This is another Clarice Lispector wonderful book. The Besieged City (though its title)is not a book about war or anything like that. It tells us about the solitude of women and the way they are sufocated by the society. Like any other Clarice book, this one doesn't have a defined story. Only feelings and sensations.

A story about a painter of portraits or a portrait of the Author in search of his own image, Manual of Painting and Calligraphy is a strategic book for anyone interested in learning more about history of art in general and about the author's criative process in particular, while enjoying a pleasant narrative. Trying to avoid the conventional act of mirroring, José Saramago - who is responsible, among others, for the overcome of literary neorealism in Portugal - criates, as the title reveals, not only a novel nor a diary, but a treatise about the blindness of realistic representation. Writing through the eyes of a painter who paints through the hands of a writer, Saramago explores the boundaries between the so-called sister arts, talking about the urge of imagination in nowadays world, and building up for himself and for his readers an interesting and instigating portrait of the artist as the author of the invisible. Ermelinda Ferreira (eferreira@openlink.com.br

as gothic and alluring as Lya's Island of the Dead, this book shows a different outlook on a life of a woman; on societal view of a woman as a caretaker and mother first, and only then as a person. Terrific, and, as any work of Luft's, a must read.

I love Saramago's writing, it was my first book from this author. 'The gospel according to Jesus Christ' is just wonderful, I am catholic and think that anyone no matter what's their religion should buy it, in no way this book could change my point of view, but definitely got me thinking and wondering the Jesus that we all know. Many won't read it and that would be a shame; you just have to take it for what it is, a novel.

The famous conversation between Jesus, God and the Devil was very good, but highly overrated, I liked the way Jesus questions his 'father' and demanded answers about his life, most importantly the fact that he was destined to die crucified like his father Joseph 'The carpenter'. The way José Saramago portrayed Jesus as a human being just like us, worried about earthly things but equally sensitive of life's issues, was pretty amazing. I personally found weird reading a Jesus in love.

The end of the book was perfect, simple but at the same time shocking. 'The gospel according to Jesus Christ' is so good that you would read it again and again and every time you can be sure you'll find something new and great.

The book "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" was just fantastic, as the others I've already read from José Saramago. I'm portuguese, which means I read the original version. I don't know, but I'm assuming the translations are good, because Saramago's writing style is already hard in portuguese, so... Anyway, the book focus on a very delicate point, and the way Saramago expressed his feelings caused him the excomunnion. He didn't really matter, as we can see he's not a religious person... But I just think he worked hard to achieve his Nobel, and this book has lots of historical references, many of them absolutely true, and just tells the history of that magnificent man that our society will never really know. I advise anyone to read the book.

I was raised amid a curious religious whiplash due to experiencing both Catholicism and Protestantism because of my parents' divorces and remarriages, so I came to this book with a little bit of cynicism and a lot of hope. I wanted desparately to see Jesus Christ in a clear and loving light, not the common, goofy glow often cast by the silly modern American preachers to whom I'd been forced to listen for so many years. Saramago's novel begins with a poetic word portrait of a painting of the famous crucifixion and ends it (we all know how it ends!) with the same event retold in his own brilliant and powerful fashion. This book is the first of Saramago's I have read, and having experienced it, I will go on to read all of his novels.

The Jesus we meet in this novel is real, and it doesn't matter what one's religious background or belief, this telling is believeable and inspiring. The third person narrator, We, provides the story behind the story abridged by modern religion while renewing and creating metaphors that tell this beautiful tale with passion, humorous asides, entertaining irony and compassion. Saramago's Christ is a real person with depth and personality and heart. He is a Christ we can see as a man and a son of God--one we can imagine actually living and experiencing the horrific events we have learned about through organized religion. The difference is this: Saramago is a brilliant writer with both vision and education. His passion is his own miracle in retelling Christ's life, and he fills it with magic and thoroughly philosophical and extraordinary considerations. Jesus Christ's conversations with all of the historical characters in this book are mesmerizing.

Reading this book, I was deeply awed by this writer's talent. It is one of the finest novels I have ever read and contains passages that absolutely stunned me and which I read and reread and will reread for years to come. If you are searching for a novel that will truly blow your mind, look no further. Saramago is a genius.

After being deeply impressed by Saramago's "All the names" and "Blindness" I turned to this book that has been called "Saramago's best" and "among the best 20th century novels". While I greatly enjoyed the sumptuous prose of this book, the humorous faux naïve style, the often beautiful imagery and the sublimely packaged irony, I ended up less impressed than after finishing the two works mentioned above.

In his review Chinmay Kumar Hota has given an excellent sketch of some of the main issues of this book that I will not reiterate here. By juxtaposing the imaginary person Ricardo Reis with the actual, yet not less surreal, historical developments in Portugal in the 1930s Saramago offers a novel examining reality and human relations.

My main problem with the book- I admit that many may consider it its greatest strength- is that the writers tries to cover too many issues, while offering too little of narrative structure to make the book work. Especially, since Saramago separately dealt with two of the themes of this book in the more clearly structured "Blindness" and "All the names" and Murakami outdid Saramago on very similar subject matter in "The wind up bird chronicle", I ended this book a little disappointed.

There is no doubt of the elegant symbolism in the character of Reis. Returning from the colonial territory of Brazil he personifies many aspects of Portugal and its history. Similarly, the two ladies, female archetypes, Lydia and Marcenda, are symbolically loaded. To me, the dialogs between Reis and his deceased creator-yes, Saramago knows his Nietszche!- do not really ad to the main narrative. (Moreover, I thought that a lot of these conversations amounted up to little more than virtuoso sophistry). In addition, Reis on his journey from Brazil, to the hotel and his apartment and in his gradual degeneration is a depiction of everyman. Yet, to me all these ingredients never gelled into a work of unity.

While I enjoyed the stylish prose and Saramago's level of invention in this free-form-novel, I do think that the master outdid himself in the subsequent "Blindness" and "All the names".

Saramago's novel is almost larger than life, despite being centered on a few characters, buildings, and streets in Lisbon between 1935 and 1936. In very few novels can one find such well-delineated characters (however small their interventions), such rich historical context, such well-crafted atmosphere. Ricardo Reis is not only the main character of the novel; he also is one of Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms (which allows Saramago to play a few good literary and philosophical tricks) and a symbol of 20th- Century man: an entity whose existential crisis leads him nowhere and saps him of his energy to act in any positive way or to have much empathy towards others. One doesn't know if Ricardo Reis' inactivity is reproachable or if one should feel any pity for him. The ending is very appropriate in this sense, because it leaves one thinking about what really goes on in Ricardo Reis' mind: did he have enough, or did he realize that, by just contemplating the theatre of the world around him, he wasn't going anywhere? Did he have, in the end, a moment of sincerity with himself? Those are questions that the reader should answer for himself.

I like Saramago's style (the same in all his novels) of just using commas, periods, and paragraphs. I also like his humor and pathos. I found myself reading aloud sometimes, even in English, because I felt that I needed to hear Saramago. Because of the lack of punctuation, however, it's somewhat tricky to follow who'saying what (particularly true in the discussions between Reis and Pessoa). But that should not deter anybody; rather, it should add to the enjoyment of the novel.

The cold classical odes of Ricardo Reis are for me the least engaging part of Fernando Pessoa's oeuvre, but this novel really brings them, and Ricardo Reis, alive. Saramago's portrayal of Reis is sympathetic but critical. In Reis's poem, 'I prefer roses to my country', he says "what does he care who cares no more that one should lose, another win, if dawn still sheds its beams..." But in 1936, this detachment is increasingly difficult, and as the novel progresses the real world increasingly sucks the poet in. The strongest pull comes from the poet's relationship with a chambermaid, Lydia, whose only resemblance to his idealised poetic muse is her name. Meanwhile, the shade of Fernando Pessoa watches over Ricardo Reis and the novel artfully draws the two poets together at the end. The book reads beautifully in translation and Saramago's style comes over as utterly unique. It is hard to pick out one example but here is Ricardo Reis soon after he has made a pass at Lydia: "What an incredible thing I've done, and with a maid. It is his good fortune that he does not have to carry a tray laden with crockery, otherwise he would learn that even the hands of a hotel guest can tremble. Labyrinths are like this, streets, crossroads, and blind alleys. There are those who claim that the surest way of getting out of them is always to make the same turn, but that, as we know, is contrary to human nature." By the way, if anyone wants a good introduction to the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, I'd highly recommend 'A Centenary Pessoa', published by Carcanet.

This masterpiece by the Nobel laureate, José Saramago, has an epic quality that raises it above the ordinary. The backdrop against which the story is told is Portugal in the eighteenth century, a superstition-ridden country peopled by masses who still believe in miracles, in times when theological standards are unbending and any deviation from the accepted norm is punished as sorcery.

Baltasar, a crippled soldier returns home from war to such a milieu. He represents Everyman living a life of quiet dignity, pushed around occasionally by circumstance, cherishing little joys and comforts with his consort, Blimunda. The binding force of the story is the tender relationship between Baltasar and Blimunda, a love that is not expressed in words and that does not wane with time. A third character in the novel is Lourenco, the "Flying Priest." The three are brought together by a seemingly impossible dream of constructing a flying machine.

What is special about the book is the writer's narratorial skill: Saramago takes on the traditional role of a story-teller without being clever or fantastical. He narrates a plain, simple story without any superfluous embellishments. It is this simplicity and honesty that goes straight to the heart and lingers on. The author does not pause to indulge in verbal pirouettes or stylistic gymnastics. Nor does he gloss over metaphors and similes to conjure elaborate conceits out of them. Saramago borrows several features from the oral tradition: Baltasar and Blimunda is a stringing together of several loosely-related episodes and incidents, yet there is a structural circularity in the whole. The tone is sometimes easy and conversational when focused on specific incidents, sometimes it has an incantatory quality, sometimes it slows its pace to describe the mire and filth through which the characters must toil; and sometimes it soars high into the skies with the Passarola.

The story of Baltasar and Blimunda seems to get its power from the rhythms of the cosmos which it invokes constantly. The two main characters are nick-named after the sun and the moon. There are repeated references to the wind, the rain, to cyclical motions of time, to the earth, the heavens and the sky. In the attempt to fly into the skies one may detect the Lucifer motif or, more appropriately, the Icarus pattern: human aspirations daring to dream, foraging into the unknown and, of course, paying a price for the dream. Baltasar's fate reminds us that such is man's lot. All the while the heavens remain unperturbed, always beckoning, always tempting man to soar higher and higher. That man's reach should exceed his grasp or what else is the heaven for? This is what the author seems to suggest.

After putting the book aside, the reader is left with a lingering impression of a pair of lovers wrenched apart: he flying high somewhere in the mysterious spaces above, she roaming the world aimlessly, weeping, wailing, searching for a lost love.

I was really impressed by this book. I think that if an alien would come on Earth I would let him read this book to get a grasp on what Humanity has been and still is.
He'd find out that History mostly was made by the foolishness of the Mighty (and still is, but today foolishness=greed and the mighty=rich); he'd learn about the animal instincts of human and that some of these are the most beatiful of our traits (as the love between Baltasar and Blimunda, which I find is somehow "animal"); he'd wonder how some ideals can govern the life of men and lie them together (father Bartolomeu's dream to fly); finally in the subtle irony of Saramago, he'll understand what degree of selfconsciousness we've reached through 3000 thousand years of civilization.
The life of Baltasar and Blimunda somehow shows how simple people can live a significant life in spite of History trying to make them do what it wants (a knowledge that in our conformistic democraties is of great importance).
By the style of this book, one could easily think that it was written some 2 centuries ago, because of his illuministic feel. Maybe Saramgo is the most "classical" of modern writers, despite of his strange form of punctuation and of placing his observations everywhere in the book.

There is something absolutely compelling about the love that exists between the title characters of this masterpiece. It is the sort of love that makes you want to go out and find it for yourself, one that hollows out from the surrounding absurdities of the world a separate peace in which it can exist.

For being a love story, though, Saramago adopts a very original approach to portraying Baltasar and Blimunda. He does not explain their love, he does not justify it, he does not even describe it. They simply love each other -- that is all you know and all you need to know.

The majority of the book isn't even about them. Most of the pages are spent in outright hilarious passages describing the frivolity and ostentations of royalty and the church in 18th century Portugal. Unlike much anti-clerical writing, this is done without anger or bitterness. Saramago takes an almost playful approach to the absurdities of the establishment -- the first 20 pages alone are enough to make the entire book worthwhile. The king and his court are a joke.

In the second half of the book, though, they slowly become a sad joke. This part of the book revolves around the construction of an abbey in Baltasar's home town of Mafra, and Saramago progressively shows the human cost of the royal whims. With heartbreaking resignation and bitterness, he shows how the king's decrees interrupt and destroy the lives of ordinary men and women.

And yet, in the midst of all this, Baltasar and Blimunda persist, neither caught up in the absurdities of the court nor trodden down by the resulting oppressions. They have no intentions in life and are merely happy to live that life by each other's sides. Saramago manages to say more about them in whole chapters of writing about other things entirely than in the scattered paragraphs he devotes to their companionship. The contrast is powerful.

In short, this is a novel at times debilitatingly funny and at times deeply touching, and through it all runs the thread of a man and woman who love each other and need no explanation.

I'm not too sure what to think of Lispector as a novelist, but I think she's a fine short story writer, as this collection shows, particularly "The Crime of the Mathematics Professor" and "The Smallest Woman In the World".

Clarice Lispector is today considered the best Brazilian woman writer and FAMILY TIES is her most famous story collection. She has a very special way of showing the hidden side of every day experience, or the uncommon experience a seemingly commonplace situation may bring. Her characters are usually,children, animals and women specially houseviwes.The monotony of the every day routine of clarician women is suddenly interrupted by a very comon event, which however illuminates their perception of themselves and of life. In the short story "Love" the ephiphany happens, when the main character Ana sees a blind man chewing gum. The title story "Family Ties" tells the story of a family, where the menbers are suddenly faced with a feling of the emptiness of family ties."The Bufallo" is about a love frustrated woman, who goes to the zoo,in search of an animal, able to be a counterpart to her intense hatred. In short, the stories of FAMILY TIES,reverse the idea of cosyness and security the word "ties" may suggest,exploring rather its darker meaning, the feeling of boundage and the issuing conflicts produced not only by family ties but by human ties in general.I suggest the book to be added to the special list of recomended short stories for the participants of the PEN AWARD.

Everyone keeps telling me this is a classic. I think it's just awful. It reads like it was written: a rambling, unedited, ill-considered, weakly plotted piece of whimsy jotted down by an ailing old lady... was riding her reputation here - Macabea is just someone who comes and goes. This novel just isn't finished.

You know you're not stepping into a utopian novel when the main character's summation of thoughts on her identity are "I am a typist and a virgin, and I like coca-cola." That's it. No more. No great ambitions or passions, well, except for wanting to look like Marilyn Monroe, but she's ugly. People try to ignore her. This is the main character, a young loser named Macabea, whose happiness is the happiness of an idiot.

This novel, or really novella, since it only consists of about 70 odd pages, is at once a throwback to the naturalism of writers such as Zola, and also an example of post-modern metafiction.

The narrator of the tale is a disaffected aristocrat who seems to be making up the character of Macabea to console his own misery. In other words, it is thrown in our face again and again that he is making up this story, so dont believe it. Here we have the failure of post-modern writers. They believe that readers are not aware that the story they are reading is make-believe, so they have to show their cleverness and go "Aha, look, this is fake, I'm making it up!!! ha ha!!!". Basically in doing this, the author is saying his or her readers are nimrods who have no grip on reality.

Once the narrator gets out of the way and allows Lispector to tell a story, it is quite good. The book was too short to make a judgement of it. I do have a vague feeling of disquiet upon finishing it though. Pity? You see, Macabea is never going to get a chance to improve her life. Born into poverty with no parents and a cruel aunt having raised her, she has no education. There is noone to look out for her. Well, until she picks up a boyfriend, who just happens to be a murderer and likes to watch butchers do their job and gets strangely aroused by it.

The book seems to be about seeking peace. About seeking self-fufillment. Or to put it better, in the Taoist tradition, to not seek and yet find. Maybe Macabea was the lucky one. She was at peace because she had no needs, no ambition. Much like a doctor that treats her in the novel, she wants to have enough money to where she can do what she's always wanted: Nothing.

Don't dig into this book expecting something normal. Lispector wasn't a normal writer at all. She wasn't a normal woman. This book was written while her cancer in her uterus was eating her alive, and you can almost taste the angst from the narrator. Not that her other books are any different, but in here it feels even more authentic. Perhaps it's due to the fact that the narrator is ficticious as well. Under the name of Rodrigo S.M., Lispector slashes open her soul and reveals nothing, because that's what it is.

Do not read this book waiting for a story. It tells three stories, the first one being about Macabea. The second story is the narrator talking about his writing, and the craft. The third is the narrator talking about his life.

Some critics claim that Lispector is "existencialism for the masses" (as impossible as that may sound) because she avoids complex theories. She refused to read other existentialist authors, because they were too pompous. Lispector admits that there are no answers to her questions, but that absence does not make the questions dissappear. There are a couple of times where her train of thought is hard to follow, but they came very rarely, and the book is definitely worth it. Saying that she was riding on her reputation shows blatant lack of knowledge on her works. Every other book of hers is written in this sinuous manner, and much of the recognition she has in Brazil was attained shortly after her death, since her books never sold well. After reading this, I can't say I don't understand why. It's not a normal book.

It's hard to decide which part of this book is sadder, Macabea's pathetic existence or the Narrator's angst. But both are awesome. Just don't expect anything normal, and you'll love it.

This book is like nothing I have read before. The author takes a very thought provoking premise: people begin going blind and the blindness spreads rapidly throughout an entire society. Then the story follows the first group of people to go blind through their terrible emotional and physical challenges. Most of the things we take for granted are abandoned, for example the characters do not even use names, and an entire new way of life is created from the chaos.

Saramago has a unique writing style that takes getting used to. He uses little punctuation and paragraphs sometimes flow over several pages. But in this book where nothing is taken for granted and everything must rejustify its need, it seems to fit.

This book is not for the faint of heart, many of the scenes are graphic and harsh. But, amazingly, people also manage to rise above the squalor of their living conditions to find beauty and love. I am looking forward to my book group's discussion of Blindness. We are a diverse group of readers and I think we will enjoy exploring the many layers of this book.

What an amazing work of fiction! This is a very tough read, not only because of Saramago's use of language, but also because of its subject matter. The language, however, perfectly matches the themes of the book and the characters, while stumbling blindly (literally and figuratively!), attempting to exist in a strange new world of confusion and chaos, each have something to teach the thoughtful reader. The characters have only their personalities and physical traits to identify them; none are named. I was reminded of works like the "Canterbury Tales," "Pilgrim's Progress," and even "The Fairie Queene" in that this novel is also the tale of a journey, and a parable for our times. In their movement through blindness, despair, pain, frustration and, eventually, redemption and/or death, the characters mirror the best and worst in all of us. Each in his own way is an "Everyman," showing us how each individual can have an impact on the society as a whole, for better or for worse.

The blindness is a disease of the body and the spirit, contagious and ubiquitous. It is to be feared not only for the obvious reasons, because it takes away sight, but for what it reveals in each person it strikes. Stripped of their sight, these people are then forced to come to grips with their individual demons. Some manage better than others, rising to the occasion, while others fall from grace quickly and almost effortlessly.

Sometimes I had to take a break from my reading, because the book was so intense and I got so wrapped up in the experiences of the characters that I often felt like I was in the middle of it myself. Very tough to take, sometimes, but so compelling that I had to continue to read.

"Blindness" is the first book I've ever read by Jose Saramago (I, too, am wondering why it's taken me so long to discover him!), but after having read it, I've already purchased "Baltasar & Blimunda" and "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ." Saramago is obviously an inventive and thought-provoking writer, one whose works I'd like to continue to explore.

You approach Blindness from a distance. The subject is so utterly chilling that you ask why go on. First, there is the unusual style of the writing. The lack of regular paragraph breaks, odd punctuation and no quotes makes for a slow read. You soon realize that this book must be read slow for a variety of reasons. The primary one being that you need to absorb the magnitude of characters horrific situation. The story actually frightens you but like the characters you soon grow more accustomed to the situation. After the first fifty pages, I found the story so consuming that I had to keep reading. Despite no character having a name you are drawn to them completely. This is not an ordinary book. It is a work by an enormously talented author (who I had not previously heard of). This book forces you to contemplate how fragile society can be. It illustrates a complete breakdown of our way of life. It is certainly not for the faint of heart but a must read those seeking provocative litature. You may want to read this with a friend or in a club. It will generate conversation. I strongly recommend Blindness.