The moon, come to Earth : dispatches from Lisbon / Philip Graham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Graham, Philip, 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Graham, Philip, 1951---Travel--Portugal--Lisbon.

Graham, Philip.

Lisbon (Portugal)--Description and travel.

Lisbon (Portugal).

Lisbon (Portugal)--Anecdotes.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (172 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A dispatch from a foreign land, when crafted by an attentive and skilled writer, can be magical, transmitting pleasure, drama, and seductive strangeness. In The Moon, Come to Earth, Philip Graham offers an expanded edition of a popular series of dispatches originally published on McSweeney's, an exuberant yet introspective account of a year's sojourn in Lisbon with his wife and daughter. Casting his attentive gaze on scenes as broad as a citywide arts festival and as small as a single paving stone in a cobbled walk, Graham renders Lisbon from a perspective that varies between wide-eyed and knowing; though he's unquestionably not a tourist, at the same time he knows he will never be a local. So his lyrical accounts reveal his struggles with (and love of) the Portuguese language, an awkward meeting with Nobel laureate José Saramago, being trapped in a budding soccer riot, and his daughter's challenging transition to adolescence while attending a Portuguese school-but he also waxes loving about Portugal's saudade-drenched music, its inventive cuisine, and its vibrant literary culture. And through his humorous, self-deprecating, and wistful explorations, we come to know Graham himself, and his wife and daughter, so that when an unexpected crisis hits his family, we can't help but ache alongside them. A thoughtful, finely wrought celebration of the moment-to-moment excitement of diving deep into another culture and confronting one's secret selves, The Moon, Come to Earth is literary travel writing of a rare intimacy and immediacy.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

I Don't Know Why I Love Lisbon

So Who Says Objects Are Inanimate?

365 Days of Pork Surprise

Alchemy: From a Rube to a Local

Bread, Bread; Cheese, Cheese

Let's Throw a Festival!

Isn't There a Law against Filching a Calçada?

The Moon, Come to Earth

Those Tricky Subgestures

Nearly the Same Substance

Go, Whatchamacallits!

Chama-me Ismail

Another History Lesson

We Capture the Castle

Salvage

Light for Light

Este espectáculo cruél

Three Churches

Particle and Wave

Fairly Medieval

Goodbye, Good Luck

Sip by Sip

On This Side of the Ocean

Epilogue

End Notes / Mini-dispatches

Sources of Literature Quoted

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786612426513

9781282426511

1282426516

9780226305165

0226305163

OCLC:

527729016