It was this experience which caused him to pen the lines that had so appealed to Gregorius about language failing to properly encompass the feelings that people can have. On a more direct note the good doctor makes it his business to join the forces of the resistance against the dictator in order to try and assuage his guilt for having saved the life of one of the oppressors.
Night Train To Lisbon is a fascinating examination of the things that make us who we are and how fragile that construction really is. Are we really, it asks, only what we make ourselves, or are there external elements that must be considered? It's also about the need for passion in your life, or at the very least some sort of emotional commitment to what it is you do. Gregorius has spent decades teaching the classic languages, and has revelled in their lack of passion that their formal construction can impose on his lessons.
But what has been the result of that life so far? True he is a well respected scholar within the Berne community, but is that compensation for a marriage that fails after five years due to his being so bloodless and cold towards his ex-wives enthusiasm for art? Insomnia plagues him, and he is constantly beset with fears that he will go blind to the extent that he lets it dictate his activities. In what must be a deliberate irony, Gregorius teaches Latin, the father of the Romance languages while suppressing the romance in his own life.
There isn't even any room in his life for introspection until the moment he has his chance encounter with the Portuguese woman that rainy morning. That it takes a trip to the sunnier climate of Portugal, a direct contrast to the grey cold winter of Berne, for his life to thaw, and for him to discover what it is to have emotion in his life only is appropriate. When you think about it, what could be more romantic, then the intellectual son of a wealthy family taking up the fight against a dictator. The fact that the country just happens to be one where the native language is one of the Romance tongues is just icing on the cake.
That Doctor Prado happens to be a figure of mystery at the start of the Night Train To Lisbon gives him the aura of romance even before we and Gregorius start to learn about his life. That he turns out to have been idolized even by his teachers when he was younger only adds to this portrait. Even though we find out from his own writing that he too sublimated his real desires to suit the needs of his family and position, there still remained a fierceness to his beliefs conspicuously absent from Gregorius' life.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!