O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis, de José Saramago

Como habitualmente, José Saramago parte de uma premissa interessante - o regresso a Portugal de Ricardo Reis, após a morte de Fernando Pessoa. A partir daí, traça um retrato do ano de 1936, focado no avanço do fascismo em Portugal e Espanha. Soberbamente escrito, num tom depressivo concordante com os acontecimentos narrados, e sempre extremamente fiel à caracterização de Ricardo Reis como o terá imaginado Pessoa.

Ricardo Reis é o heterónimo de Pessoa cuja poesia sempre me disse menos; a propósito desta leitura voltei a ler várias das suas odes, mas não mudei de opinião, continuo a preferir Pessoa ortónimo, a depressão apaixonada de Álvaro de Campos e o bucolismo de Alberto Caeiro.

Patrick Leigh Fermor - an adventure, by Artemis Cooper

I first read A Time of Gifts years ago, and enjoyed it immensely; later I read Between the Woods and the Water, and recently The Broken Road. In the meantime, I also read Ill Met by Moonlight, by Stanley Moss, the narrative of the mission to abduct the German General Kreipe in Crete during WWII. When I knew about this biography I was naturally curious, and it didn't let my expectations down.

What kind of life could be better than his? Living in lots of different places, traveling incessantly always with a keen observant spirit and a never-ending capacity to enjoy it, meeting scores of interesting people, writing splendid books, settling in a beautiful house in Greece, and in the meantime being a war hero! One can't help feeling jealous and awed. His vitality was probably exasperating sometimes, but I admire how he lived life to the full on his own terms, and how he knew to look at places and people and write beautifully about them. I love that kind of travel writing, dilettante as I also like to be.

Just a detail to finish - as the house in Kardamyli was described, I felt a sense of familiarity, then I checked, and saw it was where the movie Before Midnight was shot.

The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor

The third and final book about Patrick Leigh Fermor's travel on foot from Holland to Constantinople is a joy to read, just the first two - A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. Written before the others, and not finished during the author's life, it feels a little more personal and emotional, and it's not the least worst for it. I reread the other books before starting this one, and it didn't look at all inferior to the others. Leigh Fermor was a passionate traveler and a passionate writer, his curiosity and enthusiasm are contagious, and he is never boring nor sounds condescending, his youthful naiveté is assumed and, as all optimistic travelers, he tends to see the good everywhere.

His descriptions are always enthralling, the dilletantish digressions interesting and engaging, and I'm left with an immense yearning to travel again, and to visit those places that I never went to - the Rhineland, Hungary, Transylvania, Rumania, Bulgaria, the Danube - and to go to Greece again to see the monasteries in Mount Athos and Meteora. And what more can one wish from a travel book?