Raised from the Ground (1980), by José Saramago, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

 

Raised from the Ground, by Nobel Prize winning author José Saramago is a mid-career novel (1980) that has only just been translated into English.  It's a beautiful, life-affirming book that gives voice to a segment of society that very rarely is heard.

The novel is said to be the most autobiographical of Saramago's fiction, because it's an affectionate but at times brutally realistic recreation of the lives of his grandparents who were landless peasants in rural Portugal.  Like the other books I have read by this author -  Blindness, (see my review) and The Double (see my review) - it has a political agenda, but those novels are subversive allegories, while this one is a chronological narrative of the Mau-Tempo (Badweather) family in Alentejo, an agricultural province of Portugal.  It traces the family's fortunes from the formation of the Portuguese Republic in the early 20th century to the demise of the dictator Salazar in the mid 1970s.

As Ursula Le Guin says in her review for The Guardian, it is rare for the poor and oppressed to write their own story, most obviously because they tend to be poorly educated.  I have just recently acquired a copy of Life Under Russian Serfdom: The Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii, 1800-68, and in his introduction the translator and editor Boris B. Gorshkov mentions that it wasn't possible to retain the memoir in its original form because the author's writing skills reflected his limited education.  The achievement of Raised from the Ground is that Saramago's intimate knowledge of the peasant life his grandparents led, brings it alive.  His unique style -  very long sentences which segue from one speaker to another - gives the impression of family and village conversations murmuring their way through tumultuous events in Portugal.

I've only been to Lisbon, and that only for a couple of days which I spent mostly in museums and art galleries.  Perhaps I went to the wrong ones, but there was nothing there to indicate anything of Portugal's recent history.  So it was from Saramago's novel that I learned that they offloaded their monarchy not long before World War I, and that they were carefully neutral in World War II.  These events didn't have much impact on the Mau-Tempo family: theirs was a life of unrelenting labour, hunger and privation and the years pass with births, marriages and deaths not with world events.

The characterisation is brilliant.  The story starts with the journey of Domingos Mau-Tempo, a feckless cobbler and a drunkard, his stoic wife Sara de Conceição and her babe-in-arms João whose beautiful blue eyes are a throw-back to the rape of a peasant girl by a German five centuries ago.  Domingos is no saint: he drinks away what money he has and he beats his wife, but between the lines we gather that although Saramago's sympathies lie with Sara, he understands that Domingo's restlessness derives from the hopelessness of his life.  In Alentejo the latifundio is as it has always been and there is no escape from grinding poverty.  All João ever gets is a year of schooling and he begins work as a labourer for a brutal overseer when he is still a child.

It is not until after the war that the rumblings of discontent begin to find voice.  Saramago was a communist and the villain of this story is the dictator Salazar and the landowners who repressed any attempts by peasants to improve their lot.  To put this in context, these events were taking place between 1950 and 1975, half a century after Australians had in 1907 won the right to a basic wage 'that guaranteed them a standard of living which was reasonable for "a human being in a civilised community."' These barely literate peasants were struggling to read inflammatory pamphlets exhorting them to stoic solidarity many decades after we in Australia achieved education that was compulsory, secular and free.  (In Victoria, way back in 1870).  I was astonished to read that peasants were still enduring twelve-hour days of back-breaking work under a punitive labour system in my lifetime.  In Europe!

The struggle to achieve what we in Australia call a 'fair go' - an eight-hour-day and a wage that at least allowed for subsistence - could make for some grim reading.  The agitators were rounded up and imprisoned, and the ringleaders were interrogated under torture.  And yet the book is suffused with humour and a gentle irony.  The narrators ramble through events, muttering under their breath, gossiping, remarking on the obvious, interrupting each other, expressing a philosophical sympathy about events.  We learn about their suffering but Saramago does not linger over it.

It's very hard to choose an excerpt to give a sense of his style, for every page is a treat to read.  This one is chosen at random:  António Mau-Tempo has become a guest-worker in France because he is denied work at home since his arrest (without conviction) as an agitator.

The Carriça estate is in France, that's not what it says on the map, but it's true, if not in Normandy then in Provence, it really doesn't matter, António Mau-Tempo no longer has Miguel Hernández by his side, but Manuel Espada, his brother-in-law and his friend, even though they are very different in character, they are scything, doing piece-work, as we shall see.  Gracinda Mau-Tempo is here too, pregnant at last, when it seemed that she would never have children, and the three of them are living, for as long as the harvest lasts, in an abandoned labourer's hut, which Manual Espada has cleaned up to make comfortable for his wife.  No one had lived there for five or six years, and it was a real ruin, full of snakes and lizards and all kinds of creepy-crawlies, and when it was ready, Manual Espada, having first sprinkled the floor with water, went to fetch a bundle of rushes to lie down on, and it was so cool inside that he almost fell asleep, it was just an adobe wall with a covering of gorse and straw to serve as a roof, then, suddenly, a snake slithered over him, as thick as my wrist, which is not of the slenderest.  He never told Gracinda mau-Tempo, and who can say what she would have done had she known, perhaps it wouldn't even have bothered her, the women in these parts are made of stern stuff, and when she arrived at the hut, she found it all neat and ready, with a truckle bed for the couple, another for António Mau-Tempo, and a large sack to share as blanket, that is how intimately people live on the latifundio. Oh, don't get all hot under the collar, Father Agamedes, where have you been, by the way, these men are not really going to sleep here, if they do lie down on the bed, they will do so simply in order not to die, and now is perhaps the moment to speak about pay and conditions, they're paid so much a day for a week, plus five hundred escudos for the rest of the field, which must all be harvested by Saturday.  This may seem complicated, but it couldn't be simpler.  For a whole week, Manuel Espada and António Mau-Tempo will scythe all day and all night, and you need to understand exactly what this means, when they are utterly exhausted after a whole day of work, they will go back to the hut for something to eat and then return to the field and spend all night scything, not picking poppies, and when the sun rises, they will go back to the hut to eat something, lie down for perhaps ten minutes, snoring like bellows, then get up, work all day, eat whatever there is to eat, and then again work all night, we know no one is going to believe us, these can't be men, but they are, if they were animals they would have dropped down dead, only three days have passed, and the men are like ghosts standing alone in the moonlight in the half-harvested field, Do you think we'll make it, We have to, and meanwhile Gracinda mau-Tempo, heavily pregnant, is weeding in the rice field, and when she can't weed, she goes to fetch water, and when she can't fetch water, she cooks food for the men, and when she can't cook, she goes back to the weeding, her belly on a level with the water, her son will be born a frog.  (p.  305)

Surrendering to enter the world of these characters is an unforgettable experience... Raised from the Ground is sublime.

Author: Jose Saramago
Title: Raised from the Ground
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Publisher: Harvill & Secker/Random House, 2012, first published 1980
ISBN: 9781846552496
Source: Review copy courtesy of Random House Australia

© Lisa Hill

Cross-posted at ANZ LitLovers where you can join in a conversation about the book if you want to.

Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

 

Over at Winston's Dad, it's Spanish/Portuguese Lit Month, so  (after an abortive choice of The Taker and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca which I abandoned as unpleasantly nihilistic with an unremittingly grim view of human nature) I took up José Saramago's Death with Interruptions, confident that I would enjoy it because I am a great admirer of Saramago's writing. Like all the other Nobel Prize winners I have read, he doesn't just write great books, he also has something important to say about the human condition.

Saramago, who died in 2010 aged 87, would have been 83 when this book was published in 2005, so it's fair to assume that death would have been on his mind.  In this witty and perceptive novel, he explores the notion of eternal life, said to be the ultimate quest for human beings, but exposed here as a catastrophe which brings out the worst in people and the institutions that are meant to serve them.

From the start of the new year in an unnamed country (not quite like the Republic of Portugal because there is a monarch, and it's landlocked), no one dies.  Implicit in the quest for eternal life is the assumption that the living will enjoy good health but this is not what happens in the novel.  People (including the Queen Mother) reach the stage of life or terminal illness where they would normally die, but they don't, lingering instead in a state of morbidity.  The social consequences of this are that the hospital and aged care homes are overflowing, the insurance and funeral industries are in crisis, and the Catholic Church is in denial because there can't be resurrection if there is no death.   Most significantly, the economy can't cope with the growing drain on the country's resources because there aren't enough young healthy people to sustain the tax burden.  Yup, the brutal mathematical truth is that there is not an infinite capacity to support an ever-growing population of dependents.

The government is kept busy trying to deal with the catastrophe, even as ordinary people begin to take matters into their own hands.  The initial concern for the huge numbers of the dying who don't die morphs into exhaustion, distaste, and a desire to be rid of the burden and get on with life.  Those in frontier regions soon get the idea that they can subvert the absence of death in their country by transporting the dying across the border - where they promptly die and then can be buried.  Legally it isn't murder, but the social opprobrium leads to military patrols on the border, and then an ethical and political problem when the maphia (spelt with an 'f' to differentiate it from the Mafia) sees an opportunity and puts pressure on the government not to interfere with its cross-border operations.

It's the discursive chatty narrative style which marries great philosophical themes with the quotidian, that makes this parable amusing to read.

In this country in which no one dies not everything as sordid as we have just described, nor, in this society torn between the hope of living forever and the fear of never dying, did the voracious maphia succeed in getting its talons into every section by corrupting souls, subjugating bodies, and besmirching the little that remained of the fine principles of old, when an envelope containing something that smelled of a bribe would have been immediately returned to the sender, bearing a firm and clear response, something along the lines of, Buy some toys for your children with this money, or You must have got the wrong address. Dignity was then a form of pride that was within the grasp of all classes.  Despite everything, despite the false suicides and the dirty dealings on the frontier, that spirit continued to hover over the waters, not the waters of the great ocean sea, for that bathed other distant lands, but over lakes and rivers, over streams and brooks, over the puddles left by rain, over the luminous depths of wells, which is where one can best judge how high the sky is, and, extraordinary though it may seem, over the calm surfaces of aquariums too. It was precisely when he was distractedly watching a goldfish that had just come up to the surface to breathe, and when he was wondering, slightly less distractedly, just how long it had been since he had changed the water, because he knew what the fish was trying to say when again and again it ruptured the delicate meniscus where water meets air, it was precisely at this revelatory moment that the apprentice philosopher was presented with the clear, stark question that would give rise to the most impassioned and thrilling controversy ever known in the whole history of this country where no one ever dies. (p.75)

The second part of the novel introduces Death personified, every bit as capricious in the novel as she seems to be in real life.  Saramago has a lot of fun with this character, who chats in her pale haunt with a reticent scythe that only breaks its silence to rebuke her for her poor fashion taste.  There is an elegant discussion about the hierarchy to which she might or might not be answerable, because, you know, there is more than the death of people to be organised... there's also the death of plants and animals, and the cataclysmic death of the planet as well. 

For those who care about these things, a warning: as you can see from the excerpt above, Saramago is noted for his idiosyncratic style so if you can't tolerate long sentences and paragraphs or the absence of quotation marks, Saramago is not for you.  Which would be a pity.  As you can tell from my writing style, I conform to conventional punctuation, but I have never had a problem reading Saramago and not for the world would I miss reading his novels for the sake of his unconventional punctuation.  Each to his own, as they say.

Author: José Saramago
Title: Death with Interruptions (As Intermitências da Morte)
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Publisher: Harcourt, 2005
ISBN: 9780151012749
Personal copy, purchased from The Book Depository (before it was owned by Amazon).

© Lisa Hill

Cross-posted at ANZ LitLovers.

Cain, a novel (2009) by by José Saramago, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

 

*chuckle* I was going to place a cultural warning that readers who are very religious might not like this book or my review of it, but I see from consumer reviews at Library Thing that a punctuation warning might be more important to some readers!

Cain, the final novel from José Saramago, (1922-2010), is at 159 pages more of a novella than a novel, so it fits the brief for #NovNov (Novellas in November).  But — quite apart from the author's provocative stance on the Old Testament God and his deeds — although there are chapters to break up the text, there's barely a paragraph to be seen and the other punctuation crimes include run-on sentences, the absence of quotation marks to signal speech and the lack of capital letters to signal proper names.  I didn't mind it, I was too busy laughing...

Saramago sets the tone from the start with God's realisation that he has forgotten to give Adam and Eve the power of speech.  Like many who can't find anyone to blame but himself, he gets into a temper:

In an excess of rage, surprising in someone who could have solved any problem simply by issuing another quick fiat, he rushed over to adam and eve and unceremoniously, no half-measures, stuck his tongue down the throats of first one and then the other.  From the texts which, over the centuries, have provided a somewhat random record of these remote times, be it of events that might, at some future date, be awarded canonical status and others deemed to be the fruit of apocryphal and irredeemably heretical imaginations, it is not at all clear what kind of tongue was being referred to here, whether the moist, flexible muscle that moves around in the buccal cavity and occasionally outside it too, or the gift of speech, also known as language, that the lord had so regrettably forgotten to give them about which we know nothing, since not a trace of it remains, not even a heart engraved on the bark of the tree, accompanied by some sentimental message, something along the lines of I love eve. (p.1-2)

Cain, as we know from the Bible stories we were told when young, was jealous of Adam because God preferred Adam's sacrifice, and so Cain bumped him off, earning himself a place in Biblical history as the first murderer.  In Saramago's novel, this is the first of many occasions when Cain challenges the logic of the lord's punishments.  In summary, Cain's argument amounts to this: God, for no rational reason, tests the faith of those who serve him devoutly, (think Abraham, Noah, Job etc) by treating them very badly, and inflicts his punishments on people who had nothing to do with whatever caused the lord's displeasure, (think of the innocent women in Sodom, whose homosexual husbands had been the catalyst for the lord's rage.  And the hapless children too, of course.)

Though the role of the bolshie angels is a departure from scripture, and so are Cain's interventions in God's plans to reboot the human race with a better version, there is nothing particularly original about Cain's challenges to Old Testament faith.  Any competent atheist could do much the same, though some of them are a good deal more long-winded and abrasive about it.  (Yes, I am thinking of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens).  What makes this book fun to read is the tone of the narrator, wryly observing proceedings, and occasionally reminding the reader that the present day exists by inserting comic anachronisms, as when God was absent for the launch of the Ark.

God was not there for the launch.  He was busy examining the planet's hydraulic system, checking the state of the valves, tightening the odd loose screw that was dripping where it shouldn't, testing the various local distribution networks, keeping an eye on the manometers, as well as dealing with tens of myriads of other tasks, large and small, each of them more important than the last, and which only he, as creator, engineer and administrator of the universal mechanisms, was in a position to carry out and to which only he could give the sacred ok.  Parties were for other people, he had work to do.  At such times, he felt less like a god and more like the foreman of the worker angels, who, at that precise moment, were waiting in their immaculately white overalls, one hundred and fifty on the starboard side of the ark and one hundred and fifty on the port side, for the order to lift the enormous vessel... (p.148)

Cain's argumentative personality earns him a rebuke from the angels, who warn him that the lord is listening and, sooner or later, he will punish you.

To which Cain replies:

The lord isn't listening, he's deaf, everywhere the poor, unfortunate and wretched cry out to him for help, they plead with him for some remedy that the world denies them, and the lord turns his back on them. (p.124)

I heard a woman on TV the other day, spruiking the success of her prayers for the recovery of her loved one.  Good luck to you, I thought, but hey, if my prayers had that kind of power, I wouldn't be wasting them on the welfare of just one person...

Author: José Saramago

Title: Cain, a novel

Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

Cover design by Michaela Sullivan, detail from 'Cain and Abel' (1542-44) by Titian.

Publisher: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, first published 2009

ISBN: 9780547840178, pbk., 159 pages

Source: Personal library.

 © Lisa Hill
Crossposted at ANZLitLovers

Saramago, José "Blindness"

1998

(Portuguese title: O Ensaio sobre a Cegueira) - 1995

 

Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read

This is my second book by this wonderful author. Same as "Cain", this book is totally captivating.

We get no information about the city or even the country where this takes place. However, this is a dystopian novel and they usually could take place anywhere. We never know what will happen if a catastrophe - or in this case an epidemic - strikes us.

In this book, the people go completely mad. Everyone goes blind one after the other and everyone is scared. That doesn't mean they all react in the same way. There are those who stick together and help others and other who live according to the motto "help yourself so God will help you". It wouldn't even be fair to the animals to say they behave like them because animals at least only take what they need.

Both the sentences and the paragraphs in this book are very long, there is hardly a place where you can stop. But that makes it even more compelling, you have the feeling you are stuck in the book just the way the blind people are stuck in their destiny. A good way to emphasize the situation.

None of the characters have a name. They are just called "the first blind man" or "the doctor's wife" and "the girl with the dark glasses". Again, this makes it easier for us to identify with them, I guess. Anyone could be one of the guys or one of the girls.

He definitely makes it easy for us to imagine that this actually could happen. We can try to imagine how it is when you turn blind. And we can feel with the people who not only go blind but lose their life as they knew it until then.

Great novel. Like many dystopian books, a look into humanity or the lack of it.

From the back cover:

A city is struck by an epidemic of 'white blindness'. The first man to succumb sits in his car, waiting for the light to change. He is taken to an eye doctor, who does not know what to make of the phenomenon - and soon goes blind himself.

The blindness spreads, sparing no one. Authorities confine the blind to a vacant mental hospital secured by armed guards under instructions to shoot anyone trying to escape. Inside, the criminal element among the blind holds the rest captive: food rations are stolen, women are raped. The compound is set ablaze, and the blind escape into what is now a deserted city, strewn with litter and unburied corpses.

The only eyewitness to this nightmare is the doctor's wife, who faked blindness in order to join her husband in the camp. She guides seven strangers through the barren streets. The bonds within this oddly anonymous group - the doctor, the first blind man and his wife, the old man with the black eye patch, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with no mother, and the dog of tears - are as uncanny as the surrounding chaos is harrowing. Told with compassion, humor, and lyricism, Blindness is a stunning exploration of loss and disorientation in the modern world, of man's will to survive against all odds."

José Saramago "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.  

Original Post on "Let's Read".

Cain by José Saramago

(Portuguese Title: Caim) - 2009

Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read

I love reading the novels of our Nobel Prize winners so couldn't resist starting this one, "Cain" by José Saramago. I read that this is the last book of this atheist about the bible. Hmm, sounded interesting.

And it was. The story starts with Adam and Eve and how they are thrown out of paradise ... well, we all know that story. Or do we? José Saramago finds a unique and satirical way of telling this story that is as old as mankind. We then see the first murder, Cain killing his brother Abel and then we see how Cain goes on living and meets all the biblical celebrities like Abraham, Moses, Noah, Lilith, Job, and cruises all the important locations, for example, he is in Lot, Babel, Jericho, Sodom and Gomorrah, at the most important times, in short, he is omnipresent.

What struck me most, the characters were very realistic, very real. The background was explained well and a lot of stories made sense. We learn here what happened to Adam and Eve after they left paradise and where they went.

Whether you believe in the bible or not, this is a highly interesting book, a very good starting point for deep discussions. It also helps understand a lot of the stories, even though it is just one point of view. But, it is the part usually not taught in religious education classes. I don't want to say anything is true in this book, it is not, it is an interpretation by an atheist. It still contributes to a better understanding. It is even funny at times.

The author has been criticized a lot for this novel and "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ", especially by the Catholic church. I think I need to quote another Nobel Prize winner here, Sir Winston Churchill who said "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

I am very glad to have read this.


From the back cover:

"After killing his brother Abel, Cain must wander forever. He witnesses Noah's ark, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf. He is there in time to save Abraham from sacrificing Isaac when God's angel arrives late after a wing malfunction.

Written in the last years of Saramago's life, Cain wittily tackles many of the moral and logical non sequiturs created by a wilful, authoritarian God, forming part of Saramago's long argument with God and recalling his provocative novel 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ'."


José Saramago "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.

Skylight by Jose Saramago

Reviewed by Gillian Castellino

It is rare for an author's first novel to be published after his death, but that is exactly what happened with Jose de Sousa Saramago's novel Claraboia (or Skylight). Written in the 1950s, it was sent to a publisher who never acknowledged it, a fact which caused it's author to stop writing fiction until 1977. He did finally receive a response some 36 years after he sent it, which was also some 60 years after it was first written! By then, Saramago had already received the Nobel Prize for Literature and had also decided not to have the book published during his lifetime. Given the background, it is just as well that it was printed posthumously.

Translated into English by Margaret Jull Costa, the book is dedicated to the memory of Jeronimo Hilario, the author's grandfather, a landless peasant from Azinhaga, Portugal, whom the Nobel laureate described as "the wisest man I ever knew". 'Saramago' (which means 'wild radish' in Portuguese) is not the family name, but an insulting nickname given to his father and recorded on Jose's birth certificate by a village clerk, perhaps in error, possibly in a drunken haze, or may be as a prank. That, became his legal surname and not his actual patronymic 'de Souza'.

Skylight was first submitted for publication in 1953, when Saramago was 31 years old. In her preface to the novel, his wife Pilar del Rio - an acclaimed writer in her own right, explained that Skylight is a gateway into Saramago's later work. A map of what was to come.

Set in a shabby, working-class apartment building in Lisbon, in the 1940s, at a time when the dictator Salazar ruled Portugal, it is not a political novel, but one about "characters". There are 18 in all (ten of whom are women) and collectively they occupy six flats. In the male characters we find prototypes of those who populate Saramago's later novels, but his female characters are strongly nuanced as well.

The strongest character, opens the book. He is a "philosophical cobbler" in his eighties who is married to Mariana who in turn is "so fat as to be comical, so kind as to make one weep". The couple take in a young man, 28-year old Abel Nogueira, as a boarder and the two men, despite their age difference, bond over games of droughts and discussions on the meaning of life. These become a pretext for Saramago to present some scathing insights to the reader:

"Peace ... comes from dulling one's mind, which was what most people did... We all receive our daily dose of morphine that dulls our thoughts. Habits, vices, repeated words, hackneyed gestures, boring friends and enemies we don't even really hate, these are all things that dull our minds... The morphine of habit, the morphine of monotony."

"We won't become what we are meant to be in life by listening to other people's word or advice. We have to feel in our own flesh the wound that will make us into proper men. Then, it's up to us to act...'

The next next set of characters to appear in the book are four women, two elderly sisters Amelia and Candida and the latter's adult daughters Isaura and Adriana, who resembled "a sack of potatoes tied up in the middle". All four women have clearly known more prosperous times. While they grapple with the privations imposed by poverty, together they draw sustenance from a classical musical program over the radio, mealtimes spent together and shared confidences. As we become acquainted with their story, we become aware of a "a painful silence, the inquisitorial silence of the past observing us and the ironic silence of the future that awaits us." Repressed sexuality precipitates a sad and scarring lesbian encounter between the sisters, leading to secrets that settle heavily over the group.

Next, we are introduced to the diabetic Justina, her brutish husband Caetano and their dead daughter Mathilde. A story of hatred, misunderstanding, lust, different manifestations of psychological ugliness including marital rape and its consequences. Saramago has been criticized for his depiction of rape, especially the female perspective, which does not ring true.

The only 'single' in the building, Lidia, teetering on the brink of middle age, is the mistress of a much older businessman Paulino Morais who is already on the look-out for a younger replacement. There is a third player - Lidia's mother who shows up regularly for a hand-out. When Paulino finally replaces Lidia, she sheds "Just two tears. Because that's all life is worth." Then she pragmatically picks up her life - venturing out into the night in search of her next conquest.

Another family group comes next. They are Anselmo, an armchair football enthusiast, his wife Rosalia and their nineteen-year-old daughter Maria Claudia (also known as Claudinha). Pretty, self obsessed and inexperienced, Claudinha is encouraged by her parents to boost the family income by working for Paulino Morais - a move initially encouraged by Lidia who wants to win the goodwill of her neighbours. When it is almost too late, Claudinha realises that her employer sees her as a potential new mistress. She is now faced with a quandary - to back out and risk unemployment and destitution or to capitulate and risk her good name and integrity.

The last family group in this parade of characters are Emilio, a salesman, who is in a loveless marriage with his Spanish wife Carmen. Both are tied together by their trusting little son Henriquinho. Frustrated and abusive, both Emilio and Carmen wish desperately to be released from their marriage. Then Carmen and Henriquinho take a trip to Spain and Emilio gets a taste of the freedom he craved. It's uncertain how their story will end.

Though written in conventional style and language, Skylight underlines the compromises and inanities that are part and parcel of everyday life. Saramago's ending - the closing dialog between Silvestre and Abel is clear about the fact that "anything that is not built on love, will generate hate". The brand of love recommended is "lucid love" as opposed to the other unnamed but clearly drawn examples of love illustrated within the novel. Then comes the final line - "The day when we can build on love has still not arrived." Make of that what you will.

Original post on Healing Scribbles.

The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago

Reviewed by Edith LaGraziana

Is the past an objective reality that always stays the same? Is it a subjective and momentary, yet commonly accepted view of what once was? What if we did the unthinkable and changed the course of history with one simple stroke of the pen? Inserting one word into the proofs of a book, the protagonist of The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago does just that. He changes events that took place eight centuries earlier. And the arbitrary act of a proofreader serves the laureate of the Nobel Prize 1998 to combine a love story with metafiction about writing alternative history. 

José Saramago, in full José de Sousa Saramago, was born in Santarém, Portugal, in November 1922. At first he worked as a car mechanic, but soon turned to translating and journalism which earned him a living until he lost his job as assistant editor of a newspaper in the mid-1970s. Only then José Saramago’s career as a full-time writer began. His first novel, Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia), was published in 1977. General acclaim came with Baltasar and Blimunda (Memorial do Convento: 1982) and increased with novels like The Stone Raft (A Jangada de Pedra: 1986), The History of the Siege of Lisbon (História do Cerco de Lisboa: 1989), The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo: 1991), and Blindness (Ensaio sobre a Cegueira: 1995). In 1998 the Swedish Academy awarded the writer the Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his notable later works are The Double (O Homem Duplicado: 2002), Seeing (Ensaio sobre a Lucidez: 2004), Death at Intervals (As Intermitências da Morte: 2005), and his final novel Cain (Caim: 2009). José Saramago died on Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain, in June 2010. 

Despite its title The History of the Siege of Lisbon doesn’t revolve around proven historical facts of the defeat of the Moors camping in front of the gates of Lisbon in 1147. Those important events of the Portuguese past serve José Saramago only as background for a story within the main plot taking place eight centuries later. Correcting the proofs of a history of the siege of Lisbon written by a renowned scholar, a poor proofreader in his early fifties called Raimundo Benvindo Silva feels the sudden and irresistible urge to insert a NOT where it doesn’t belong, a NOT that might have changed the course of Christian-European history, had the Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land really refused to help the defenders of the besieged city. When the mistake is discovered a few days later, an erratum sheet is added to the already printed copies and the publishing house engages Senhora Dona Maria Sara to supervise all proofreaders in order to avoid similar problems in future. The encounter of the bachelor Raimundo Silva and the divorcee Maria Sara is the beginning of their hesitant love story. Encouraged by Maria Sara the proofreader sets out to write his own, alternative history of the siege of Lisbon and is ever more drawn into his imaginative world crowded with twelfth-century Moors and Crusaders. At the same time he courts Maria Sara, at first with much restraint because he can’t imagine the younger woman to be interested in him, but like Morgueime and Ouroana in his historical novel they get closer day by day. 

The History of the Siege of Lisbon is a partly metafictional novel told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. The two plot lines, the historical novel that Raimundo Silva writes and the love story between Raimundo Silva and Maria Sara, are interlaced and often interdependent. In the story within the story the author plays with possibilities and probabilities that even most accurate historical research must leave open because it relies on usually very limited sources. In other words the message is that our picture of history can be no more than a collage of a smaller or greater number of snapshots of the past, moreover an arrangement of individual pieces showing the subjective touch of the person, people or society that put them together. And as uses to be the case with pictures, we can only guess what people thought – the perfect starting point for a novel! In fact, The History of the Siege of Lisbon gives an interesting insight into the creation of a historical novel set in an alternative past. The contemporary love story, on the other hand, shows the hopes and fears, the doubts and convictions of a man and a woman who are attracted to each other and yet afraid of being hurt (again) and how they take cautious steps towards each other. The novel is written in the typical style of José Saramago which can be quite a challenge at first because he refrains from using punctuation except many commas and scarce periods. Paragraphs are long and often incorporate complex dialogues which are made visible only by capital letters within the sentences. Despite all I had no problem at all following the plot. 

For me The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago has been a very delightful and absorbing read, one of my best ever and one which made me long for more by this justly famous Portuguese author. Blindness confirmed my first impression and others of his novels made it on my list of books to read. In a nutshell, I enjoyed The History of the Siege of Lisbon immensely and am more than pleased to finally recommend this writer, particularly this book of his for reading.

Original post on Edith's Miscellany:
http://edith-lagraziana.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-history-of-siege-of-lisbon-by-jose.html

Caín by José Saramago

Originally posted at: A Girl that Likes Books on July 11, 2012

***

Book Summary (from Goodreads.com)

In this, his last novel, José Saramago daringly re-imagines the characters and narratives of the Old Testament, recalling his provocative The Gospel according to Jesus Christ. His tale runs from the Garden of Eden, when God realizes he has forgotten to give Adam and Eve the gift of speech, to the moment when Noah's Ark lands on the dry peak of Ararat. Cain, the despised, the murderer, is Saramago's protagonist.

Condemned to wander forever after he kills his brother Abel, Cain makes his way through the world in the company of a personable donkey. He is a witness to and participant in the stories of Isaac and Abraham, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf, the trials of Job. The rapacious Queen Lilith takes him as her lover. An old man with two sheep on a rope crosses his path. And again and again, Cain encounters a God whose actions seem callous, cruel, and unjust. He confronts Him, he argues with Him. "And one thing we know for certain," Saramago writes, "is that they continued to argue and are arguing still."

A startling book- sensual, funny- in all ways a fitting end to Saramago's extraordinary career

My Review

Now, why did it take me so long to finish the book? I mean 9 days! Well…did I mention I moved? I’m sick and tired of this excuse, but is true, the last 2 books I read took me forever, but that’s just because I needed my sleep, badly! But let’s go the reviewing, shall we?

This is the third book I read from Saramago, and I think we can safely say that I like his style. I realize that the absence of paragraphs, the dialogues that are not visually separated, etc, are not for everyone, but I think once you get used to it, you can read it as any other book.

The story starts, not with Cain and Abel, but with Adam and Eve, this is the first time Saramago presents to us his version of god, one that will talk to his creations just as you and I would talk. Then, as most of us know, they get kicked out of Paradise, and after several years Cain, Abel and Seth come to the scene. 

After killing his brother, Cain is punished by god with a mark in his forehead and he is condemned to wander. The trick is that he won’t wonder just around, he will travel “in time” from biblical story to biblical situation. He will fall in love with Lilith, he will stop Abraham before killing his only son and he will be there in Noah’s Ark. 

All through the book, Cain will criticize god, for his acts, his reasoning, etc. He even points out that this god that everyone is following is a jealous god, full of anger and grudges. There is a moment when he is talking with god and the later says:

                “Some deny my existence […] they are out of my law, of my reach, I cannot touch them”.

If it hasn’t been obvious to you by reading his prior books, this should be clear enough. Saramago is quite critical of the image that Catholic Church gives people to believe in. I haven’t read The Gospel according to Jesus Christ but in Death without interruptions you can already see a lot of critics, not only to society itself (also a recurrent theme in his work) but to the church itself.  Through Cain’s voice Saramago even accuses god to be “crazy and without a conscious”

I like the book a lot. I know it doesn’t necessarily show when you consider how long it took me (again people, I needed to sleep!) It was quirky, funny, satirical…it was fun to read, even though I kept feeling my grandma wouldn’t like me enjoying the book so much (she is really attached to the church still).

I loved the following sentence:

“Progress […] is inevitable, fatal as death. And life”

 

Every time that I read one of his books, I end up with a list of sentences that stuck to me, and that’s good, that means (for me) that the book went deeper inside of you than you thought. However, I don’t think it was as good as Death with Interruptions, and that’s why this one is getting one mushroom less. I think is a lovely way to finish an amazing career, short and sweet

Death with Interruptions by José Saramago

Originally posted at: A Girl that Likes Books on April 6, 2012

***

Book summary (by Goodreads.com)

On the first day of the New Year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.
Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small "d" became human and was to fall in love?

Book review

Have any of you read any of Saramago’s books before? I have only read Blindness, a book where everyone except for one person, becomes blind, and shows the changes of the society under this change. Well, this book, Death with Interruptions, explores the situation in which people just stopped dying.

If you haven’t read Saramago before, you should know something; his writing style is particular and is not for everyone. What do I mean by that? Well for example, he is a fan of long paragraphs, and, at least for the books I’ve read from him, he doesn’t separate the dialogs in lines, so if you open the book randomly you might be under the impression that there are no dialogs at all, even though it is not the case. So is a “demanding” reading in the sense that you have to really be paying  attention to realize that you enter a dialog. But I happen to like it. 

It was funny how I stumble upon this book, a dear friend of mine was telling me how she was trying to read a book, she didn’t remember the name, but it was “hard to read, because there are no paragraphs”. I remember thinking that it sounded familiar. Then, a couple of days after she came into my lab, handing me a book and saying: “Here! I can’t, you try it” And then…I saw it, the name in the front…and I understood perfectly what she meant. Even more funny, when I told the story to another friend of mine, he had the same “off course” moment when I mentioned it was Saramago. 

If you have the opportunity to read the book, have patience, I cannot extend more how at first is hard to get used to his style, his long sentences that become paragraphs, but for the 2 books I have read from him so far, I have to say, it is worth it.

But, back to the book. I don’t know if it was because the first time I read him was in Spanish, or because his mother tongue is Portuguese, but when I was reading the book, the words took a Latino accent invariably, and I think that subconsciously I was translating the words. The story begins just as the review says, people stop dying all of the sudden. Off course at first people are thrilled…healthy people that is. You see, people only stopped dying, not getting sick, nor aging. So off course, you have people in never ending agony, never dying. 

As always (here I am taking the liberty to say always, considering that I have only read 2 of his books, but every critic I’ve read about Saramago’s work seem to agree with me) he uses this fictional situation to critic different parts of society. In the first 20 pages I found a very enjoyable moment about the Minister of Health addressing the population:

                “He could have left the matter there, […], but the well-known impulse to urge people to keep calm about everything and nothing and to remain quietly […], which is a tropism of politicians […] led him to conclude the conversation in the worst possible way […]”

So simple words, yet a powerful critic of the mania of politicians to tell us whether to or not to panic, and then it goes on to show the other side, the journalist using the tiniest word to his advantage.  Further I found this other sentence that just made me put the book down and think:

                “Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat”

Did I mention before that Saramago was a declared atheist? Critic to established religion is a constant in his work, and this book is no exception.

Eventually, someone finds a loophole in this…people are not dying in A country, not all over the world, so people start crossing the border with their loved, almost dead ones, so they can finally rest…the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, ha?. This off course, creates a political issue, since the surrounding countries are not particularly happy about people crossing their borders just to die. But wait…only humans are not dying. And that’s when a particular question arises: Have you ever wonder if death is the same for all living things?

Then, one day, death is back…with a letter announcing the end of the situation. I will not mention her reasons here, for I found them delightful, but keep in mind that the reason I kept writing death with a lower case d is due to another letter that appears later in the book that, once again, will leave you thinking. 

But then someone, a man, “escapes” from his faith, that is, he doesn’t die. We never discover why, and don’t worry, this is not a spoiler, because from the description, you know who this man is, the one that will make death learn about love.

Since this part is at the very end of the whole book, I will not tell you more about the story itself. I loved the way Saramago portrays death, her character, her behavior.  Aside from the way he critics society and the way we react to a change in the status quo, I have to say my favorite part is the way the character is constructed, presented and described. Funny, there is a part where someone critics the way death writes…which incidentally is remarkably similar to that from Saramago. 

Blindness and Seeing by José Saramago

I've been on a Saramago roll lately! His writing style intrigues me; and his allegorical-philosophical discourses - while they can get me a little bogged down - never fail to surprise me with his insights into human nature, even the worst of it.

After passing over Seeing many times as it happens always to be on the shelves... finally a  few months ago, I saw Blindness. All I knew is that I'd need to read Blindness before Seeing.

The books in one sentence each:

• Blindness: A city is inexplicably hit by blindness - save for one woman - the blind are confined to a mental hospital where man's worst appetites rear its ugly head. 
• Seeing: Majority cast blank votes in the election; government strives to deal with this "revolt," and pinpoints that the "seeing woman" is behind this plot.  

My thoughts

I've always been intrigued by dystopian literature, though it can be a little of a downer for me so I always make sure to stagger read it. 

Blindness is a depressing read yet shows what goodness, forgiveness and strength of character can do to rise above depravity and anarchy. The scenario is simple - in an entire city of blind people, one woman remains able to see. Why? What does she do?

This enigmatic phenomenon starts off with a man who is strangely struck by blindness. He goes to his ophthalmologist to find out why ... and instead he starts off a strange epidemic of blindness in other patient, including the very doctor who seeks to cure them.

The blind are quarantined in an old mental hospital. The doctor's wife, who remains able to see, refuses to leave her husband's side and feigns blindness to be able to do so. The hospital leaves the blind to basically left to fend for themselves ... and anarchy takes over in the fight for survival. The doctor's wife arises as a natural leader.

The characters are an interesting lot and lend various perspectives to this unusual story. There is the "girl with the dark glasses" - a prostitute who turns motherly to a young boy separated from his parents. Then there is the "man with the black eye patch," who unlike everyone else, takes his blindness calmly and matter-of-a-factly and sees it as an opportunity to learn a much-needed lesson. There is also the tyrannical "Ward 3 leader," who when supplies run low and modes of payment are non-existing, demands women in exchange.

{I watched the movie (Julianne Moore?!?) and decided that this story is something best left as a book. It is much too graphic and depressing to have to watch - instead of being fodder for thought.}

* * * 

Seeing is the sequel to Blindness post-blindness. Sight is miraculously restored and election time has swung around. The whole day, very few come around to vote, explained away as a heavy rain falls. But right after the skies clear up at around 4:00 pm, people are inexplicably at the polls and extensive lines start up. And to everyone's shock, the majority of the votes cast are blank.

Government investigates, viewing this sudden surge of voters at 4:00 pm and the resulting blank ballots as a plot to overthrow the government. In the increasingly oppressive nature of this Government, there is widespread discontent yet the fear of the repercussions of communicating this. Government keeps up a semblance of normality through what is regarded as highly suspicious propaganda. Meanwhile people are questioned and start disappearing - and what results is an interesting yet precarious balance between the ruled and the rulers.

The "seeing" woman again figures in this story. She is pinpointed as the one responsible for orchestrating the casting of bank votes by mere virtue of her retaining her sight during the inexplicable blindness. A Superintendent is assigned to investigate who is responsible for this "revolution." The Superintendent, in the course of his investigations comes to see the human side of the situation, and he  becomes a dissenting voice in this silent city.

Verdict: Both must-reads! Blindness focuses on the individual at his best and worst. Seeing focuses on the government at its worst. 

{Originally posted at guiltlessreading.blogspot.com.}

Blindness by José Saramago

Blindness, by the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, is completely different to The Double which I read last year. It’s an astonishing book. I don’t think I will ever forget it.

It’s the story of an epidemic of ‘white blindness’, which spreads across a city affecting everyone. The novel reveals just how quickly chaos descends.

It begins with the sudden blindness of a man at the wheel of his car, and though a stranger’s first impulse is to kindly drive him home - the opportunity to steal the car is irresistible. He is then taken by his wife to an eye doctor, who soon goes blind himself, and within 24 hours the others in the waiting room become blind as well. The only one not to lose her sight, inexplicably, is the doctor’s wife.

Before long they are quarantined along with other victims in a former mental asylum, and Part I of the story traces their adjustment to the loss of their sight, their freedom and their independence. The government abrogates their human rights, providing them only with rudimentary shelter, paltry rations, inadequate sanitation, and no medical assistance or supplies. There is also a trigger-happy set of guards, who eventually panic over the proximity of the internees and fire on them because they believe the blindness to be contagious. There are squabbles over bed allocations and sharing of rations; there is distrust and untruth; there is a distasteful dispute over the burial of the dead and there is opportunistic fondling of one of the women with a dramatic consequence – but that is nothing compared to what is to come.

To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2011/10/20/blindness-by-jose-saramago/

The Double by José Saramago (Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers)

The Double, by José Saramago, is very entertaining reading.  It’s the story of a most ordinary man, a teacher of history, who one night, watching a video, sees himself as he was five years ago on the screen.  He becomes consumed by anxiety about this double, and his quest to deal with the problem of who owns his identity is, in the hands of this master storyteller, a remarkable story.

Saramago (1922-2010) was a Portuguese author: he wrote novels, plays and journalism and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.  Wikipedia tells me that he came to the attention of Portuguese censors late in his life, and moved to Spain to avoid interference on religious grounds.  (Apparently he died at Las Palmas, which I visited as a small child en route to Africa.  I have vivid memories of the contrast between its warmth,  colour and vivacity and the drabness of postwar London.)  In Portugal all seemed to be forgiven when Saramago won the Nobel, though the conservative PM who’d supported the religious censorship prudently avoided the mourning when Saramago died. 

I read and blogged this book on September 13th 2010.  To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/the-double-by-jose-saramago/

The Double by José Saramago

I decided to read this because: I enjoyed his book All the Names.

First line: The man who had just come into the shop to rent a video bears on his identity card a most unusual name, a name with a classical flavor that time has staled, neither more not less than Tertuliano Maximo Afonso.

The book in one sentence: A high school history teacher discovers the existence of his exact double in all respects, tries to make sense of it, and becomes obsessed with killing him.

I'd recommend it to: Anyone who's read Saramago before. If you're interested in psychological and books that make you ponder into the night, this may be for you.

I liked: Again, Saramago makes a story of a seemingly mundane existence - a teacher, an introvert, depressed, with few friends, no real life to speak of - into something interesting.

The premise of the story - of the possibility of having an exact double in this world - immediately reminded me of matter and anti-matter. I was speculating that when Tertuliano Maximo Afonso would eventually meet his double that something stupendous would happen ... spontaneous combustion? Of course, nothing like that did happen.

This is a psychological novel. It examines how a person's core of existence - identity and individuality - is shattered when the improbable and impossible happens. There is a lot of thinking going on, a lot of second guessing, and a lot of stress. And that can get to you, if you really think about it.

I didn’t like: Saramago's strange storytelling with little or no punctuation and long-winded sentences doesn't really bother me, but it can grate on the nerves somewhat, especially since there were pages and pages of soliloquy and non-action.

And why the emphasis on the name Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, and it's insistent repetition throughout the text? I think Saramago was trying to stress that despite the uniqueness of his name, our hero had to contend with the contrary. But again, its repeated use throughout the text was getting tiring.

There were times that the book was slooooowwww. I admit, I skimmed through some sections. This is not a book to read when you are bored. It can be a little clinical at times, like reading through a doctor's notes.

Author factoids: Saramago is a Portuguese writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.

Verdict: Once you get past the strange non-punctuation, the heart of the story makes for a compelling and disturbing read.

Random quote:.

The best way to achieve universal exoneration is to conclude that since everyone is to blame, no one is guilty.

Originally posted on my blog Guiltless Reading.

Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago (Laura's Review)

Baltasar and BlimundaJose Saramago


In Portugal during the 1700s, Baltasar returned home from war and fell immediately in love with Blimunda, a woman with the power to "see inside" others. They encounter a priest on a quest to build a flying machine, and begin working for him in pursuit of the same goal. And then it all got a bit far-fetched.

I wanted to like this book, and I gave it a good try by reading more than halfway through. However, the characters lacked depth. Baltasar and Blimunda, supposedly deep in love, seemed like two people going through the motions of life, let alone their relationship. Saramago uses the story to take satiric shots at the church and the monarchy, which provided mild amusement, but overall I was disappointed in this book.
My original review can be found here.

All the Names by José Saramago

I've been silent for such a long time, I'm making a comeback of sorts with the quick review of Saramago's book. This is my first time to try this author and I am so enamored, I am trying to get a copy of his famous "Blindness." 

Cross-posted on Guiltless Reading.  

The book in one sentence: Senhor Jose's otherwise humdrum life as a clerk in the Central Registry goes topsy-turvy as in the course of collecting info on famous people, he picks up an ordinary woman's birth certificate ... and obsesses to track her down.

Who would you recommend it to: Those who love to get lost in meandering descriptions.

OK bits: I loved this book - but I think you need to get into a state of mind. Don't read this if you're in a rush or looking for a quick read. This is a book to get lost in during a boring rainy day with nothing to do. The story is sparse but how it is told is amazing. Saramago tells it like he were right next to you, conversational and in run-on sentences (in fact some sentences would run on for over a page!). But the voice is clear, honest, direct. I got so drawn into the mundanity of Senhor Jose's life, I actually found myself rooting for

Boring bits: While the book's strength is its prose, it is also its Achilles heel. If you flip through the book and see how dense the paragraphs are, you may just be turned off. Don't be daunted, don't shortchange yourself.

Verdict: Loved it. I'm in awe at how Saramago weaves this tale about loneliness, anonymity and how people naturally seek meaning and identity throughout their lives.

Random quote:

Apart from his first name, Jose, Senhor Jose also has surnames, very ordinary ones, nothing extravagant, one from his father's side, another from his mother's, as is normal, names legitimately transmitted, as we could confirm in the Register of Births in the Central Registry if the matter justified our interest and if the results of that inquiry repaid the labour of merely confirming what we already know.

Links:

• http://www.powells.com/review/2001_07_19.html
• http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0156010593.asp