Too often those of us who seek social justice for people who have been traditionally oppressed tend to just reminisce on the past.

However, this book proves that there is a great social movement that ordinary people CAN , RIGHT NOW make a diffrence about

The history of Mexico, like the history of Latin America, is a history of pain, struggle, and exploitation.

Marcos shows us a movement that seeks to right some of the wrong, and leads a movement of the oldest of the old, the oppressed of the oppressed: Indigenous campesinos (farmers) of Southern Mexico. Where pictures of Jesus Christ stand right there alongside of.....Che Guevara.

A people that have been traditionally been treated like dirt, for lack of a better word, now taking an inspirational and highly moving stand and demand an end to exploitation and a better way of life.

Through their charismatic and briliant leader, Marcos, he tells us the story of the people known as Zapatistas and their struggle for dignity.

The dignity of a people no longer willing to tolerate centuries of injustice.

What human being cannot be moved by such extroadinary courage?

How can anyone read el subcommandante and not be moved? How can anyone just look at the plight of these people in Mexico and not feel rage at the injustice?

I have sporadically read and been inspired by the writings of El Sup over the last few years - his poetic brilliance, his lyrical poignancy to strike a blow while planting seeds - and to see the collected works of this remarkable thinker and revolutionary is simply incredible. I encourage anyone who is involved in a struggle, anyone who seeks light in an increasingly dark world, and anyone who believes that a better world is still possible, to get this book. Not a cover to cover read, but an activist manual, a delicious serving brain food and heart food. Again, simply wonderful.

if you believe that travelling trough time is possible, then you should read this book. the author describes the extraordinary environmentt in the xvii century in Portugal. the literary style is one of the most original contributions ever made to the postmodern languange.

SPOILER: Set in the Portuguese 17th Century, BALTASAR AND BLIMUNDA is one of the most touching love stories I have ever read. Baltasar is a cripled war survivor that lost his left hand and got a hook instead. He has his own views about God, namely that, He, too is a cripled since nowhere is his left hand refferred to (Christ sits at His right hand, etc.) Blimunda is a mysterious Girl whose mother is accused of Witchcraft and burned at the stake in front of her by the Inquisition. At that moment the girl sees Baltasar who is also (like most of the City's people) attending the Act of Faith, and Blimunda's soul is blended to his by legacy of her mother's soul. Blimunda inherited also other of her mother's gifts, most prominent of them, the ability to see inside people... Literally. An uncanny gift against which Blimunda has only one remedy: to eat bread right after waking up. They choose to stay with each other... Unmarried. Together they are hired by Jesuit savant priest Bartholomew de Gusmão, who has his own dangerous views about God, Science and Faith in this time of fierce Inquisition. They are to help him with his very secret, very daring project: a flying machine... The Baroque Age is at its greatest splendour. The Horrors of the Inquisition are at their most terrible and the King of Portugal does not have a heir. He makes a promise to God that he'll have built the biggest convent that Portugal has ever seen if he's blessed with a Son. The Queen gives birth. And the Convent will be built! If you enjoyed baroque stories like RESTAURATION you will be dazzled by this Jewell. The author, Saramago writes with a neverinding, unponctuated paragraph style, that reminds the ancient royal chroniclers. Please, PLEASE don't let this draw you back from the book. Make an effort to go through the first two chapters and you'll get used to it. More: you'll be hooked.

If you enjoyed baroque stories like RESTAURATION you will be dazzled by this Jewel. Nobel Prize of Literature 1998 José Saramago, writes with a neverending, unponctuated paragraph style, that reminds the ancient royal chroniclers. It is a sort of oral text, almost meant to be read aloud. Please, PLEASE don't let this draw you back from the book. Make an effort to go through the first two chapters and you'll get used to it. More: you'll be hooked.

I would like to question Mr Saramago in regard to his views on Cinema. He has alowed adaptations of this book for Theatre (November premiere in Portugal)and Opera (BLIMUNDA, premiered 1990 LA SCALLA - Milan). So why his persistent refusal to allow a Cinema adaptation? Is Cinema necessarily a minor art for him in comparison to Opera and Theatre? Has he heard of Welles? Preminger? Lang? Ford? Hawks? Casavetes? Truffaut? Visconti? Fellini? Pasolini? Tarkowski? And if you argue these are all dead, what about the active ones: Bergman? Goddard? Proyas? Konchalovski? Mikhalkhov? Cameron -- Picture Leo DiCaprio as Baltazar? :-) Sure Hollywood produces Godzilla and such, but that's not all there is to cinema.

Personally I believe directors like Mike Figgis (leaving las Vegas, One Night Stand)or Jean Paul Rapenneau (Cyrano de Bergerac, Horseman on the Roof) or even Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror, Les Miserables) would do a good work with this Novel. (In terms of Spectacle this would be Spielberg Material --I'm suspicious of him though after AMISTAD where among many other historical inacuracies the Portuguese spoke Spanish?? - although he partially redeemed himself with Priv. Ryan. Richard Zimler's THE LAST KHABALIST OF LISBON --Search AMAZON for this one-- would be a great Spielberg Film, too)

Not too long ago I saw Mr. Saramago in a talk show (Falatório)on Portuguese Pubcaster RTP2 admiting to host Clara Ferreira Alves that he never quite grasped why this novel had such a mammouth success while his other subsequent works, while very successfull, never quite measured to it.

Well, it feels very simple to me: First it's a spectacular and epic rendition of history and fantasy. And second, it's a breathtakingly beautiful love story. How much closer to public appeal can you get?

I ordered an out of print American Edition of this book from Amazon to offer a friend. It arrived the day Saramago won the Nobel. I think it was prophetic.

Saramago is our first Nobel of Literature. When I read "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira" (Blindness as it was translated to english) he was not a Nobel Prize winner yet. It is not easy to begin reading Saramago. This book is one of his best. I couln't stop reading it, so I was awake until 5 am, until it was over... It takes all your attention and you don't want to stop!
Read it!

En las dos novelas que he leído de Saramago dos mundos transcurren paralelos pero que se unen metafóricamente. En la "Historia del Cerco de Lisboa" una historia de amor transcurre en la vida del protagonista, un excelente corrector de pruebas de una gran editorial, mientras que descubre sus dotes de autor por impulsos de su jefa al escribir una historia alterada de la historia nacional de Portugal por un simple no. Es una novela con suficiente ingenio e ironia que entrelaza lo intencional al querer alterar la historia oficial con tal de hacerla más nacional y que aún dentro de los grandes relatos siempre subyace una historia de amor, que nos puede hacer pensar si el amor es algo indispensable para realizar grandes cambios, conquistas o revoluciones. Esta trama de la novela es muestra de un escritor compremetido con sus ideales, pensamientos y sentimientos; un buen narrador y escritor.

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

Podria usted imaginar si no solamente fuera usted el ciego, que la ceguera afectara a todo el pais. El gran Saramago nos lleva de la mano a traves de una historia apoyada por una narrativa extraordinaria - en todo el sentido de la palabra - Divertido por donde se le mire, cada pagina esta llena de dialogos, sabiduria popular y profundas reflexiones. La inversion vale la pena, este libro hara parte de su coleccion personal, tal vez usted no lo ubique al lado de los grandes clasicos de su biblioteca, pero si en medio de esos que le llegaron al corazon.

"Ensayo sobre la ceguera" captivated me as soon as I started to read the book two years ago. Jose Saramago is a renowned novelist and has many novels that can easily fall under the category of magisterial literary works. In this book, he immediately engages the reader in it as the theme of becoming suddenly blind reveals itself in a mysterious way. Various people in a town become blind for no apparent reason except the wife of the principal character in the book- the doctor. Out from this sudden loss of sight we see how the characters become desperate, helpless and frustrated and to a certain extent rely on their other senses to just to carry out their basic daily routines. We also see how people's natural negative aspects become evident when those who became blind are forced to live in isolation together in order to prevent an epidemic of grand proportions. The book is full of intrigue and mystery as we see how the characters struggle with their loss of sight. This book was great to read. It's intriguing and keeps the reader in suspense. I recommend this novel if you are a fan of good modern contemporary literature. Also I recommend reading the Spanish version as opposed to the translation.

Ensayo sobre la ceguera fue la primera novela de Saramago que lei. El hombre es un genio. Facilmente te envuelve en el texto hasta hundirte en el mundo de la historia. Oracion tras tras parrafo tras capitulo -- Saramago es uno de los pocos escritos aun comprometidos con el arte de la literatura. Como estudiante de literatura contemporanea hispana, recomiendo esta novela como una verdadera obra maestra. Es una delicia de lectura.

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 give this book 4 stars on the "Saramago Scale". By the standards of contemporary fiction, this book is phenomenal. By Saramago's standards, it's not quite up to par.

The book involves the adventure of Senhor Jose, a low-level functionary in a state bureaucrat of The Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Senhor Jose, who lives in a meager house attached to the Registry, becomes obsessed with collecting the birth records of "famous" individuals, and thus begins a series of midnight excursions into the Registry. One night, along with the celebrity birth records, he stantches a copy of an ordinary woman's birth certificate, and quickly begins a compulsive quest to learn the details of the woman's life.

This book is ripping good to read, yet does not meet the standards of Saramago's earlier works (especially ripe for comparison is The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis). In Ricardo Reis, Saramago focused on issues of personal identity by ingeniously having a pseudonym communicate with a dead poet, all the while exploring the poetic notion that "I am innumerable people". All the Names explores the same theme far more heavy handedly: instead of a brilliant poetic vehicle, or a clever plot construct, Saramago here explores identity through the rather hackneyed device of anonymity and obscurity (a sort of long-winded Kafka, if you will). And this is generally the case--All the Names is far less original a work than Saramago's early novels, and far more dependent on modernist European literature.

Again, this is not to say this is a bad read. Anybody who enjoyed Saramago's other novels should be sure to check out this Kafkaesque, Borgesesque dark wonder. However, if you expect a second Ricardo Reis (or Blindness for that matter), you will probably be disappointed.

Saramago's in depth, tender and frequently humorous exploration of the life of a simple, timid clerk (Senhor Jose) unfolds into a story of a man's quest to overcome the fears that have all but smothered him. "Senhor Jose both wants and doesn't want, he both desires and fears what he desires, that is what his whole life has been like," Saramago tells us. Other than his "hobby," collecting information about famous people, Senhor Jose's life is mostly about being as uninvolved as possible.

In contrast to the main character in Saramago's earlier "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis," who is dead but doesn't know it, Senhor Jose is alive but doesn't know it. And unlike his earlier works in which fate seems to hold all the cards, in "All the Names" Saramago lets chance (serendipity) guide the story. It begins, almost as a reward for a tiny bit of daring, when Senhor Jose sneaks into his work place to get some more information about famous people for his collection and discovers, stuck to one of the records he was looking for, a misfiled record for a woman (another un-famous, unknown). Unbeknownst to him at the time, it will be the question posed by this simple piece of paper (Who is she?) that brings Senhor Jose "back from the dead." Skillfully, Saramago uses the same question to draw in his readers, and it is some time before he begins to let on that maybe this "unknown woman" is more important as a metaphor for what has become of Senhor Jose's spirit - his willingness to engage in life - than as some real woman he will eventually find. In the end, it is the search itself that eventually leads Senhor Jose to discover that what makes life worth living is never so dead that it can't be resurrected.

There is a shift in "quality" (character) between this book and Saramago's earlier ones. "All the Names" is not about politics, history or culture; it is focused on the psychology and spirit of the human experience. Saramago is such a brilliant observer of the inner life. His ability to write from within his characters (as opposed to about them), while clear in his earlier works, is taken to a new level in "All the Names." The many occasions in which Saramago lets us know what Senhor Jose is thinking (be it silly or sublime, ridiculous or profound) are written so well that it is hard not to feel that you know this character as well as you know yourself.

It is significant that Saramago never says where the story takes place and he gives no one but the main character a name -- and it could be Mr. Smith or John Doe for all it matters. Although Saramago has written this book as if it were about "someone in some place," what he has created is in fact a story for anyone in any place, even you in your place. There is a more than a little Senhor Jose in all of us.

(A note for those who are new to Saramago's writing): Saramago's writing style is, I think, an acquired taste. He has little regard for punctuation and slips easily into "stream of conscious" wanderings (more accurately, what appear to be wanderings but eventually add to the whole experience -- like unexpected dashes of some spice that no on one in their right mind would think of using but everyone would miss come dinner time had they been omitted). If I could claim to know a universally fool proof method for reading Saramago it would be this: sometimes you have to listen to the reading voice in your head as if it were someone reading the story to you aloud. As Saramago was blessed with a grandfather who would stay up at night telling him about life (and all the stories that entails), I think that his writing voice can be attributed to (and is a tribute to) his grandfather's speaking voice.

If he had never won the Nobel Prize, I would never have heard of Jose Saramago. I have read all of his novels and am captivated by his elegant and beautiful writing. It was with a mixture of hopeful anticipation and dread that I read this book: could it possibly measure up to my favorites Blindness and Baltisar and Blimunda. Well I need not have worried, Saramago drew me into his labyrinth from the first sentence. I was reminded of Kafka and Dante's Inferno when reading this story of a lonely public official Senhor Jose who is isolated by istitutions and his work. He represents all of modern humanity in it's struggle to survive emotionally. The book tells of Senhor Jose's attempt to find connections to other human beings, of having to fight all of the barriers erected by modern life. He is the "everyman" of the Twentieth Century. The glimpses of love that he finds during his obsessive quest is enough to transform him into another person. Read the book very slowly to savor the taste of Saramago's prose. He will be remembered as a great writer in distant times.