogy for the lost ideals of post-revolutionary Lisbon. Seller Inventory # CIN0802113397G