José Saramago

Average customer rating:

Sight unseen
I Can See
Great!
Simply extraordinary.
Fairy Tale

Blindness (Harvest Book)
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Seeing
All the Names
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
The Stone Raft
The Road

ASIN: 0156007754

Amazon.com

In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he "were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea." A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor's office. Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum--guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape. So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege, written with a dearth of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. At first this may seem challenging, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.

In this community of blind people there is still one set of functioning eyes: the doctor's wife has affected blindness in order to accompany her husband to the asylum. As the number of victims grows and the asylum becomes overcrowded, systems begin to break down: toilets back up, food deliveries become sporadic; there is no medical treatment for the sick and no proper way to bury the dead. Inevitably, social conventions begin to crumble as well, with one group of blind inmates taking control of the dwindling food supply and using it to exploit the others. Through it all, the doctor's wife does her best to protect her little band of blind charges, eventually leading them out of the hospital and back into the horribly changed landscape of the city.

Blindness is in many ways a horrific novel, detailing as it does the total breakdown in society that follows upon this most unnatural disaster. Saramago takes his characters to the very edge of humanity and then pushes them over the precipice. His people learn to live in inexpressible filth, they commit acts of both unspeakable violence and amazing generosity that would have been unimaginable to them before the tragedy. The very structure of society itself alters to suit the circumstances as once-civilized, urban dwellers become ragged nomads traveling by touch from building to building in search of food. The devil is in the details, and Saramago has imagined for us in all its devastation a hell where those who went blind in the streets can never find their homes again, where people are reduced to eating chickens raw and packs of dogs roam the excrement-covered sidewalks scavenging from corpses.

And yet in the midst of all this horror Saramago has written passages of unsurpassed beauty. Upon being told she is beautiful by three of her charges, women who have never seen her, "the doctor's wife is reduced to tears because of a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, mere grammatical categories, mere labels, just like the two women, the others, indefinite pronouns, they too are crying, they embrace the woman of the whole sentence, three graces beneath the falling rain." In this one woman Saramago has created an enduring, fully developed character who serves both as the eyes and ears of the reader and as the conscience of the race. And in Blindness he has written a profound, ultimately transcendent meditation on what it means to be human. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Customer Reviews:

Sight unseen.......2007-06-17

José Saramago's "Blindness" is one of the most strange and most readable novel from his body of work. The action is always moving forward, there is only one narrator ("Balthazar and Blimunda" has a couple of them), and the narrative reads like a thriller in a crescendo until it reaches an ending that makes a lot of sense in the narrative.

"Blindness" takes place in a nameless city and in an identified time. Suddenly, in the end of the second paragraph a man announces that he is blind. There is no apparent reason for the conditions and his ophthalmologist decides to study the case. But no sooner he stars his research than the doctor becomes blind himself. The government of this place decides to act and isolate all the blinds in an old facility. But that doesn't stop the blindness to be spread and contaminated the whole town.

The only person immune to the condition is the doctor's wife who never become blind, but pretend not seeing to follow and help her husband. She becomes the eyes of a group of people whose eye are no longer effective.

For Saramago, this group of people represents more than what they are. Nobody has a name, but they are identified by what would be their most important characteristic in the narrative, so we have, the doctor, the wife, the first blind, the car thief, a girl in sunglasses and so on. This device makes them something bigger than mere human beings - they are the human condition itself.

Blindness brings up the most inner - and sometimes creepiest - characteristic of each person. Killing, stealing and even raping become very easy and the primordial way of defense. Words are substituted by actions - and kindness is not very common.

Saramago is - alongside Antonio Lobo Antunes - one of the most important contemporary writers from Portugal. His prose is not easy and sometime he hasn't much hope for humanity. But in "Blindness" some light emerges from the darkness in the end. We human can survive a plague and even learn something from it - or not.

He never psychologizes his characters or their conditions. There is no explanation - and it is never important because he is working with how we deal with the unexpected and unknown, and not from what they come. In the end everything makes perfect sense and the characters are no longer the same - nor is the reader, who has seen a little more about human condition.

I Can See.......2007-06-15

For the first 320 pages or so(out of 326) of Blindness, I felt as though one of my 5 senses had deteriorated, and that any hope of its return was worthless. Whether it was the lack of punctuation, the slow-forming plot, or Saramago's disregard for naming his characters that caused my "disability" I can never truly be sure of, but my reliance on the single character who could see (7 others did so in the book) eventually paid off, and in the end my sight returned, and I found myself celebrating with those who also regained their sight.

Great!.......2007-06-13

One of the greatest and most impressive books I have ever read! "A brief history of 20th century (non)humanity" would be a good secondary title.

Simply extraordinary........2007-06-06

Hundreds of people wrote a review for this book so I doubt I'll say anything new.
This is an amazing book! In my opinion, one of the best works of literature to this day. It is truly one of those books that everyone should read in their lifetime.
However, it is also one of the hardest books as well. It is profoundly disturbing, tragic, and even in some places simply disgusting.
At first, it was a bit difficult to read due to the fact that Jose Saramago does not punctuate the dialogs, and sometimes paragraphs can be as long as a page. However, the story is so catching that you stop noticing it. With the time it becomes hard to read due to the graphical nature rather than structure of the sentences.
In short the book is about the country in which everyone got blind, not right away but gradually with time. As if blindness was some kind of viral infection. One of the main characters of the story is a woman who was probably the only person who could see. Through out the book she tried to help a small group of blind people.
The author doesn't go into great details about the characters and overall background. We don't even know the names of the characters or even the country where everything is happening; it can be Brazil, US, Russia, or any other. Instead the characters are evolving during the story, as they go from one misfortune to other. Specifics in this book don't really matter. What matters is how people cope with tragedy and enormous difficulties. We see the range of emotions from compassion and generosity to horrific madness and rage. We take many things for granted, and this book shows how unprepared we are to give away these things. As soon as things become difficult, people loose all sense of civility and humanity.
This is not an easy read, however once you done with it you'll never regret it.

Fairy Tale.......2007-04-13

This book had a fairy-tale feel to it for me, it reminded me somewhat of the magic realism of Marquez and Allende, but without the beauty and the warmth of their writing. The whole novel was quite ugly, intentionally so, depicting human nature quite starkly, alternated with stunning selflessness, caring and a solidarity between people against difficulties facing them.
Overall Saramago's message seems to be a positive and hopeful one, but it comes at a price: to get to goodness and caring; you have to wade through much trash and opposition.
Reading the story was quite racy, with the lack of speechmarks, although the lack of names slowed the narrative down. It is clear why these techniques were used and it created the intended effect for me as a reader, but as a person who likes to identify with characters and lose myself in the story, I would have preferred names. Crazy?
It's pretty much a crazy novel though. Sometimes it nearly read as a hypothetical case study of what might happen if the unforeseeable should hit...
And what about this blindness? What about these repeated references to being blind even before turning physically blind? In how far is this seeing society blind, one may ask. It remains a fascinating question to consider.
A new experience. Grateful to have read, it gave hope.
It left me with some questions too.

Average customer rating:

Not as good as blindness
When Voting Becomes Empty of Meaning
Not Sure What I'm Seeing
Not his best, but...
We shall see

Seeing
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Blindness (Harvest Book)
All the Names
The Double
The Tale of the Unknown Island
The Stone Raft

ASIN: 0156032732

Book Description

On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to come out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o’clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.

But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? A police superintendent is put on the case.

What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness.

Customer Reviews:

Not as good as blindness.......2007-06-14

Saramago is an incredible writer. I picked this up having enjoyed reading Blindness many times (you really should read it before this one). I wasn't expecting a heavy-handed political allegory but the story is pretty good. It will not leave you as awe-struck as Blindness but Saramago's writing style is always wonderful and will leave you with much to think about.

When Voting Becomes Empty of Meaning.......2007-06-13

In a country where the Party of the Right and the Party of the Center have total control, the electorate only decides when these parties shall renogotiate the sharing of the spoils of power. When 83% of the voters in the capitol decide that this democratic charade is empty of meaning, they cast blank ballots and the government fears for the loss of its legitimacy. Anxious power brokers search unsuccessfully for a conspiracy to be suppressed but finally must settle for a single scapegoat. Spies, coercion, a rigged justice system and even assassination are used to stamp out this threat to "legitmate" power. Newspapers are fed a drama of small-scale wickedness and the complacent public is assured that the threat has been defeated and they can return to a patriotic sleep.

Saramago feels that we have robbed democracy of its true meaning as the centers of national power have grown and the weapons of propaganda have become highly sophisticated. For this dilemna,he offers no solace. I am reminded of the resistance of small numbers of the National Guard and Reservists to repeated tours in Iraq and the heavy handed defamation, incarceration and denial of due-process that our government has flung at them. What would our government do if all these citizen-soldiers refused to return to the battlefront? A most frightening thought that Saramago's novel makes quite real.

Not Sure What I'm Seeing.......2007-05-18

Seeing is the follow-up to Saramago's critically acclaimed novel, Blindness. While Blindness was metaphorical and surreal, it was also literal - the characters in the novel literally went blind. Seeing feels much more, almost completely, metaphorical though the events that comprise the story are very real. In Seeing, the government begins plotting against it's own citizens when the results of a national election reveal that a majority of the population has cast blank ballots. Neither the controlling right party, the opposing left party, nor the central party, gain a majority. The government is both enraged at this act of subversion, and scared. An emergency election the following week produces similar results and the government's efforts to root out the traitors and subversive elements produce no leads. Though no evidence of organized subversion is found, and though no unrest can be seen in the streets, the government decides to act quickly and authoritatively to root out what it sees as a dangerous cancer growing in the population. Through ill-advised measure after ill-advised measure, the government escalates its war against the unseen traitors, going so far as to abandon and quarantine the city. Weeks into the crisis, an anonymous letter is received by the government which links a key actor from the Blindness crisis, to the current one. A team of undercover officers is dispatched to find, interrogate, and neutralize the suspect. The government turns increasingly desperate, increasingly willing to break the law, manipulating events and the press in order to, if nothing else, turn those citizens loyal to the government against those who are behind the conspiracy. Ultimately the government's cynicism towards its citizens is overshadowed by it's miscalculations about them.

Overall, an interesting read but truthfully not the best example of what Saramago offers. That's the view from a fan.

Not his best, but..........2007-05-06

Not Saramago's best, but still better than most of what's out there. It helps to have read his "Blindness" first.

We shall see.......2007-05-05

There are many reasons I love reading a Jose Saramago novel. The ideas he has, playful "what-if" concepts that explore all sorts of new ground, never fail to intrigue. He has the rare gift is taking his concepts all the way, of not pulling punches the way many authors do. There are lots of good ideas out there, but most authors are too timid to do anything interesting with them -- not so for Saramago. The way he writes is dense and sometimes difficult to read, but it is also beautifully crafted and usually well worth the effort. He never fails to be thought-provoking and original.

All of these things are there in 'Seeing.' It begins with a unique idea: what if the vast majority of the population of a (supposedly) democratic nation voted, but turned in blank ballots? What implication would this have for the election? How would a government react to this? As usual, Saramago finds a way to explore this idea that is not trite or simplistic, he makes it more personal (and thus, more universal) than a political thriller. It begins with the government reaction to the blank ballots, and take a while to get moving, but eventually becomes a very individual story, which is what Saramago does best. And certainly, it is beautifully written. There are passages of great beauty in language and originality of concept that are simply remarkable. Nobody writes like Saramago does.

So why was I a little disappointed at the end? I think it was the overt poltics of the book. I didn't mind the point that he was trying to make -- I agreed with much of it, actually. But most of his books, while they have political implications, they aren't so obvious about it. This book's predecessor, 'Blindness,' certainly left itself open to poltical interpretations, and I'm sure that was intentional. My favorite Saramago novel, 'The Stone Raft,' also had clear political implications. But neither book was quite so obvious about it as this one was. Neither felt the need to state its politics so plainly, but in those, Saramago found ways to make his points a little more subtly, to trust the reader to draw the conclusions in the end. In 'Seeing' the political point of the book is so clearly stated that there wasn't much left to think about by the end. In a way, that might be considered more satisfying, but to me having the politics handed to me on a platter was something of a disappointment. I didn't have to work for it a little the way I did in other Saramago books.

Make no mistake, 'Seeing' is still a good book, and a good example of what makes Saramago such a unique writer. It's just not the best example. It was nice to see some of the characters from 'Blindness' again here, and it was good to get a little more closure on their story. Reading 'Seeing' was very thought-provoking. It made me wonder what would happen if the events of the book came to pass in the real world. It made me wonder about the next big U.S. election in 2008. What would happen if I cast a blank vote? What would happen if everyone cast a blank vote?

Perhaps, someday, we will see.

Average customer rating:

All the lives...
GREAT
A Story of a Name...
Another Great Novel By Saramago
The living can wait, the dead not

All the Names
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Blindness (Harvest Book)
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Baltasar and Blimunda
Seeing

ASIN: 0156010593

Amazon.com

"As soon as you cross the threshold, you notice the smell of old paper." The Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths is the setting for All the Names, Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago's seventh novel to be translated into English. The names in question are those of every man, woman, and child ever born, married, or buried in the unnamed city where the Registry is located, and are the special province of Senhor José who is employed there as a clerk. Over the centuries, the paper trail in this hopelessly arcane bureaucracy has grown so monumental, so disorganized that <blockquote> one poor researcher became lost in the labyrinthine catacombs of the archive of the dead, having come to the Central Registry in order to carry out some genealogical research he had been commissioned to undertake. He was discovered, almost miraculously, after a week, starving, thirsty, exhausted, delirious, having survived thanks to the desperate measure of ingesting enormous quantities of old documents that neither lingered in the stomach nor nourished, since they melted in the mouth without requiring any chewing. </blockquote> The nondescript Senhor José labors long and thanklessly among the archives; his is a tepid, lonely life with only one small hobby to leaven his leisure hours: he collects "news items about those people in his country who, for good reasons and bad, had become famous." One night, it occurs to him that "something fundamental was missing from his collection, that is, the origin, the root, the source, in other words, the actual birth certificate of these famous people"--and that the information is within easy reach on the other side of a connecting door that separates his meager lodgings from the Registry itself. And so begins Senhor José's midnight raids on the stacks as he shuttles between the Registry and his own room bearing precious records that he carefully copies before returning them to their rightful places. Still, this minor aberration might have remained the clerk's only transgression if not for a simple act of fate: one night, along with his celebrity records, he accidentally picks up a birth certificate belonging to an ordinary, unknown woman--a woman who becomes suddenly more important than all the others precisely because she is unknown. Celebrity is cast aside as Senhor José begins a search for this mysterious quarry--a quest that will lead him into conflict with his superior, the Registrar, and ensnare him in the kind of messy personal histories and tangled relationships he has thus far avoided in his own life.

A recurring theme in many of Saramago's novels is the very human struggle between withdrawal and connection. Whether it is the Iberian peninsula literally breaking off from the rest of Europe in The Stone Raft or an entire country afflicted by a devastating malady in Blindness, he is fascinated by the effects of isolation on the human soul and, correspondingly, the redemptive power of compassion. All the Names continues to mine this rich vein as the repressed clerk follows his unknown Ariadne's thread out of the labyrinth of his own strangled psyche and into life. Readers will find here Saramago's trademark love of the absurd, his brilliant imagery and idiosyncratic punctuation, as well as the unflinching yet tender honesty with which he chronicles the human condition. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

Senhor José is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, and death that are his daily routine. But one day, when he comes across the records of an anonymous young woman, something happens to him. Obsessed, Senhor José sets off to follow the thread that may lead him to the woman-but as he gets closer, he discovers more about her, and about himself, than he would ever have wished.

The loneliness of people's lives, the effects of chance, the discovery of love-all coalesce in this extraordinary novel that displays the power and art of José Saramago in brilliant form.

Customer Reviews:

All the lives..........2006-03-11

though short it may seem ,this novel took me a month to go through with ,in many of my reading-marathons sessions ... it took me many packs of cigarettes as well .... but again ... i was satisfied.

all the names is a one long monolgue narrated by Don Jose - the only name we will encounter in (all the names)- : a lone wolf ,eccentrically monotonous clerk ,whose greatest pleasure is keeping track of famous people and collecting their info in files of his own.

One day , while searching for some info for his secret hobby, he accidentally stumbles upon the civilian card of some unknown woman ,and absurd as it may seem to him ( and to his ceiling - yes ceiling you didnt read that one wrong ) ludicrous as it may seem ,he starts a don quixotian quest in order to find this woman ... to transform this insipid ,one dimensioned image of a (paper-being) into something (else) he has never seen before.

All the names is a gloomy,despondent journey with a Sisyphean antihero ,that may awaken us from the slumber we are going through to go beyond the names into a colored ,multi-dimensioned life.

GREAT.......2005-11-05

There is not much that I can say about this book, except that it was THE best book I've ever read. The unspoken medaphors and the underlying currents made reading this book bliss. I will say this, however. They don't use quotation marks (sometimes a tad annoying) and you must be in a rather reflective/melencholy mood to read this. THIS BOOK ROX MY SOX!!

A Story of a Name..........2005-08-29

It is the second book I read for Jose Saramago after "Blindness", and I am still amazed with his writing style, and his ability to captivate the reader from beginning to end. He keeps the reader so close to the story, the details get you very involved, the turn of events keep you interested, and the concealed message is even much greater than all this excitement.

Saramago's "All the names", the search of a complete story just by following a name could be full of surprises, headaches, and twists that could lead to too many unforeseen surprises, but more importantly gives you another meaning to life, and how each name is related to a life cycle!

Another Great Novel By Saramago.......2005-08-28

Along with "Blindness" and "The Stone Raft" Saramago deftly shows his complete and utter control of prose. With his witty and detail laden writing style Saramago details the ongoings of a lowly official of the and his adventure as he attempts to find a woman. With unpredictable twists and an utter snapshot of humanity, Saramago has done it again. Read this novel.

The living can wait, the dead not.......2005-07-01

In his own comments on this book in 'How the character became the master and the author his apprentice' Saramago defines the main subject of 'All the Names' as 'the story of somebody who is looking after someone else, because he came to understand that life doesn't demand something more important than that.'
In other words, the theme is the altruism of a missionary.

I found the plot rather unconvincing, the obsession of the main character rather artificial and improbable and the motivation of a crucial suicide rather weak.
On the contrary, the painting of a bureaucracy and its monotone work - the updating of a file of the living and the dead - is excellent.
Here the registration of the dead cannot be postponed.

A worth-while read.

Average customer rating:

Vastly Overrated
A story of family closeness triumphing over unfeeling bureaucracy
The Cave
Pretentious Bore
Things Are Not What They Seem

The Cave
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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All the Names
Blindness (Harvest Book)
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ASIN: 0156028794

Amazon.com

José Saramago is a master at pacing. Readers unfamiliar with the work of this Portuguese Nobel Prize winner would do well to begin with The Cave, a novel of ideas, shaded with suspense. Spare and pensive, The Cave follows the fortunes of an aging potter, Cipriano Algor, beginning with his weekly delivery of plates to the Center, a high-walled, windowless shopping complex, residential community, and nerve center that dominates the region. What sells at the Center will sell everywhere else, and what the Center rejects can barely be given away in the surrounding towns and villages. The news for Cipriano that morning isn't good. Half of his regular pottery shipment is rejected, and he is told that the consumers now prefer plastic tableware. Over the next week, he and his grown daughter Marta grieve for their lost craft, but they gradually open their eyes to the strange bounty of their new condition: a stray dog adopts them, and a lovely widow enters Cipriano's life. When they are invited to live at the Center, it seems ungracious to refuse, but there are strange developments under the complex and a troubling increase in security, and Cipriano changes all their fates by deciding to investigate. In Saramago's able hands, what might have become a dry social allegory is a delicately elaborated story of individualism and unexpected love. --Regina Marler

Book Description

Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta and her husband Marçal in a small village on the outskirts of The Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartments, and offices to which Cipriano delivers his pots and jugs every month. On one such trip, he is told not to make any more deliveries. Unwilling to give up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls. Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds, and Cipriano and Marta set to work-until the order is cancelled and the three have to move from the village into The Center. When mysterious sounds of digging emerge from beneath their apartment, Cipriano and Marçal investigate, and what they find transforms the family's life. Filled with the depth, humor, and the extraordinary philosophical richness that marks each of Saramago's novels, The Cave is one of the essential books of our time.

Customer Reviews:

Vastly Overrated.......2007-06-15

Massively long blocks of text with little punctuation that interchange thoughts and spoken phrases betweeen multiple characters. The plot is slow-moving and not very intersting. The dog is the most pleasurable character in the book. If you want to read this book, bring your own pen so you can add in the appropriate punctuation.

My overall assessment: commendable style but annoying overall.

A story of family closeness triumphing over unfeeling bureaucracy.......2007-02-03

"The Cave" by Nobel Prize winning writer Jose Saramago deals with family closeness and anonymous, implacable bureaucracy.

The story is about a close family of a widowed father, Cipriano Algor, living with his married daughter, Marta and her husband Marcal. Father and daughter run a traditional, old-fashioned pottery business in a country village. Marcal works as a security guard in The Centre, which also buys products from the pottery. The book begins when The Centre unexpectedly cancels its crockery orders from the pottery. Father and daughter get a reprieve when The Centre agrees to test consumer interest in new figurines that Marta convinces her reluctant father to make.

Looming over everything is the all-powerful, implacable Centre. The Centre is a huge complex of apartments, shops and entertainment facilities, where residents are supervised and spied upon by security staff. There are rules and arbitrary decisions.

Marcal will get an apartment in The Centre allocated to him when his expected promotion comes through. He and Marta want Cipriano to come to live with them and close down the failing pottery. Cipriano is reluctant to accept that times have moved on and traditional crafts like his pottery are becoming a thing of the past. His reluctance to move is complicated by a developing, but fragile, relationship between Cipriano and the widow Isaura Estudiosa.

Marta and Cipriano can almost read each other's minds. Each one is constantly in the other's thoughts. Their care and love for each other is very moving. When Marta prepares food for the family, it is almost a sacred expression of her love. It is not seen as either the subjugation of women; or as a thankless chore grudgingly performed as cooking is often seen in "sophisticated" urban societies - if it is even done at all. A lost dog, Found, attaches itself to the family and becomes an acute and much-loved observer.

Marcal is almost an outsider to this relationship at first, but he comes to share fully in its inclusiveness as the book unfolds.

The loving, caring, supportive family contrasts vividly with the uncaring, authoritarian and unpredictable Centre. But ultimately the human spirit triumphs over the Kafka-like Centre and its soul-less bureaucrats. Here Saramago deals with themes that will be familiar to readers of his other books.

Another theme deals with the destruction of traditional ways by modernism and its impact on those deemed "surplus to requirements." Cipriano almost despairs when his whole life, his craftsmanship and his honest work are dismissed by The Centre as no longer relevant, and even contemptible. He feels that his life is over, so why let his love for Isaura develop. Better to put it aside as the foolish thoughts of an old man.

The style and language are extremely simple - as are the other books by Saramago that I have reviewed (Blindness, Seeing). The book is written as virtually a continuous narrative, with minimal punctuation. Reading it requires some concentration. This technique forces the reader to slow down and absorb the text.

The Cave.......2007-01-10

Very dark and strange storyline. While the book attempts to present an existential perspective, it falls short.

While the writing style is possibly stylish; I found the run-on sentences and endless paragraphs difficult to read.

Pretentious Bore.......2006-12-09

I am halfway through this book and have decided to stop reading it. Why?

The author apparently thinks it's a novel idea to not use paragraphs or quotation marks. This is obnoxious. I don't care what the "critics" may say. I suppose if he started the book on the last page and finished the book on the first page 'The Cave' would be hailed as a work of genius. Color me skeptical.

Oh yes, and the screed against capitalism is a big yawn. While it is true that goods and services initially do become watered down and more homogenous as scale and industry consolidation increases, it is also true that in today's capitalist world, homemade niche products are experiencing a resurgence thanks to the "long tail" of the market. As operations and distribution costs decrease (think internet), handcrafted goods (think micro-beers and yes, even handcrafted pottery) are able to reach new audiences. Try typing in "handcrafted pottery" into your favorite search engine and see the results. Capitalism 'tis a beautiful thing!

Things Are Not What They Seem.......2006-10-09

Cipriano Algor is an aging potter, working a small kiln inherited from his ancestors, in a tiny village. He lives there with his beloved daughter, Marta, who helps him in the pottery business, and his son-in-law, Marcal Gacho, who works as a security guard at The Center. Ah yes, The Center, where everyone wants to be. The urban utopia where all the latest methods are used, where people live and shop and enjoy endless entertainments. And the place where Cipriano sells his pottery. Oh yes, Marcal is expecting a promotion, and then--well--the whole family can move to an apartment in this wonderful city within a city.

Then, one day, Cipriano is told that his pottery isn't needed any more. People want cheaper stuff, plastics that last longer. What will he do? How will he support himself? And what will happen to the nurturing rural life they've enjoyed in the village? Without revealing any more of the plot, I'll just say that they go through many struggles and learn a lot. The importance of love, for example. And that things are not what they seem.

Author Jose Saramago writes in his usual, somewhat difficult style (long stretches of print without paragraphs and minimal punctuation), but you get used to it. It's a kind of author's stream-of-consciousness, where dialogue takes place without quotation marks. In the hands of this author it works. He tells an engaging tale that can be undestood on many levels. A tale about our world, with its mad commercialism and the pursuit of profit over everything else. The characters are charming and you quickly become involved in their developing relationships and struggles. Did I mention? There's a dog in the story, and maybe even a love interest for the aging potter. But you'll just have to read it.

Saramago is a genius of course, and his works are unforgettable. I enjoyed this one and I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Average customer rating:

Baltasar and Bluminda
I wanted to like it much more
More historical commentary than original fiction
Saramago is the world's greatest living writer
"I have flown, Father. My son, I believe you."

Baltasar and Blimunda
Jose Saramago , and Giovanni Pontiero
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156005204

Book Description

From the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, a “brilliant...enchanting novel” (New York Times Book Review) of romance, deceit, religion, and magic set in eighteenth-century Portugal at the height of the Inquisition. National bestseller. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.

Customer Reviews:

Baltasar and Bluminda.......2006-08-25

This was my introduction to Saramago a few years back. Since, then, I have devoured his work from which I have gained insight, inspiration and a spirit of adventure. He is one of a very few finest writers in our world today. I returned to re-read this novel with an accomplished insight into his work. It has been an astounding experience! A novel of such breadth, imagination, and history unlike any I have read. The chapter in which an enormous stone is transported from the quarry to Mafra may be one of the most stunning I have experienced. I have never been to Portugal nor possess much knowledge of it. Jose Saramago has shown me it's glory and his. This is one of his best!

I wanted to like it much more.......2006-03-25

Noted literary critic Harold Bloom calls Jose Saramago a genius (a term he reserves for extremely few living authors) and perhaps the world's greatest living novelist. For that reason and Saramago's Nobel prize, and because Amazon's editorial review referred to this book as Saramago's best-loved story, and because of the interesting back cover blurb, I thought "Baltasar and Blimunda" would make a good entry point into what I thought would be the beginning of my enjoyment of his works. I was really looking forward to it. And the result?

Painful!

What a chore to get to the end! Never have I taken so long to read a 300-plus page novel. I haven't taken this long since I read "Absalom, Absalom!" which is much more difficult, but also far more interesting. Saramago might be smart, but much of his commentary, liberally sprinkled throughout the story via direct addresses to the reader, comes off more like sarcasm and simple smart-alecky remarks than as insight. He enjoys attacking the church and religious faith in general. Nothing wrong with that, of course. And occasionally he does it well, especially when he depicts, matter-of-factly, the insatiable sexual appetites of supposedly celibate priests and nuns. But he doesn't always serve his story well while engaging in these sarcastic attacks. They're mostly asides.

The story, the characters and the setting have wonderful potential, but instead of drama we get mild humor that occasionally puts a smile on our face but rarely makes us laugh. Saramago also treats us to lengthy descriptions of work and laundry lists of scenery, machines, processes and everyday events. I'm not looking for James Bond here, but let the characters do SOMETHING interesting. Instead we get rich details. Too rich. What we don't get nearly enough of is dialogue. Saramago doesn't let his characters speak. He thinks readers are more interested in his voice than those of the characters. And as if those weren't enough obstacles, Saramago throws words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs at us without much punctuation at all, even periods sometimes. There doesn't seem to be a good reason for this, but I'm just a reader, not a Nobel prize-winning genius!

Now, some readers will take strong exception to what I'm saying; they'll pat themselves on the back and think, "Oh, he just doesn't get it." Or "He doesn't have the patience or intellect for 'challenging' literature." Well let's just take the quotes off of the word literature for a second and call this what it is: a story. And it's not a well-told story at that. Nor is it particularly challenging. Some of the incidents are interesting, but the plot is disjointed, the motivations seem irrelevant if not unconvincing. The political and religious commentary is gratuitous and lacking in insight. The love story provides erotic tidbits without much feeling. In short, there is just a lot wrong with this story. And I've read plenty of challenging literature. A few moments at the beginning and near the end are interesting, but the heart of the story -- the love affair and the building of the cathedral -- are simply boring. And one of the major characters disappears suddenly without any emotional high point whatsoever. So pat yourselves on the back and say that my review wasn't helpful, if you must, but at least I'm being honest with myself and with you.

I'll give Saramago and magical realism another attempt, but after "Baltasar and Blimunda" and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," I'm no longer going in with great expectations.

More historical commentary than original fiction.......2005-04-12

Eloqunet depiction of 18th Century Portugal, however is lacking in the love story development.

Saramago is the world's greatest living writer.......2004-08-05

There is no question in my mind that Jose Saramago is the world's greatest living writer. After carefully reading "Baltasar and Blimunda," there is no other explanation for his absolutely beautiful and experimental writing style. Yes, it is necessary to go into this book with a warning, perhaps 2. Be aware that Saramago does not write like anyone else. He disregards chronology, a single steadfast plot, and above all, punctuation. Some sentences go on for a page-and-a-half. Pay attention to the language. I must have marked 50 pages with passages that I find which impact my life profoundly on a daily basis. Also, take your time. The last thing is to anticipate the end. The ending to this novel is the saddest, most heart-wrenching ending to a book that I have ever read in my entire lifetime, yet it is highly engaging all the way through. So pace yourself, and savor the many characters and subplots that Saramago presents you with. And make sure to read the flying scene (when it was a success) over and over again with your eyes closed. This is my favorite book of all-time. A classic for the modern age and all ages. Pulp fiction crap writers: (I.E. Nora Robers, Tom Clancy, John Grisham) take notes. You may learn a life lesson or two.

"I have flown, Father. My son, I believe you.".......2004-02-24

BALTASAR AND BLIMUNDA is a wonderful, richly detailed account of life in early 18th century Portugal. It is a time when Portugal fought the ruthless French, maintained an important colony in Brazil, and was constantly under the threat of the Holy Inquisition. The King of Portugal, Dom Joao V, desperately wants an heir to the throne. One night he promises a Franciscan friar that if he can foretell a succession to the throne then he would build a convent in Mafra. After the Queen gives birth Dom Joao V fulfills his promise by building a convent that is destined to be the greatest in Portugal. Meanwhile, after losing his hand on the battlefield Baltasar travels to Lisbon where he eventually meets Blimunda while watching public executions of condemned individuals. An eccentric Padre Bartolomeu Lourenco recruits Baltasar and Blimunda to work in secret creating Passarola, a flying machine that resembles a giant bird. Centuries before the modern airplane is created, the act of flying is often beyond the comprehension of individuals and could be seen as a holy sign. The sections of this book detailing the plight of Passarola are most entertaining and fun. This creates a good balance with the harsh details of the building of the convent. Saramago succeeds in writing entire passages revealing how much work and sweat were involved in such acts as dragging a giant slab of marble a considerable distance. One might think these passages are dull and tedious, but I believe Saramago highlights these arduous aspects of life that are often ignored by other authors who create works of historical fiction. Throughout the years Saramago has solidified his reputation for being a wonderful storyteller who create novels that are both shocking and revealing of the human condition, and BASTASAR AND BLIMUNDA is no exception. Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

Uncharacteristic Characterization of Christ
Imaginative and Provocative
An interesting take on the Jesus story
Unreadable
Breathtaking work of literary genius and theological inquiry

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156001411

Book Description

This is a skeptic’s journey into the meaning of God and of human existence. At once an ironic rendering of the life of Christ and a beautiful novel, Saramago’s tale has sparked intense discussion about the meaning of Christianity and the Church as an institution. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.

Customer Reviews:

Uncharacteristic Characterization of Christ.......2007-04-28

I believe this novel will be especially compelling for those of whom it may not have been intended, namely ardent believers. Those of us who memorized passages, acted out scenes, and were often rebuked with parables. As a thought experiment on the psychology of Jesus it is most compelling, most notably for the style in which the narrative dialogue is constructed. Conversation is organic, it flows right along with the scene, and it is inferred within the context of the ongoing mental movie derived from the text. There is no punctuation, or demarcation of any kind to differentiate dialogue from description, omniscient narration, or internal ruminations. Admittedly, it takes some getting used to and requires a little to determine who is speaking at times, but the experience is well worth the effort and the fact that Jose pulls it off is a testament to his mastery. The story, in general, follows the account in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke); however, key scenes have a different spin on them reveal the humanity that most certainly must exist within the Son of Man/Son of God. The Bible's account all too often deigns to the deity within Christ and treats his humanity as if it doesn't exist. I don't want to ruin the surprise which will accompany those episodes where these revelations of character emerge. All in all it was a provocative account, poetically envisioned, of an all too familiar story.

Imaginative and Provocative.......2007-02-06

This is a wonderful work of fiction that is creatively devised and unique. It is certainly, as has previously been forewarned by others, not for the devout reader who will take offense when faced with a work of fiction that does not accurately depict Jesus and those closest to him as is told by the canonical Gospels and orthodox scholarship. Saramago takes the Gospels and distills them into a remnant not unlike a skeleton upon which he casts his own flesh of fiction. What is perhaps the most impressive aspect of this work is that one has to constantly remind her/himself that this is indeed a fictional tale and not a fifth Gospel. Saramago's use of traditional parables and events in the life of Jesus Christ helps to create and atmosphere that the reader can become confused in. It is very well done.

The one note of criticism I will make is one that has been made several times in reviews prior. Saramago does not use punctuation aside from periods and is apparently allergic to the `tab' key that would permit him to start a new paragraph every so often. It is a text that is very compact with little to distinguish dialogue (capital letters denote a new speaker) and can be very frustrating if you are a slow reader. If you are one who reads at a faster pace, the dialogue may come naturally as the story is read. I only mention this because it was at first frustrating to me, but I quickly adapted to the style and found no problem finishing it.

There are twists that are revealed along the lines of "Last Temptation of Christ," but with a new take. I suggest that it be read by anyone who likes creative and innovative fiction with a taste for the provocative or controversial - but please remember that this is fiction!

An interesting take on the Jesus story.......2006-10-05

Of all the Saramago books I've read so far "Blindness" had the most impact and, for me, was unputdownable - 100% recommend that book. I would say that this book comes second "most enjoyable".
I'm not a christian, probably closer to agnostic/buddhist than anything so it was with some tredpidation that I bought this one. Was Saramago going to ram the JC story down my throat? Was he going to ridicule it? Neither.
His interpretation of the story is most enjoyable. Obviously God plays a role and bestows various miracles but for the most part Saramago presents some very interesting and plausible ideas for Jesus' actions. Various miracles are portrayed as commonplace events and it's only through the annals of history and the interpretation by various self-serving denominations that they've been turned in to miracles.
The story flows well, and yes Saramago foregoes the use of speech marks etc. but I have to say that the story is none the worse for it - I found it refreshing for someone to break some of the rules of grammar. After all who the heck said that we have to use punctuation anyway? You may have to engage brain to determine who is saying what...so? 100% recommended even for those folks that aren't of a religious mindset. Very enjoyable.

Unreadable.......2006-08-21

I am agog at the praise heaped upon this piece of unpunctuated garbage. I was assigned this for my book club and I truly hate books where the author refuses (or maybe doesn't know how to) use punctuation. For me, it is confusing to read a conversation between many people where no punctuation is used. (I also hated Plainsong for this reason~~but at least in that book new paragraphs happened along once in a while) I wanted to love this book, but I could not. Finally, around page 150 I grew so weary of trying to understand who was speaking to who that I gave up. So I am the first to say that I did not finish it. But I got muddy and bloody in the process of trying to enjoy it. Maybe it reads better in Portuguese.

Breathtaking work of literary genius and theological inquiry.......2006-06-19

In this novel Saramago has created a masterpiece, both in terms of style and content.

The prose is musical, poetically evocative of the streams of consciousness and conversation that fill our lives. While Saramago's paragraphs often run several pages in length, and his idiosyncratic use of punctuation (e.g., his refusal to use quotation marks to delimit speech and his insistence on ending all sentences--including questions--with a period) can seem daunting, the fluid, melodic language makes reading the story a true pleasure.

In terms of content, Saramago has mastered the art of faithfully retelling a story while simultaneously subverting the text through interesting asides, editorial comments, notes to the reader, etc. He also subverts the normal relationship between humanity and God in Christian tradition, wherein humanity is in need of God's forgiveness. In Saramago's retelling, it is the inhumanity of God that is need of humanity's forgiveness. I have often wondered at the needless brutality that lies at the core of mainstream Christian theology (i.e., God needing to have his only child brutally murdered in order to forgive me for being the imperfect being I was created to be), and finally, in Saramago, I have found an author willing to take God to task while not dismissing the sorrowful beauty of the life of Jesus.

Average customer rating:

Harder to relate if you're not Portuguese
Brilliant and Disturbing
Saramago At His Best
Brilliant book but easy to misunderstand
A supplement to the previous review

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156996936

Book Description

The year: 1936. Europe dances while an invidious dictator establishes himself in Portugal. The city: Lisbon-gray, colorless, chimerical. Ricardo Reis, a doctor and poet, has just come home after sixteen years in Brazil. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.

Customer Reviews:

Harder to relate if you're not Portuguese.......2007-03-07

Saramago is my favorite living author, yet I felt I missed a lot of this novel's power simply because I am not very familiar with Portuguese literature (Pessoa and other writers), culture or history. I am familiar enough with 20th century history and the years leading up to World War II, so I wasn't completely lost, but I suspect if I had been raised in Portugal I would have given this novel a much higher rating. Some knowledge of Franco's rise to power in Spain would also increase your enjoyment of this work.

Even missing some of this knowledge, Saramago's writing is still a wonder to me. Although it can be dense and demanding, he always has had the ability to keep me focused and turning pages and this novel was no exception. His characters and their thoughts are, as always, well-developed and you can easily see some of yourself in each one of them.

I recommend it as a strong piece of writing, with the caveat that you might not get all of what he intended his readers to get out of the novel if you are not familiar with Portugal's history and culture or with the state of geopolitics in the 1930s.

Brilliant and Disturbing.......2006-07-04

I highly recommend this great book by a great, Nobel-Prize winning author. It is so well written that it almost rises to a book of poetry, vaguely reminiscent of fellow Nobel-Prize winning William Faulkner; the psychological drilling is deep, but worth the effort. Though Saramago's writings are more structured and less rambling than Faulkner's, the passion, the tone, and the eloquence are the same, at least for me.

This book is all about out-of-control circumstances in pre-War Portugal and how a fictitious doctor and poet of pre-War Portugal, Ricardo Reis, deals with them. Insanity is in the air, and deadly nationalism is rising along with the military coups and Nazism in neighboring countries. Quite by chance, he arrives in his native Portugal in 1936 just in time for this brewing storm, after spending the previous 16 years in Brazil. It reminds me a lot of the great and disturbing 70's movie Cabaret, where pre-War, Brown-shirt Germany was seen through the prism of a decadent Berlin cabaret, and the people who worked or played there.

Ricardo Reis does little else than think; it is his way of life, and circumstances give him a lot to work with. He is very much a loner, passably sociable on the outside, but self-centered, moody, timid, guarded on the inside, a lot like you and me if we were honest enough with ourselves. But unlike most of us, I hope, his most intimate relationship seems to be with Death itself. This might be the logical end of existentialist thought; things are bad, God is non-existent or non-caring, Death is the answer. (I think Life is the answer, and the transcendent Christian God who gives peace despite circumstances.)

In a nutshell, I like HOW Saramago writes more than WHAT he writes about.

The book is a bit heavy but well worth the read.

Saramago At His Best.......2006-06-11

This is Saramago at his best. The very first sentence of the novel sets the mood. The writing has a dream-like, floating feel throughout. Saramago indeterminately mixes tenses; he often goes from "I" to "he" (speaking of the same character) in the same paragraph. But he does this purposely to enhance his idea of identity and relationships.

Marcenda's left hand is an additional character in the novel. In one scene it is described as appearing to "glory at being seen".

After reading "The Year of the Death of Richardo Reis" I can understand why he won the nobel prize. If I had only read "Blindness" then I wouldn't have understood. In my opinion, "Blindness" is merely an intellectualized Stephen King novel; intellectualized because of the writing and because it is allegorical. It reminds me of Camus' "The Plague". In and of itself "Blindness" wouldn't have deserved a Nobel Prize, but in conjunction with his other works, especially this one being reviewed, Saramago certainly deserves the award.

If you haven't read Pessoa but like Saramago, you should put Pessoa next on your reading list.

Brilliant book but easy to misunderstand.......2006-03-12

This book is usually on most readers' list of top three Saramago masterpieces. But in reading the English language reviews I realize that most people are missing a very simple aspect to the entire book. Of all of Fernando Pessoa's poetic personae, Ricardo Reis was the least politically engaged with the world, the artist in the ivory tower, contemplating the world of beauty. Saramago, as experienced readers intuit, is a very different sort of artist, for whom literature is a form of moral and political engagement with the world. Saramago has pointed out in interviews that one of the premises of this novel was the confrontation between the politically disengaged artist and an Iberia that was quickly becoming enshrouded in Fascism.

Understanding this confrontation might make this novel more sensible to English speaking non-Portuguese 21st century readers.

A supplement to the previous review.......2005-01-05

The previous reviewer suggested that the "ghost" character Pessoa may have been based on an actual person. It's true. Fernando Pessoa was an outstanding Portuguese poet. What's interesting here is that Pessoa wrote under several pen-names, and in some cases he would write praise or criticism in one pan-name of his own writing done in another pen-name. These pen-names were characters in and of themselves. The various pen-names had back grounds and histories which gave each one a unique perspective to "their" writings. One of Pessoa's pen-names was Dr. Ricardo Reis.

Saramago's Dr. Reis is faithful to the background devised by Pessoa, and the facts regarding Pessoa himself, so these conversations between Reis and the ghost Pessoa can be seen as conversations with one's self. It's brilliant. It's beyond brilliant.

If you are interested in an excellent Pessoa book, try The Book of Disquiet.

Average customer rating:

Forever young ?
Como siempre... Maravilloso!
Excellent writing, thin plot
Saramago como solo él puede hacerlo
INTERMITENTLY ETERNAL

Las intermitencias de la muerte
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Punto de Lectura
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Ensayo Sobre la Lucidez / Awakening
El Hombre Duplicado/the Double (Punto de Lectura)
Evangelio Segun Jesucristo/the Gospel According to Jesus Christ (Punto De Lectura, 8/3)
Travesuras de la nina mala / Mischiefs of the Bad Girl
Ensayo sobre la ceguera

ASIN: 846631895X
Release Date: 2007-01-01

Product Description

In a country whose name is not mentioned, something never before seen since the beginning of time happens: death decides to stop its unflagging track and people stop dying. From that moment on, the destiny of human kind will be to live eternally. A short period of euphoria is followed by despair and chaos. People search for ways to trick death into killing; the elderly are seen with the hatred reserved only for that which we cannot alter. Nobel Prize winner (1998) Jose Saramago offers a literary narrative that centers on human perplexity when faced with one of the unavoidable realities of our existence --death.

Customer Reviews:

Forever young ?.......2006-12-21

Saramago may be regarded as one the most invenctive authors of these days. He is a true fable maker; his febrile imagination and the fascinating issues he carves in relief in each one of his works, become an invitation to undertake his lectures as if we undertake a prodigious journey.

Imagine there is a country in which the people just don't die. At first glance, it might sound seductor and even desirable, but when the number of members of the third age's population increases notably, it raises a set of unexpected dramatic situations.

The main problem is to deal with the old Faustian myth; to live forever, but Saramago goes far beyond and makes a sharp inflection about the dilema this means.

The happy ending should not to turn our attention about the remarkable fact the death is part of the life, and all the efforts made by our post modernist society in order to guarantee us a major longevity, invites us to think the question be put on this way: To live more or to live better?

I rather live a short and productive life instead of a large and improductive existence, signed by the triviality and frivolity.

"We are what we do" Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Como siempre... Maravilloso!.......2006-06-16

Sea cual sea el tema que desarrolle en sus libros hace de ellos lo que le pega en gana y con un fiel apego a la realidad que tal parece que "cada pais o ciudad sin nombre" donde suelen suceder las historias son nuestras ciudades o nuestro pais.

En este ha sacado a flote el sentimiento humano hacia la muerte en todo su esplendor pero no conforme con esto aun hace que la propia muerte nos demuestre su lado humano,

El final...... para variar..... Estoy esperando el Siguiente!!!!

Excellent writing, thin plot.......2006-06-03

*** Warning: May Contain Spoilers ***

Death takes a holiday in Saramago's latest venture into magical realism. For obvious reasons, as one gets older death looms larger in one's consciousness, and I think Saramago, who is 83 as of this writing, may have intended "As Intermitencias da Morte" (which I read in Portuguese, so I'm using the Portuguese title, sans circumflex on one "e," as accents tend to cause problems on these pages) to be a meditation on the subject. It falls a bit short of the elegiac or profound, however; this is not John Donne's "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation 17" ("No Man is an Iland, intire of it selfe . . ."). The first part of the novel is largely a description of the institutional disruptions in a small European country as people stop dying one day. It's funny at times, and at other times mordant (in other words, typical Saramago). In the second part (and I don't want to give away too much here), death is further personified, and there's a very light character study of one of death's intended victims. The plot is thin throughout the novel, but because Saramago writes so well, it still makes for enjoyable reading. Unfortunately, the character Saramago introduces in the second part has a dog. I regret this, because when Saramago introduces a dog into his writing, he usually waxes sentimental over the creature, distracting the reader and generally subtracting from the acuity and clarity of his observations of the state of the world. He is obviously a dog enthusiast, but I would urge him to keep his writing free of canines in the future.

Saramago como solo él puede hacerlo.......2006-02-26

Soy seguidor/admirador de este gran escritor. Sin dudas que sus libros traen una mezcla de excelente literatura y de filosofia. Me parece que los temas que escoge para sus obras son en gran parte la razon de su exito. En esta obra, su mas reciente, toma el tema de la muerte y la desmitifica, la personifica y hace con ella lo que quiere. Es una jugada maestra de Saramago y desde ya un clasico pues luego de su lectura no pensaras en la muerte como lo hacias antes, seguro que no.

INTERMITENTLY ETERNAL.......2006-02-16

SARAMAGO SHOWS HIS MASTERY WITH LITERACY OF A PLOT
THAT BREAKS ALL THE RULES. BEAUTIFULLY PRESENTED, A MIND BLOWING EXPERIENCE ! IF YOU LIKE SARAMAGO, DO NOT MISS THIS ONE ... BOTH HANDS UP !

Average customer rating:

Wonderful read
a book like a poem
Worth a trip to the Unknown Island
Masterful and Wide
Not worth Publishing by Itself

The Tale of the Unknown Island
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Seeing
The Stone Raft
All the Names
Baltasar and Blimunda
Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Panther)

ASIN: 0151005958

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"A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat."

Even without the "Once upon a time," it's clear from the opening sentence of José Saramago's mischievous and wise The Tale of the Unknown Island that we have entered a somewhat fractured fairy tale. Of course, it could be argued that all of his works are, in some form or another, fairy tales, from the whimsical, revisionist History of the Siege of Lisbon to the darker dystopia of Blindness. Originally published as a short story in Portugal, Unknown Island contains all of the elements Saramago is famous for--dry wit, a seemingly simple plot that works on many levels, and an idiosyncratic use of punctuation, among other things. It begins as a satire concerned with the absurdity of bureaucracy as supplicants arrive at the king's door for petitions while the king himself waits by the door for favors: <blockquote> Since the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking at the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear, and only when the continuous pounding of the bronze doorknocker became not just deafening, but positively scandalous, disturbing the peace of the neighborhood (people would start muttering, What kind of king is he if he won't even answer the door), only then would he order the first secretary to go and find out what the supplicant wanted, since there seemed no way of silencing him. </blockquote> On this particular occasion, the man at the door asks for a boat so that he can search for an unknown island. When the king assures him that all the islands have already been discovered, he refuses to believe it, explaining that one must exist "simply because there can't possibly not be an unknown island." A palace cleaning woman overhears the conversation, and when the king finally grants his supplicant a boat, she leaves the royal residence via the door of decisions and follows the would-be explorer. Saramago then moves from satire to allegory as his two dreamers prepare for their voyage of discovery--and nearly miss the forest for the trees. The Tale of the Unknown Island packs more charm and meaning into 50 tiny pages than most novels accomplish at five times the length. Readers already familiar with the Nobel Prize-winning Saramago will find everything they love about his longer works economically sized; for those who have not yet experienced the pleasures of his remarkable imagination, Unknown Island provides a charming introduction. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

A man went to knock at the king's door and said to him, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting by the door for favors (favors being done to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking on the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear . . ." Why the petitioner required a boat, where he was bound for, and who volunteered to crew for him the reader will discover as this short narrative unfolds. And at the end it will be clear that if we thought we were reading a children's fable we were wrong-we have been reading a love story and a philosophical tale worthy of Voltaire or Swift.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful read .......2007-05-07

This is an excellent book. It is a very fast read as it is quite small. However, the story shines through its imaginative plot and fantastic characters. Saramago's style lets you escape instantly into the fantasy being unwound. Recommended to all. I can't imagine a person I know who wouldn't enjoy this tale.

a book like a poem.......2006-09-01

This short book is a good exercise for one imagination. It can make one ask himself what is the unknown island he is in search for. And whether he is ready to begin the search. It takes some courage to follow one's dream, or one can postpone it. Perhaps just as Ulysses (Odysseus) postponed his return home to Ithaka, an island he used to know well in the past. There is a poem with the same name, Ithaka, by Constantine Cavafys, illustrating a myth similar to what I believe is the central motive of "The tale of the Unknown island". I highly recommend reading the poem and comparing it to the book.

Worth a trip to the Unknown Island.......2006-02-24

Jose Saramago's wisdom wrapped in a small book reveals far more than a simple tale. His writing in The Tale of the Unknown Island, like in his bold Blindness, is a paradox addressing issues that confront us all. In this short story are provocative truths filling the pages and surrounding the unknown until the isand becomes familiar...or at least worth visiting. It's a quick read, but an unforgetable story.

Masterful and Wide.......2005-09-25

This book reminds me of the little prince not only in size but in the depth of its story. Beautiful, Concise, and wide open to many levels of interpretation. A most excellent adventure..

Not worth Publishing by Itself.......2005-04-12

I have read and enjoyed a couple of Saramago books already and am well into a third. I took time out to read this small, illustrated, 51-page book. I wasn't paying attention to anything but the price and the author when I ordered it. I guess Jose Saramago isn't in the habit of writing short stories otherwise his publisher could just as easily have waited to include it in his next collection.

The story, as I understood it, is that of a man who is searching for a new start, a new world. He doesn't seem to express any objections to his present world, he just wants a boat so he can go find an unknown island. If I try to tell too much more of the plot, I'll run the risk of this review being longer than the "book". In the end, I understood the plot to mean that often it is the journey, rather than the destination that matters. The determination is greater than the result.

This is a nice enough story but it doesn't warrent its' own issuance. I mean, it isn't THAT good. I'll read more of Saramago and I'll be glad to sing his praises many times, I'm sure. I'll just pay a little more attention to what I'm ordering in the future.

Average customer rating:

Las pequenas memorias (Biblioteca)
Jose Saramago
Manufacturer: Alfaguara
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Biographies | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

General | Biografías y memorias | Libros en español | Formats | Books

Memorias | Biografías y memorias | Libros en español | Formats | Books

Cien años de soledad: Edición conmemorativa (The 40th Anniversary Edition)
El regreso del idiota
Travesuras de la nina mala / Mischiefs of the Bad Girl
Warriors: The Lost Warrior (Warriors)
People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

ASIN: 9707704063

Product Description

This Nobel Prize winner s latest work takes the reader to his childhood: some parts in Azhinaga, the town where he was born, and other parts in Lisbon where he left to when he was two. With the poetic prose that characterizes him, and without resentments, even though it is full of hardships, Saramago narrates about the misery in which his family lived. Contains photos with comments made in his own handwriting. A person writes about their adult memoirs perhaps to say, Look how important I am. I have written memoirs of my youth, and I felt young as I was writing them; I wanted readers to know where the man I am today came from. So, I focused on the years from four to fifteen. José Saramago

Description in Spanish: Me interesa conocer mi relación con ese niño que fui. Ese niño está en mí, siempre ha estado y siempre lo estará. «Un adulto escribe memorias de adulto, acaso para decir: Miren qué importante soy . He hecho memorias de niño, y me he sentido niño haciéndolas; quería que los lectores supieran de dónde salió el hombre que soy. Así que me centré en unos años, de los cuatro a los quince.»

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