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Lisbon Revisited: Urban Masculinities in Twentieth-Century Portuguese Fiction by Rhian Atkin

2016; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/port.2016.0023

2222-4270

Sílvia Oliveira,

History, Culture, and Society

Portuguese Studies vol. 32 no. 1 (2016), 108–12© Modern Humanities Research Association 2016 Reviews Rhian Atkin, Lisbon Revisited: Urban Masculinities in Twentieth-Century Portuguese Fiction (Oxford: Legenda, 2014). 196 pages. Print. Reviewed by Sílvia Oliveira (Rhode Island College) Lisbon Revisited is a study ‘about men and masculinities’ in a society where, according to the author, Rhian Atkin, ‘empirical studies of gendered behaviours’ are lacking (p. 1). This monograph merges the trendy fields of urban studies, masculinities and modernity studies, and politically engaged literature through analysis of the works of two of the most prominent Portuguese writers of the twentieth century, Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago, and the Portuguese author, Luís de Sttau Monteiro. Atkin’s work is offered as a testimony to literature bearing ‘the marks of social and cultural realities’ (p. 1) that allow for a deeper understanding of aspects of Portuguese society in the twentieth century, suggesting a re-visioning of European accounts of literary modernism (gendered, political and urban). The title’s allusion to ‘revisiting’ weds the celebrated poem by Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym, Álvaro de Campos, ‘Lisbon Revisited’, and the famed historical revisionist impulse in Saramago’s novel, The History of the Siege of Lisbon, providing an appropriate reference to methodology. Atkin clarifies from the onset that the number of Portuguese writers who focused on life experience in Lisbon in the twentieth century is significant and notable, and therefore the selections from Pessoa, Saramago and Sttau Monteiro are meant to ‘approach canonical or semi-canonical authors from a new angle [...] [recuperating] the provocative originality of these texts’ (p. 3). Works selected are Livro do Desassossego [Book of Disquiet], by Fernando Pessoa/Bernardo Soares, written between 1929 and 1935 and first published in 1982; Um Homem não Chora [A Man Doesn’t Cry — untranslated] by Luís de Sttau Monteiro of 1960; História do Cerco de Lisboa [The History of the Siege of Lisbon] by José Saramago of 1989. Of the three, Pessoa and Saramago are the canonical authors and subjects of distinguished scholarship in British academia. Luís de Sttau Monteiro, on the other hand, is one of many sidelined and censored authors whose work throughout the 1960s contributed to the intellectual and political pool of resistance to the Salazar regime. Sttau Monteiro was also the son of a Portuguese diplomat and lived in London for a time during the 1940s. This connection to British culture and society is relevant for studying his work and Atkin links it to the ‘Angry Young Men’ phenomenon in the UK. Moreover, Luís de Sttau Reviews 109 Monteiro is currently enjoying a reappraisal in Portugal, notably since his play, Felizmente Há Luar! [Thankfully There is Moonlight!] (1961) was included in the official high school curriculum of readings on twentieth-century Portuguese literature. Rhian Atkin’s contribution to the understanding of this seldom studied Portuguese author is both important and timely. The four chapters of Lisbon Revisited titled ‘Masculine Subjectivities in the Modern City’, ‘Masculinities in the Streets’, ‘Masculinities and Consumer Society’, ‘Men at Home, Men at Work’ include a comparative analysis between the three books (by Soares, Saramago and Sttau Monteiro) from a multidisciplinary perspective. Reading Sttau Monteiro along with Pessoa and Saramago in a time span that covers some of the most significant socio-political and literary changes that occurred in Portugal during the twentieth century brings fresh insight to Lisbon Revisited. The skilful close cultural reading of these three Portuguese authors and the three books selected is relevant to all specialists and readers of Portuguese literature and urban masculinities studies. Olivia Sheringham, Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship Series (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 226 pages. Print, ebook. Reviewed by Alan P. Marcus (Towson University, MD) The book includes seven chapters, an appendix (with a list of research participants ), notes, bibliography and index. There are six figures and two tables. Dr Olivia Sheringham has focused on Brazilian migrants in London on two levels: by examining the broader processes of global transformation, and the ways in which immigrants adapt to such processes. This book is a much-needed scholarly publication, and despite the fact...