Perlmann's Silence

by Pascal Mercier, Shaun Whiteside (Translator)

Overview

A tremendous international success and a huge favorite with booksellers and critics, Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon has been one of the best-selling literary European novels in recent years. Now, in Perlmann’s Silence, the follow up to his triumphant North American debut, Pascal Mercier delivers a deft psychological portrait of a man striving to get his life back on track in the wake of his beloved wife’s death.

Philipp Perlmann, prominent linguist and speaker at a gathering of renowned international academics in a picturesque seaside town near Genoa, is struggling to maintain his grip on reality. Derailed by grief and no longer confident of his professional standing, writing his keynote address seems like an insurmountable task, and, as the deadline approaches, Perlmann realizes that he will have nothing to present. Terror-stricken, he decides to plagiarize the work of Leskov, a Russian colleague. But when Leskov’s imminent arrival is announced and threatens to expose Perlmann as a fraud, Perlmann’s mounting desperation leads him to contemplate drastic measures.

An exquisite, captivating portrait of a mind slowly unraveling, Perlmann’s Silence is a brilliant, textured meditation on the complex interplay between language and memory, and the depths of the human psyche.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802194862
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/03/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	624
Sales rank:	115,079
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

A professor of philosophy, Pascal Mercier was born in 1944 in Bern, Switzerland. Perlmann’s Silence is his second novel to be translated into English, following the bestselling Night Train to Lisbon. He currently lives in Berlin.

Editorial Reviews

Philosophy professor Mercier’s second novel, originally published in Germany in 1995, explores depression and the desperation born of procrastination. Philipp Perlmann, a prominent professor and linguist, is in charge of a monthlong academic conference at a retreat outside the seaside town of Rapallo, Italy. Each participant must debut a new theory, and Philipp—paralyzed with ennui and writer’s block—relies on sleeping pills, a local trattoria, and his memories as means of escape. Then, after translating a Russian colleague’s manuscript, Philipp decides to pass it off as his own to meet the conference deadline. When the colleague unexpectedly decides to join the group, Philipp takes extraordinary measures to protect his secret. Unfortunately, as readers journey through his cowardice and deteriorating mental state—and the novel’s endless exposition—Philipp proves both unreliable and unlikable. Even more introspective than Night Train to Lisbon, Mercier has allowed his protagonist’s rumination to bury the novel’s other elements. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Perlmann’s Silence

“Perlmann’s Silence is a self-reflexive, analytically philosophical thriller and action novel in the best artistic tradition. . . [Mercier’s] immense outlay of knowledge and reflection always cuts through to a precise observation even of everyday events.”—Friedmar Apel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)

“A poignant read, and so hauntingly realistic. . . . A colossal literary artwork”— Südkurier (Germany)

“An intelligent and considered novel. . . . Entertaining yet erudite.”— Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)

Praise for Night Train to Lisbon

“A mother lode of insight. . . . Mercier has captured a time in history—one of those times—when men must take a stand.”— Valerie Ryan, The Seattle Times

“Darkly dreamlike . . . More than any mystery . . . since, say, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Night Train to Lisbon challenges the reader, both intellectually and philosophically.”—Bruce Tierney, BookPage

“A treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time.” —Isabel Allende

“Rich, dense, star-spangled . . . The novels of Robert Stone come to mind, and Elias Canetti’s Auto-da-Fe, and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, and Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map, not to mention Marcus Aurelius and Wittgenstein. . . [but] what Night Train to Lisbon really suggests is Roads to Freedom, Jean-Paul Sartre’s breathless trilogy about identity-making.” —John Leonard, Harper’s Magazine

“Celebrates the beauty and allure of language . . . adroitly addresses concepts of sacrifice, secrets, memory, loneliness, infatuation, tyranny, and translation.” —Tony Miksanek, Chicago Sun-Times

“One reads this book almost breathlessly, can hardly put it down. . . . A handbook for the soul, intellect, and heart.”— Gunther Nickel, Die Welt (Germany)

“Dreamlike . . . A meditative, deliberate exploration of loneliness, language and the human condition . . . The reader is transported and, like Gregorius, better for having taken the journey.”—Debra Ginsberg, The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Readers will be rewarded . . . by the involving, unpredictable, and well-constructed plot and Mercier’s virtuosic orchestration of a large and memorable cast of characters. As the stories of Gregorius and de Prado draw together, this becomes a moving meditation on the defining moments in our lives, the ‘silent explosions that change everything.’—Forest Turner, Library Journal

“One of the most thoughtful and entertaining novels to come out of Europe in a decade . . . a smart, heartfelt, thoroughly enjoyable book written for thinking adults, and the most recent incarnation, from Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf right down to Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, of that potent, ever-popular myth—the book that changes your life. . . . Go ahead and buy this one—believe me, you'll want to read it more than once.”—Nick Dimartino, Shelf Awareness

“The age-old intellectual’s dilemma, considered in a compelling blend of suspenseful narrative and discursive commentary . . . an intriguing fiction.”— Kirkus Reviews

“A meditative novel that builds an uncanny power through a labyrinth of memories and philosophical concepts that illuminate the narrative from within. . . . a remarkable immediacy that makes for a rare reading pleasure.”— San Francisco Chronicle

“The artful unspooling of Prado’s fraught life is richly detailed: full of surprises and paradoxes, it incorporates a vivid rendering of the Portuguese resistance to Salazar . . . . comes through on the enigmas of trying to live and write under fascism.”— Publishers Weekly

“One of the great European novels of the past few years.”— Page des libraires (France)

“A book of astonishing richness . . . a visionary writer . . . a deserved international smash.”— Le Canard enchaîné (France)

“The stuff of fine fiction . . . has the coloration and feel of Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams or Peter Handke’s Crossing the Sierra de Gredos.”—The Morning News

“As mesmerizing and dreamlike as a Wong Kar-wai film, with characters as strange and alienated as any of the filmmaker’s . . . Mercier . . . is a master at mixing ideas and plot. . . . Prado’s ruminative autobiography [is] reminiscent of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations or Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. . . . unforgettable moments of crystalline, even poetic, insight.”— Bookforum

“A sensation. The best book of the last ten years . . . A novel of incredible clarity and beauty.”— Bücher (Germany)

“Powerful, serious, and brilliant . . . constitutes one of the true revelations of this season.”— L’Humanité (France)

“Impressive . . . a life lesson and a model of lucidity.”— La Quinzaine (France)

“Mercier draws together all the big existential questions in this masterful novel. . . . visionary.” —Volkskrant (Netherlands)

“Mercier has erected a monument to literature. And he has done it wonderfully, with the full weight of his philosophical knowledge.”— La Stampa (Italy)

“Absolutely recommended.”— De Telegraaf (Netherlands)

“A novel for people with great expectations for literature . . . written with brilliance, incomparable talent and obvious artistic power, and a wide knowledge of the human nature, mind, and soul.”— Berlingske Tidende (Denmark)

“Taps into some of the oldest veins of story, the primal ones of night journeys, of a distant land, of being stuck in-place, and yet adrift . . . Pascal Mercier does all of this and more, masterfully, alertly, intelligently. . . . I’m not sure how much this book might teach any of us how to live—that’s for anyone to decide—but it has helped remind this reader of what it is to really read.”—Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company

“Contains style, narrative richness and philosophy . . . I read it in three nights. Then I was convinced to change my life.”— Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)

“A serious and beautiful book about the examined life.”— Le Monde (France)

“Mercier has founded a new artistic tradition in the novel.”— La Quinzaine littéraire (France)

“A book in which poetry and philosophy are intimately intertwined.”— Tages-Anzeiger (Switzerland)

“Both philosophical and spell-binding . . . a novel to absorb . . . One and a half million German readers can’t be wrong: Philosophy can go to the heart!”— Politiken (Denmark)

“An existentialist novel with a post-modern view of the self, a well-researched taste of the magical city Lisbon, but also a searching picture of an unusual and rarely described protagonist’s life in it’s most appalling and life-affirming phase.” —Nordjyske Stiftstidende (Denmark)

“Exceptional . . . a thriller of a philosophical novel. You cheat yourself by not bringing this book with you for the holiday.” —Weekendavisen (Denmark)

“Beautiful . . . An elegant narrative of the exploration of one human being by another. . . . throw[s] as much light as it seems possible on the inexhaustible question: What does it mean to be a human being, and to what extent can we know each other—and ourselves?”— Børsen (Denmark)

“You are not the same person you were before you started reading. This is very likely the biggest compliment you can give a novel—and this book deserves it.”— Kristeligt Dagblad (Denmark)

“An intense novel, an initiation into the interior life for refined palates.”— La Repubblica (Italy)

From the Publisher

It would be simplistic to describe this novel by Swiss author Mercier (Night Train to Lisbon) as one man's journey into the hellmouth of plagiarism, and yet one must. A distinguished professor of linguistics, Phillip Perlmann is in Italy presiding over a five-week seminar with six international colleagues; another colleague, Russian linguist Leskov, is missing because his exit visa has been denied. Having recently lost his wife, Perlmann has little interest in his work and is unable to produce his own material, so he spends his days obsessively translating Leskov's work into English. As his turn to lecture draws near, Perlmann impulsively turns to Leskov's text, only to be overwhelmed with panic at the realization that he has committed plagiarism. Then it's announced that Leskov is coming after all. VERDICT If only our students took plagiarism as seriously as Phillip Perlmann does—or maybe not. For such an intensely internal novel, with most of the action occurring in Perlmann's head, there is a good deal of suspense in the latter half. It is far too wordy to keep readers on the edge of their seats, but those willing to engage with the text will be pleased they did.—Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland Lib.

Library Journal

A slow-moving portrait of grief and dislocation by the author of the fast-moving Night Train to Lisbon (2007). The Perlmann of the present novel—Swiss author Mercier's first book, published in German in 1995—is a German linguist, the master of several languages, who has recently lost his wife and, with her, his interest in much of anything that has to do with his former life. Once he had been passionately committed to the world of language and the mind, even disengaging from his parents over their insistence on speaking their native Plattdeutsch ("they were increasingly led simply by the phrases and metaphors of the dialect, and by the prejudices that were crystallized in it"). Now Perlmann hangs around his apartment, avoiding the work he is supposed to be doing. All that changes when, at one of the conferences Perlmann still constantly attends, an Italian linguist, now employed by industry, recruits him to become part of a think tank of scholars devoted to questions of how language affects mind and vice versa. Perlmann finds himself out of his element in the political jockeying of the para-academic group, where battles of one-upmanship are played out with cigarette packs (this is Europe, after all, and everyone smokes); moreover, he's frozen when he finds himself called on to deliver a keynote address, finally turning in desperation to the work of an unsung scholar that he thinks he can pass off as his own. Plagiarism thus hatched, Perlmann breathes a little easier—until, that is, he learns that the source of his stealing has scraped up the rubles necessary to travel to the conference. Writes Mercier, "There was only one thing he hadn't thought about: that Leskov was a flesh-and-blood human being with his own will and pride." The setup is worthy of a David Lodge or Malcolm Bradbury, but Mercier lacks the humor of either of those English satirists; instead, the novel settles into a kind of slow funk, the literary equivalent of moping, as Perlmann wrestles with what to do next, surprised by his own torpor and reluctance. But for readers of a philosophical bent, appreciative of slowly unfolding, elegant tales, this will be a pleasure.

Kirkus Reviews