Night Train to Lisbon
1 journaler for this copy...
This is my first 10/10 book this year and it is almost impossible to explain why it is so good! It is definitely a book to read again...
Central themes are words, language, memories, forgetting, being lost, being in love, friendship, loyalty, families, the sense of home and belonging. A truly wonderful, challenging, engrossing book.
Quotes
"Gregorius did what he had always done when he was unsure: He opened up a book." p.77
" 'When Amadeu finishes reading a book' said another teacher, 'it has no more letters. He devours not only the meaning, but also the printers' ink'. " p.151
"That's why loyalty was important. It was not a feeling, he thought, but a will, a decision, a partisanship of the soul." p.218
"Sometimes, it seemed as if the books you held belonged to you like the hands that held them." p.290
"I loved you as a reader, I loved you very much. Even if you were strange to me in your consuming rage for reading." p.291
"Only very slowly did he realize that he was experiencing a revolt, a resistance against all the linguistic foreignness he had inflicted on himself..... He shuts his eyes (...) and named the things he saw by their familiar German names. He talked to the things and to himself in slow, clear, sentences of dialect." p.316
"MEMENTO MORI. Reflecting on what you may really want. The awareness of limited, ephemeral time as a source of strength to withstand your own habits and expectations, but mostly the expectations and threats of others." p.314
"That's the meaning of a farewell in the full, important meaning of the word: that the two people, before they part from each other, come to an understanding of how they have looked and experienced each other. Parting is also something you do with yourself: to stand by yourself under the look of the other" p.391
Central themes are words, language, memories, forgetting, being lost, being in love, friendship, loyalty, families, the sense of home and belonging. A truly wonderful, challenging, engrossing book.
Quotes
"Gregorius did what he had always done when he was unsure: He opened up a book." p.77
" 'When Amadeu finishes reading a book' said another teacher, 'it has no more letters. He devours not only the meaning, but also the printers' ink'. " p.151
"That's why loyalty was important. It was not a feeling, he thought, but a will, a decision, a partisanship of the soul." p.218
"Sometimes, it seemed as if the books you held belonged to you like the hands that held them." p.290
"I loved you as a reader, I loved you very much. Even if you were strange to me in your consuming rage for reading." p.291
"Only very slowly did he realize that he was experiencing a revolt, a resistance against all the linguistic foreignness he had inflicted on himself..... He shuts his eyes (...) and named the things he saw by their familiar German names. He talked to the things and to himself in slow, clear, sentences of dialect." p.316
"MEMENTO MORI. Reflecting on what you may really want. The awareness of limited, ephemeral time as a source of strength to withstand your own habits and expectations, but mostly the expectations and threats of others." p.314
"That's the meaning of a farewell in the full, important meaning of the word: that the two people, before they part from each other, come to an understanding of how they have looked and experienced each other. Parting is also something you do with yourself: to stand by yourself under the look of the other" p.391
