José Saramago
Short Biography
José Saramago was the first Portuguese writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
The beginnings of his life and career were quite hard: he was raised in a poor family in Lisbon. He started working early and after being a mechanic and a worker he became a journalist and a translator. He joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969 and published several poetry collections. He worked as editor of a Lisbon newspaper in the years 1974-75, at the time when the dictatorship of António Salazar was overthrown.
Due to an anti communist wave in politics, Saramago lost his position and in the 1950s he began writing the novels that would make him internationally famous.
Among his most important novels we remember Memorial do convento (1982),O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis (1984), A jangada de pedra (1986), O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo (1991). This work provoked the reaction of the Roman Catholic Church, who tried to prevent its publication. As a protest, the writer moved to a volunteer exile to the Canary Islands where he died in 2010.
José Saramago (1922 - 2010)
death with interruptions (2005)
As intermitências da morte
Synopsis
This book tells us about a fictional country where Death is suspended for seven months.
From first of January, no one else died in this country invented by José Saramago. Although Death is cruel and merciless, her suspension has brought several consequences for political, social and religious structures such as funeral agencies, hospitals and the church. With this, Máphia (a secret organization), arises and benefits from this chaos.
In the second part of the book, Death already appears as a character and communicates through a letter that she has returned to work, but in a different way. This time, Death will send violet letters to their next victims informing them of their time of death. Chaos among humans returns.
That is when everything changes, when one of the letters is returned to Death, refusing to carry the message to the victim. Death decides to investigate, turning into a beautiful and determined woman. During the investigation, she comes across a 50-year-old cellist.
The two start meeting often and eventually fall in love. This passion makes Death change her mind and as it says at the end of this story:
"The next day no one died."
Book Review
After reading this book, we can say that it is not the best book we have ever read, but it contains an interesting story, as we never know what will happen next, it is unpredictable.
It presents a vocabulary which is a little difficult to interpret without respecting various spelling rules (author's style).
The author often uses irony to express himself, especially in describing the concern of various sectors of society before and after death has ceased its activities.
With this work José Saramago intends to demonstrate that the idea that we all have of a life without end, that is, without death, would have enough implications if this happened.
The part of the work that struck us most was when the various sectors of society realized that the fact that death had ceased its activities would be harmful to them, thus demonstrating the selfishness and character of various people in society.
We appreciate the courage that family and others have had to get their loved ones across the border, but we don't like the ending very much because despite being unpredictable, we find this to have too much fantasy in the latest reported facts.
In conclusion, this book conveys to us the consequences of immortality and that we need death for the beliefs we believe to make sense and for the economy not to stop.
Contribution by Cátia Silva, Jéssica Silva, Tânia Cruz, Joana Ferreira and Pedro Rocha, 10ºA