José Saramago - Death with Interruptions

In an unnamed country on the first day of the new year, people stop dying. Amid the general public, there is great celebration: flags are hung out on balconies and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity - eternal life. Death is on strike.
Soon, though, the residents begin to suffer. For several months undertakers face bankruptcy, the church is forced to reinvent its doctrine, and local 'maphia' smuggle those on the brink of death over the border where they can expire naturally.
Death does return eventually, but with a new, courteous approach - delivering violet warning letters to her victims. But what can death do when a letter is unexpectedly returned?

Comment: I brought this book from the library after a friend commented how much she was enjoying it. I had no plans to read it now but since it was available...

In this book, the author creates this magical realism scenario in which death stops happening in one country and how that affects the routines of everything. At first it seems to only cause obvious problems, but the more the situation goes on, the more areas of society are somehow forced to deal with this issue. After many plans and mistakes, people start getting used to this notion of never dying, but will there be any way to get death back or is the country forced to do something about those who are supposed to die but don't?

In terms of writing, anyone who has read this author will expect to find long paragraphs and the sense the story is being told as if it's oral, with minimal punctuation. This is the author's trademark and in some stories, it works well, in others not so much. Here, I feel I'm ambivalent about it, because while I liked the theme and several observations by the author, disguised as plot decisions, but the overall feeling is one of chagrin, kind of, because I think the author could have done better.

The story could be divided into two sections, even though nothing in the text indicates any sort of change: while the country deals with the "death's strike" (so to speak) and then, when death becomes a character and we learn what led it to make that decision. I get it why the author might have chosen this device, but it was rather simplistic and not as emotionally fulfilling as when done in other work by him, when he featured human nature and an impossible scenario.

The first part was quite appealing and I've read it quickly, all those small and then bigger issues which could come following the lack of death in a country. Social and moral issues are probably the ones that come to mind right away, but financially and health wise, it would be too difficult for any country to deal with such a problem. I think the author, in his intent to exaggerate the examples and his own commentary on what might happen, gave this part a certain sarcastic and slightly comedy tone and I wasn't always impressed with this choice, for it made the story feel more like a fable or a caricature and not an actual emotional story I'd want to think about (as he did in Blindness, which used all these elements in a much more achievable manner).

The second part, when death takes central stage, was a little more boring, to be honest, but most readers who liked this say the opposite, that the second half was the good one. I struggled to stay focused on death's whims and reasons because it seemed there was no real goal to what I was reading, why would this POV matter. Or, at least, death's POV didn't seem that interesting after all and I was thinking perhaps the author had really wasted a great opportunity when, suddenly, death starts following a cello player who seemed to be very lonely. It does seem as if the aim was to add a contrast to death's tasks, when someone meant to die, doesn't. Death follows him to understand why he might have been "saved" and the rest of the story presents a sweet but sad reality at the same time.

I think this story wasn't as strong nor as impressive as others by him I've read, and while one can appreciate the fact this isn't a big book and the writing style doesn't seem as difficult either, I still felt a little bored here and there and not as invested in what as happening as I would want and which was so easy with other novels of his. 

Obviously, the real goal here is to offer an interesting metaphor by personifying death as a woman who goes through emotions the longer human behaviors are emulated. I just wonder if the choices did really accomplish that goal... nevertheless, there's food for thought when it comes to legal and social issues related to death and the "businesses" linked to it, as well as an interesting view of euthanasia, if one wants to use this concept. The ideas and content are actually quite rich, but the execution....meh.

Grade: 6/10

José Saramago - The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

The world's threats are universal like the sun but Ricardo Reis takes shelter under his own shadow.
Back in Lisbon after sixteen years practicing medicine in Brazil, Ricardo Reis wanders the rain-sodden streets. He longs for the unattainably aristocratic Marcenda, but it is Lydia, the hotel chamber maid who makes and shares his bed. His old friend, the poet Fernando Pessoa, returns to see him, still wearing the suit he was buried in six weeks earlier. It is 1936, the clouds of Fascism are gathering ominously above them, so they talk; a wonderful, rambling discourse on art, truth, poetry, philosophy, destiny and love.

Comment: Back in 2007 I went to the traditional annual book fair in Lisbon with my best friend and that specific day José Saramago was there, giving autographs. I had already read a book by him I enjoyed, his most recent release felt too expensive (student's budget...) so I got a recommendation by another friend, which was this title.

Three years later the author died but his autograph is still there in my book and how special it is for me.

In this book, Saramago created a fictional life and personality to another fictional character invented by another Portuguese author, Fernando Pessoa.

Fernando Pessoa is mostly known by his poetry (mandatory read in school!) and his heteronyms, meaning characters he created out of his own, with lives and details that separate different writing styles in his poetry/writing. Ricardo Reis is one of those personalities and in this book Saramago has picked what we know about him from Pessoa's work and gave him a new life, where he reflects on what was to come in Portugal in the late 30s, of what is the meaning of so many things...

This is a good book to read if one wants to have an idea of the author's style of prose, especially his lack of punctuation, but as a whole I think it was a very clever book, with many pertaining elements about Portuguese literature and historical facts. A common question among foreign readers is if one needs to have an idea of those things before reading this, since it has so many specific elements and I'd say no. It helps to put some names/facts in context but anyone can read it. 

For me, in particular, the biggest setback and why this failed to impress me as others by him I've read did, was how I didn't connect with what was happening.

The author has basically picked an imaginary character (Ricardo Reis) and has put him in a weird relationship with his maker (Pessoa) while his daily life goes on and he interacts with other characters while the most mundane things happen, like his doubt about which woman he likes but shouldn't be with and vice versa and other more reflective questions about the country, its path, its future, etc.

The plot is this but like I said, the story failed to impress me and apart from some passages where the brilliance of the author's thoughts and ideas are quite clear and enjoyable, the story felt repetitive and uninteresting.

I finished the book with the sense that with so many different themes to exploit, the author lost himself a little among all the things he wanted to say. It's a bit like The Gospel According to Jesus Christ but in that book the religion theme over imposed everything and I like that theme, which doesn't easily happen here.

At the same tie, this is what makes the author's trademark style his style, how he mixes so many things but his thoughts on them make all sense at some point. I just didn't feel as absorbed by the Ricardo Reis he imagined would have existed.

It's funny, though, he chose this heteronym. Usually people have a much easier idea about the others' personalities (Alvaro de Campos is more reactionary and Alberto Caeiro is quiet and one of his poems is the most amazing one but I digress) while Ricardo Reis seems the middle man, like not too much of one thing, not too much of another.

It was, in fact, the interesting part about this novel, how Ricardo Reis is portrayed because he wouldn't have much time to live after Pessoa's death, but it's really a pity for me that these things and the potentially amazing poetry are lost among the character's steps in his routines, which I don't think were as meshed with the literary part as I'd hoped for.

I'd say that if anyone wants to have an idea of Saramago's style Blindness is a good book to start with. This one would probably be one of the books one would read after being confident one could have the patient and the taste to keep up with the author. 

I liked it but of all the books by him I read already besides this one (Blindness, Cain, Skylight, Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Raised from the Ground), I'd have to say this was the one I liked the least.

Nevertheless, his words remain and the fun part about books is that they can be re-read and their meaning and appeal changing too.

Grade: 5/10

José Saramago - Claraboia

Dawn breaks over Lisbon one mid-20th century morning. The novelist looks out the window in a neighborhood; there is nothing to indicate this day will be any different: Silvestre, the shoe-maker, opens the door to his workshop, Adriana leaves for work while in her home three woman begin another full day of sewing, Justina is looking at another long bout of fighting with her brutal husband; Lidia, the kept woman, and Carmen, the Spaniard, lost in nostalgic thoughts.
Discreetly, the novelist's gaze travels downward. Suddenly, he stops being a humble witness to become each one of the neighborhood's characters. With each chapter he jumps from one house to the next, from one person to another, to reveal a world ruled by need, by great frustrations and small illusions, by a longing for a time that wasn't any better than this one. Everything is cloaked by the dreary silence of the dictatorship, Beethoven's symphonies, and a question from Pessoa: Should all of us be married, futile, and taxable?
Saramago finished writing Claraboia when he was 31 years old. He delivered the manuscript to an editorial only to receive a response forty years later, once he was an already established and renowned author. The patient and highly-detailed writing masterfully portrays an era marked by despair. Claraboia anticipates the dazzling elements of Saramago's universe and the virtuous mind that will later give birth to a wealth of masterpieces. In these pages we hear Jose Saramago's voice, recognize his characters, and identify the clarity and compassion that, according to the Swedish Academy, distinguish his work. 

Note: Claraboia = skylight

Comment: The 5th book I've read by this fellow citizen of Portugal. José Saramago has won a Nobel Prize back in 1998 and is still one of the most known Portuguese authors of all times.

The book is said to have been written when he was young but he never published it. Actually it's rather obvious while reading because of the way it's written and the more light theme. Although set when my country was still under a dictatorship, the book doesn't focus on that, except by a sign here and there. The focus is more on the characters and their lives. This is the story of six families, they all live in the same building, and most likely in one of the most ancient neighborhoods of Lisbon.

In the book, the author jumps from house to house to tell a bit of the life story of each family and what they are going through at the time. It's like we get to spy on them through a lens, something like a skylight... But in the end, I think it's more of a tale of fate and choices.

To be honest, I've had this book since last year, when a friend gave it to me as a Christmas present. I postponed its reading for a while because it's a big book (my Portuguese edition has 398 pages) and I feared it would be like some of his most heavy works, which have so many little details one has to be very focused while reading and also because of the lack of punctuation, a trait know to be one of the author's trademarks.

But I've decided it was time and I'm very glad I did.

The book, lie I said, tells us the lives of six families, and although we don't have any special highlight about the character's physical descriptions, page after page we get to understand how all of them are and what drives them. We see in their lives the motivation and the issues and the illusions and the way of life of so many people back in the 50s in Portugal. I wouldn't say the six families are a stereotype of everyone in Portugal at the time but it gives us an overall idea of how people would act and think. From the dreamers and the hopeful to the despaired and resigned ones.

Some of them made me think and others were just characters on the page. Funny how an action of a comment by one of them would start a set of occurrences and from there, the rest of the story. I think the end was rather abrupt to some of the families, but I really enjoyed the story,

Actually, I liked it so much it took me only one day to read the whole book. This book was easy to read, it was fluid, it had a better punctuation than some of his other books which, I think, it's the most obvious proof of when it was written. The tone of the story was lighter too, because despite the author has put some words in his characters that are clearly his ideas and thoughts, he managed to make a story like a soap opera but with so many darker and philosophical tidbits in no way can it be seen as cheap literature. It's just that, by the way it develops and how it's presented, graphically, it gets easier to be read. At least to me.

I really liked the book. i think it's wonderful, especially for those who haven't tried the author and want to but fear something too heavy. This book is perfect for beginners in Saramago's work. And it's in no way a lesser work, at that.

José Saramago - Blindness

Comment: There's a lot that could be said about this book, but I'm sure all the conversation about the movie (which is rather faithful, I must confess) made people aware of what is this book about.

What would happen if everyone, suddenly, got blind?

Saramago was known for his strong beliefs and he always dared his readers to think. This book isn't an exception and somewhere in the end of the book, one of the characters says:

We are all blind, we are blinds who see

, this about thr fact we all see what is going on and still there is so many wrong things with the world.

This wasn't my first book by him but it was the most easy to read, perhaps because the theme compells you to read, perhaps because the writing sounds better...I recommend it to everyone.