In The Lisbon Syndrome, Venezuelan writer Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles movingly navigates the intricate conflux of tragedies both far away and close to home. Juxtapositioning the cities of Lisbon and Caracas as each is underlined by its own catastrophe, Rugeles positions a human perspective amidst events far beyond a single individual’s control, offering a glimpse at singular agency and narrative power behind greater systems of repression.
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The Lisbon Syndrome by Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles, translated from the Spanish by Paul Filev, Turtle Point Press, 2022
If a comet were to wipe away a major city, leading to the economic and political collapse of an entire continent, would it radically change how we live? It seems impossible to imagine a disaster of such proportions leaving us unaffected, but it depends on where you’re standing. After all, the apocalypse can take many forms; it’s not always as swift and ferocious as a comet. In Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles’s The Lisbon Syndrome, the eponymous catastrophe happens off-stage. The central locus of the story is Caracas, set in an alternative 2017 where the knowledge of Lisbon’s disappearance is scarcel the only wisps of information are those that manage to escape media and internet channels tightly controlled by the government. These crumbs, as well as a dark cloud enshrouding the sky over the Caribbean, are the only sure signs of a catastrophe big enough to arguably recalibrate how we think about human life and the universe. But if “discontent, hunger, and humiliation” is already part of the daily agenda in a world always at the brink of complete destruction, how can an apocalypse an ocean away be more pressing that that which is outside your door?
Nevertheless, the past and present histories of Venezuela and Portugal intertwine in this moving story about art and human resilience. The novel centers around Fernando, a high school teacher, and his benefactor Moreira, an elusive Portuguese immigrant. Alongside Moreira and his students’ involvement, Fernando has established a ramshackle theater company where—at the former’s explicit request—they perform only classics like Shakespeare and Brecht. The company sells tickets at a loss, and students, as they are disappeared one by one, replace each other in key roles. Fernando also brings his love for theater to the classroom, pushing his students to new, ever more daring heights—even when a particularly unorthodox take on Dante’s Divine Comedy (already dripping in political significance) lands them all in hot water with the government, setting the stage for future tragedies.
Both the preparation of performances and the theater space where they rehearse and dream (called La Sibila) come to be a sacred slice of space and time that anchors Fernando and his students against the rising tide of violence and repression sweeping Venezuela. As a literal war between the Venezuelan government and its citizens unfurls outside the walls of La Sibilia, inside the conversations are far more tender. Amid rehearsals, students drink and dream of becoming reggaeton superstars or classic ballerinas, but the discussion of dreams—a rehearsal in its own way—extends the students into a future so uncertain that Ferando feels guilty for even encouraging the possibility of such fantasies turning to reality.
As director, mentor, and confidant, Fernando is a “Virgil [who guides] them through hell,” the person these students turn to seek reassurance—not only from the horrors of the outside world, but also more ordinary confusions, such as their love lives. A teenager named Mimi asks him if her love for a fellow-student Ramòn will last forever, and how she can make sure that it does. Fernando, however, is dealing with his own conundrums surrounding love, namely the aftermath of his failed marriage to Tatiana, a younger woman who hasn’t given up on hope, but has given up on Venezuela. The Lisbon Syndrome balances this, the back and forth between misery and catastrophe, and the very human propensity—or shall we say ability—to worry about matters of the heart even in the middle of the apocalypse.
Amid descriptions of toilets that won’t flush, the Guaire river filled with bloated bodies and literal shit, the work of a lifetime burned to the ground, and blood in the streets, there are also moments of humor, poetry, and references to pop culture that give this book a sense of warmth. We have Paul Filev’s translation to thank for this rendering, which gives the impression of being told by an old friend who has managed to survive the improbable. Filev astutely moves between the solemn and the colloquial with mastery; discussions on the importance of love are interspersed with Fernando’s cheeky observations that being young and being an idiot are perhaps the same thing, and the rhythmic punctation of translated reggaeton lyrics, often enough made up by Sánchez Rugeles himself, energize the prose.
The poetry in this book is more often than not provided by the enigmatic Moreira, a Portuguese immigrant who has a far more optimistic outlook on life, God, and human nature. A parallel story is weaved into the text of The Lisbon Syndrome, a story that ties the characters and the two countries even more intimately together: that of Moreira’s life in Portugal and his immigration to Venezuela with his fake spouse, Agustina. Portugal—as Moreira experienced it—provides a compelling foil to this alternative Caracas, since its 20th century history is also mired in violence and oppression, resulting from Salazar’s authoritarian grasp on the country. Moreira’s life is the narrative of people making difficult choices under impossible circumstances, of failed student movements, and a deep love for theater and literature: “Words, Fernando, like medicinal plants, have healing properties,” Moreira tells his protege. The Lisbon Syndrome is littered with literary references, inspired by the fact that Moreira found the love of his life through learning to read, keeping this passion alive through decades of hardship and disease. “A Homer or a Milton can have the same force as a comet colliding with the earth,” is Moreira’s stubborn belief in the power of literature.
Firmly rooted in the memory and present of two cities, The Lisbon Syndrome is a novel about the importance of place, but also how storytelling and narrative are crucial to our attachment to these spaces—and their survival. While there is no romanticizing of the experiences and violence that the inhabitants of these two iconic cities go through, there is still a sense of loyalty to what a city or a hill may mean to us as the backdrop of our memories. The novel is driven with the stubborn need to see such places flourish because of our devotion to people we share our memories with, and the pervasive remnants of people we once were, lost to time. If Tatiana and Fernando ostensibly break up because of his obsession with his shabby theater and his insistence on art over physical fights, Moreira’s wisdom is once again on the side of storytelling; it is his tale that pulls Fernando from the brink of precipice and reminds him that the temporary nature of things doesn’t necessarily indicate an eternal, doomed absence. “Portugal was alive in those stories, in the flavor of the words that had the taste of our roots,” the old man tells Fernando. Lisbon may be gone, but she will have always existed, and always shall remain in literature.
The Lisbon Syndrome joins a strong canon of speculative fiction that trumpet that well-known adage, originating in Star Trek and famously cited by Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, that “survival is not enough,” that art is essential to ensuring our preservation—helping us break the limitation and stay human, as Anne Carons would say. Despite the novel’s general bleakness, Sánchez Rugeles refuses to give in to existential despair: if Ferdinando isn’t sure that “individual decisions can make a difference,” he is certain “that the impulses of the human heart are the only defense we have against the unnerving sound of the trumpets of the apocalypse.” The apocalypse that has seized Fernando’s Caracas is no less devastating than a comet, although it is slower in this devastation, and perhaps more painful for seeming so endless. But as Moreira insists, there will be love and heartbreak even after the apocalypse. Literature will make sure of it.
Barbara Halla is the criticism editor for Asymptote. Recently, she served as co-curator for a memorial house on Musine Kokalari. Her essay on Annie Ernaux and the politics of female desire was published in the anthology Le Désir au Féminin (Ramsay Editions, 2022). Barbara holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from Harvard and is an incoming PhD student at Duke’s Romance Studies department.
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