Travels and Further Travels

When Antonio Tabucchi travels to Madrid, he wanders out to where the city melts into the countryside, in search of hidden Goya frescoes. When he journeys across the Carpathian Mountains, he searches for the oldest wooden monastery in all of Romania. And later a bright, colorful cemetery, where he heard each gravestone was carved by the naïve painter, Ion Stan Patras. In Turkey, Tabucchi and his wife, Maria José, spend the night in a small convent carved from rock. There they meet a young harpist practicing for a concert, and they recite a Pessoa poem for her. The harpist offers them a private concert in return. In his travels and writing, Tabucchi trains his eye on the most elusive details. “A place is never just a place,” he writes. “Somehow, without even knowing it, we carry that place inside us, and one day, we just happen to arrive there.” His essays, memories, and dream-slivers express the astonishment of arrival, time and time again. Person and place meet like old acquaintances, surprised, bemused, and heartened by how much they’ve changed.