I had the honor of meeting José Saramago at a book-signing in Lisbon's Chiado district shortly after he won the Nobel Prize in 1998. At the time, I wondered if receiving the prize would cause my favorite novelist to sit back and write nothing worthy of note, or nothing at all.

Fortunately, "The Cavern" bears the earmarks of earnestness, diligence, and love of the Portuguese language that characterize Saramago's earlier works. But as a novel it's disappointing. The characters are ordinary and there's not much of a plot.

The central theme of "The Cavern" is that a giant, impersonal, and arrogantly managed shopping center, the Centro, is spreading like an oil slick and sucking the commercial life out of the region. The main character, Cipriano Algor, an artisan potter living in a rural hamlet and eking out a living selling dishes to the Centro, is one of the shopping complex's victims. The Centro treats its suppliers ruthlessly: work with us according to the one-sided terms we impose or we'll dispense with you; and we'll dispense with you anyway when you're no longer useful to us. And the Centro no longer wants to sell Algor's stoneware; its customers prefer plastic tableware that's cheaper and less breakable.

Thus, much of the novel consists of the petty indignities the Centro visits on the desperate and humiliated Algor, a situation complicated by the fact that Marçal Gacho, Algor's live-in son-in-law, is a security guard for the Centro and wants to move there with his wife Marta.

There's a plot there, but it's thin, and it's stifled by overlong narratives, asides, and commentaries that dominate the novel. "The Cavern" is like an opera with much singing and little action. Indeed, few events disturb the novel's languor until the final 35 or so pages of the 350-page-long Portuguese version. And there's little that's compelling about Cipriano Algor, Marçal Gacho, Marta, or the family dog, Achado. They're all nice and all without depth. (And incongruously for such uneducated folk, they often speak the king's Portuguese.) Algor is a stiff, diffident and lonely widower whose inability to act on his interest in Isaura, the widow across town, exasperates the reader. Saramago relies heavily on the family dog for character development (a danger sign), extolling Achado's virtues. But in the end, Achado's ordinary canine behavior fails to inspire interest in itself or to illuminate its owners' personalities.

Moreover, some of Saramago's commentaries are trite and cranky; they lack the acuity of the sketches of human behavior and travails that enliven other Saramago novels. Algor, his family, and his dog are portrayed as the salt of the earth, rather like the Joads in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." The conflict between Algor and the arrogant Centro is an allegory for Saramago's dislike of globalization and the liberalization of the world economy--a dislike he made clear in 1998, when he argued, "Injustices multiply, inequalities become worse, ignorance grows, misery spreads. The same schizophrenic humanity able to send instruments to [Mars] to study the composition of its rocks witnesses indifferently the deaths of millions from hunger. . . . Governments fail to do [their duty], because they don't know how to, because they can't, or because they don't want to. Or because those who effectively govern the world don't let them: the multinational and intercontinental corporations whose power, absolutely undemocratic, has reduced almost to nothing what once remained of the ideal of democracy."

In sum, Saramago stands with the protestors of Seattle, Quebec City, and Genoa. His worldview may stem from the degrading poverty and oppression his grandparents experienced in rural Portugal (see his Nobel Prize acceptance speech). Yet if "The Cavern" were less rigid, it would acknowledge that the same liberalization that creates the Centro should permit Algor (with the help of a government economic-development agency) to leave behind the Centro's nouveau-riche customers and haughty management for the armies of foreign tourists who want to buy handmade Portuguese stoneware, or to sell his goods over the Internet to collectors in Montreal, Adelaide, and Sapporo. Algor is simply trying to sell in the wrong place, and it's not the Centro's fault if it rebuffs him, though it may point to flaws in the Centro's marketing strategy. (On the last point: Saramago's portrayal of the Centro is unrealistic. He presents it as omnipotent and destined to be unbound by time. But the Centro's rigidity and pomposity would appear to consign it to the impermanence of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias, fated to become "the decay / Of that colossal wreck . . ." "[h]alf sunk" amid "[t]he lone and level sands . . . ."

It's worth noting that Portugal, like Ireland, has been a European economic success story. According to a Portuguese government report, "Between 1986 and 2000 the Portuguese economy grew by 3.6% per annum, compared with 2.5% for the EU [European Union]. . . . Real GDP growth averaged 5.0% per annum in 1986-90, compared with 3.3% for the EU as a whole, and was the highest in the EU and second highest in the OECD during that period. Growth slowed to 1.7% during 1991-95 in response to a deteriorating European business cycle, but still exceeded the EU average of 1.5%. Portugal pulled ahead in subsequent years, and growth of 3.4% in 1996-2000 was above the EU average of 2.6%." Accompanying that growth, new shopping centers like Lisbon's Amoreiras and Columbo malls have emerged. They have been very popular, and have coincided with a decline in some traditional business districts. Yet Portugal hardly seems economically, socially or culturally the worse for these changes, Saramago's lament notwithstanding. The country was markedly better off in those respects in 1998 than it was when I first visited it in 1992.

My recommendation: if you're a Saramago fan, you may enjoy "The Cavern." But if you're new to him, start by reading one of his better novels, like "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis," "Blindness," or "All the Names."

Do you ever feel like the world around you, the concrete and steel world, has wrapped you in its austere façade? Do you ever feel like the beauty of individuality is hidden in a world that cares not for the human spirit but for the technological advancement of society? Do you ever feel like you would love to embrace your talent for art and carry out the tasks that enhance your reason for existence, but you find that your job at the big corporation consumes all your time and energy? Do you ever feel threatening fear that your abilities may become obsolete and that society may dispose of you at any moment? Saramago's Characters in La Caverna feel like this when they find out that the corporation that buys their ceramic pottery and sells it to the public, will no longer purchase their obsolete products. The book's captivating flow of occurrences unleashes a series of thoughts in the characters' minds as to existence and the due respect for love and life in general. Great book. Once you start reading it, you will not put it down until it is finished.

La Caverna José Saramago

Carta del nieto de Cipriano Algor encontrada en la sala de su casa y dirigida a sus padres.

Un día desperté a la luz de las estrellas, me encontré perdido en un mar de gente que pasaba a mi lado, todos con la vista puesta en algo. Y así, caminante errante, partí sin rumbo en busca de una salida. Pero salida hacia donde? No estaba dentro de la vida misma. Como era posible escapar a la vida, vivir otra existencia fuera de la mía, de vagabundo errante por el mundo. Vi que podía ver cosas que los demás no podían, pero el mundo era tan inmenso que me costaba trabajo creer que la única persona que pudiese ver las cosas tal y como son, o tal y como yo creía que eran era yo. Por eso era un inadaptado, un paria dentro del grupo social en el cual vivía, un loco u n alienado, un tonto, un holgazán. Me pasaba los días tratando de encontrar una salida mientras los demás se pasaban la vida disfrutando, absortos en la visión de lo que ellos creían que era la felicidad extrema, la dicha, la pasión, el amor. Pero yo sabia que había algo mas allá de las cosas y tenia que averiguarlo. Por fin con paciencia e ingenio logre encontrar en uno de los pisos altos de la edificación una grieta que me condujo al mundo externo. Mi impresión fue tal que no pude dejar de lanzar un grito de libertad. Durante tanto tiempo había vivido encerrado en ese centro que era el mundo, con sus colegios, iglesias, tiendas, con su aire acondicionado y sin mas luz que aquella artificial que iluminaba como un eterno sol y que cuando era niño había confundido con lo que mis padres habían llamado estrellas. Pero ahora era libre. Decidí dejar el centro y nunca mas volver, iría por la carretera en busca de mi abuelo Cipriano, quien según la leyenda había dejado el centro en sus inicios y se había ido a vivir lejos, como en otro mundo, un mundo donde el sol no estaba solo en los libros de historia; donde el agua corría libremente en ríos; donde las estrellas brillaban verdaderas en la noche; y donde la vida, a pesar de ser mas rustica, era mas vida, más humana, sin mecanizaciones de ningún tipo. Por fin después de tanto tiempo, era libre.

Esta situación orwelliana que se describe en la novela de Saramago, es el desplazamiento del hombre por sus maquinas. Como el centro comercial deja de ser una estructura al servicio del hombre para pasar a ser una estructura con hombres a su servicio. El pequeño negocio de Cipriano Algor es dejado a un lado y este debe tomar la difícil situación de irse a mudar en el centro, donde todo es artificial, irreal y risible, pues de lo sublime a lo ridículo solo hay un paso. La novela esta escrita de forma compacta, con todos los párrafos representando sin divisiones, pensamientos, comentarios, diálogos y demás, en lo que para quien no ha leído a Saramago antes es un poco confuso su estilo, pero es la mejor manera de escribir, pues no pierde su fuerza narrativa, deteniéndose a poner excesivos signos de puntuación. En ese sentido comparto con él la manía de escribir oraciones kilométricas a pesar de lo que dicen, que, después de ciertos párrafos, las ideas se confunden y la oración no se hace clara. Escribir para mí es un desafío diario y creo que los lectores deben ser desafiados a seguir las pautas del escritor. La novela merece la pena y bien vale el esfuerzo de sus 454 paginas.

Luis Méndez.

Un día estaba caminando el escritor portugués por una calle, creo que de Sevilla, cuando al pasar por enfrente de un quiosco le pareció ver un curioso libro titulado: El Evangelio según Jesucristo, siguió caminando con el libro en la cabeza, al no poder quitárselo decidió regresar para comprar el libro, pero ya no estaba, o quizás nunca lo estuvo. Suficiente señal para Saramago para decidir que ese libro necesitaba ser escrito, y así lo hizo. El resultado, El Evangelio según Jesucristo, levantó enormes controversias en el mundo cristiano, y el elogio universal de la critíca especializada.

10 años después, cae este libro en manos de esta humilde venezolana, quien no puede evitar maravillarse y espantarse por esta lectura. El libro no debería titularse El Evangelio según Jesucristo, sino según Saramago, porque el gran protagonista de la obra, y sobre quien pesa todo el dilema moral de la culpabilidad, es el carpintero José. La vida de Jesús adulto ocupa menos de la mitad del libro, y se revuelve alrededor de la culpabilidad heredada de su padre por haber permitido la matanza de los inocentes en Belén. La prosa de Saramago es impecable y llena de humor, la impostación de problemasen la prehistoria cristiana que podemos pensar como contemporáneos como crisis existenciales, ataques de pánico, es realmente genial. La novela puede resultar a momentos demasiado irreverente para aquellos que a pesar de no ser cristianos practicantes, hemos nacido y hemos sido criados como católicos. Nuestra religión y la de nuestros ancestros es puesta en ridículo.Todo sea por amor a la literatura.

espero que este comentario salga, el libro es perturbador y emocionante, es una perspectiva diferente de lo que pudo haber sucedido, claro que en cosas de la historia original tendremos que atenernos a hacer conjeturas basadas en la biblia, ya que nadie mas narro esa historia y si asi fue, fue desde un punto de vista muy diferente. el libro se deja leer, es ameno y entretenido, esta muy bien escrito y la historia de saramago, se sustenta muy bien.

luis mendez

Una perspectiva distinta de la vida de Jesus de Nazareth; una historia que pone a pensar a cualquiera que la lea, a preguntarse si esto o aquello de lo que dice Saramago pudo o no ser de esa manera.

Excelente! ...

Jose Saramago is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I consider his novel Blindness to be one of the best novels I've read in the past five years. The Cave only continues the growth of my respect for him.

I often find when I read one of Saramago's novels that I am reminded of other authors I enjoy. Blindness reminds me of The Plague by Camus and The Cave reminds me of The Castle by Kafka. I don't know if this is Saramago's intention. Perhaps I am reading too much into things. But Saramago is not writing lesser version of old stories. He always has a unique take and, if anything, his stories are more accessible.

In The Cave there are two key locations--the village where the main character, Cipriano Algor, works in his traditional pottery, and The Center. The Center is an ultra-modern complex of living and shopping whose residents never need to leave. Even though most of the action takes place at the village, it is The Center that is the focus of the majority of attention. It dominates the landscape both literally and figuratively. Cipriano sells his wares there and has no control over if and what the bureaucrats of The Center will buy. When his dishes are no longer wanted, he tries to sell ceramic dolls. When these are not a success, he moves to The Center with his daughter and son-in-law but, after an eerie discovery, they leave The Center forever.

And yet, Saramago is not creating an allegory of traditional vs. modern. He is telling the story of people. In his unique style of long paragraphs with little punctuation, he creates a number of very vivid characters--not only Cipriano but also his daughter, Marta; son-in-law, Marcal; and the widow, Isaura. Even the dog, Found, is a brilliant creation with a will of his own.

Admittedly, I don't believe I have plumbed the depths of this novel. The meaning of the discovery at The Center that inspires them to run away is a bit of a mystery to me. But I like a story that leaves me something to chew on. This is a novel I will come back to and read again. Saramago is that rare author who writes books worth re-reading.

Jose Saramago is, quite possibly, the best living author. It is strange that I have such a varying reaction to his books: some I find fascinating ("The Cave", "Blindness") and others I find long-winded and difficult ("All the Names"). As with most authors, this can usually be attributed to the characterizations found in the books. Saramago's style remains the same - long sentences with tons of commas. It's endearing when it's working.

I feel no need to summarize the plot, for you can read that summary directly above. And I do not wish to wreck the ending by revealing what this allegory addresses (it directly links to a very old allegory by a very well-known and respected philosopher). What I will say is that this book is simply priceless.

I cannot understand the opinion of the reviewer who gave it three stars - attempting to find fault with the factual nature of the story is silly. I suggest that reader seek out a different author. Saramago is one of the last masters of the fable. Try reading his "The Tale of the Unknown Island", or "Blindness". He is not concerned with sci-fi or alternate-future reality; he is concerned with giving us strong characterizations, internal monologues, and dialogues which lead to a conclusion he wishes us to see. It is a waste of time to discuss whether or not "El Centro" is an accurate depiction of a monolithic shopping center. It is the foil on which the tale is built. Stories must at times be melodramatic to make a point. Certainly "El Centro" is a bit fanciful, but it is also hauntingly familiar.

This is the fastest I've ever read a book by Saramago, and I enjoyed every second of it. Cipriano Algor is a strong character (as is his dog Found) who will remain with me.

I heartily recommend the book to anyone who enjoys a good anti-unification tale. Unification provides comfort and security ... but at what cost?

In Book VII of his REPUBLIC, Plato observes in his allegory of the cave that the strangers imprisoned there "are just like us." This is also the central theme of Portugese writer, Jose Saramago's new, allegorical novel. Cipriano Algor is an aging potter who lives with his daughter, Marta, his son-in-law, Marcal, and a "very conscientious, sensitive . . . almost human" (p. 307) dog named Found outside The Center, an imposing complex of arcades, shops, staircases, escalators, cafes, terraces, movie theaters, discotheques, big-screen tvs, electronic games, billboards, mannequins, a church, a casino, a gymnasium, a roller coaster, and a zoo (p. 241). Marcal works there as a security guard, and Cipriano sells his earthenware pots and jugs there until he is told that they are "worthless." People prefer plastic. Cipriano decides to make ceramic dolls instead.

In his novel, Saramago's frequent allusions to Plato's cave transition from metaphorical to literal. After Marcal receives a promotion, Cipriano moves to The Center with his daughter and her husband, leaving Found behind. Cipriano soon discovers that, in The Center, residents actually prefer windows with a view of The Center itself, finding that view "much more pleasant" (p. 238). Some people, he learns, "never see the light of day" (p. 241). During excavation, Plato's cave is literally unearthed beneath The Center, containing six bodies imprisoned there with ropes, and "as if a metal spike had been put through their skulls to keep them fixed to the stone" (p. 292). When Plato's cave becomes a tourist attraction, Cipriano and his family leave The Center to "start a new life a long way from here" (p. 305).

Readers familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave will perhaps appreciate Saramago's novel most, although other readers who think there's more to existence than big city life and shopping malls will surely enjoy exploring this CAVE.

G. Merritt

Es un libro muy profundo y muy bello. Hay que leerlo con tiempo y con ganas, pues lo importante no es tanto lo que sucede, sino las cosas que piensan y dicen los personajes. Me hizo reflexionar sobre muchos temas, como la soledad, la muerte, el patriotismo, la religion, etc.

Esta obra de Jose Saramago, es uno de los mejores libros que he leido, trata sobre los días finales de una de las personalidades de Fernando Pessoa, el Dr. Ricardo Reis, quien decide pasar sus últimos días en su Portugal Natal, constatemente habla y reflexiona con el anima de Pessoa, piensa y repiensa a una mujer que le llama la atención. es un libro muy entretenido.

Jose Saramago's book, The Tale of the Unknown Island is a little book that presents a little story. Both a love story and a fable, The Tale of the Unknown Island presents an elegant and exquisite premise that is disappointingly flawed in its execution.

The book begins beguilingly enough, when a man with a quest knocks at the door of a king and begs for a boat to make an expedition to an unknown island. The king is not immediately agreeable but our hero finds an unlikely ally in the king's cleaning woman and, after receiving the ship he has asked for, he and the woman join forces.

There is one problem. There are no unknown islands. All that exist have already been mapped and claimed by the king. When the harbormaster attempts to dissuade the man from his dream, and no one signs on board as crew members, the hero of this little tale finds that only the cleaning woman will help him pursue his seemingly impossible dream.

The island is discovered, but unfortunately, the journey taken is literally one of which the stuff of dreams are made. REM sleep and narcoleptic love play a big part in this story. It is here, in the land of dreams, where the story really falls apart and our suspension of disbelief grows harder and harder to suspend.

Nobel Prize winner, Jose Saramago, is the author of breathtakingly beautiful books such as Baltasar and Blimunda and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, and works of stunning originality like Blindness, so I expected far more from The Tale of the Unknown Island. Perhaps these high expectations were a part of the problem.

The book is written in Saramago's signature style: a breathless, barely punctuated, almost stream-of-consciousness manner that is, as always, flawless, and that captures the innocence and high spirits of the protagonist perfectly. The metaphors created, however, are highly overstated and, at times, highly irritating.

Thematically, The Tale of the Unknown Island should have worked so beautifully. There is a lazy and wicked antagonist in the guise of the king, there is the pure and innocent hero, there is the classic quest necessary for the hero to prove himself and become whole and there is the requisite healing power of true love. The key to the ending is faith and the key to that faith is love.

With all of the required elements of fairy tales and fables, why, then did this book fail to hit the mark?

Fairy tales and fables are, by their very nature, simple little tales. The Tale of the Unknown Island is quite complex but told in a simplified manner. And, as we all know, "simplified" does not quite equal the beauty inherent in "simple." Saramago's abrupt switch from satire to allegory was jarring, to say the least, and definitely detracted from the book's could-have-been charms.

The gemlike playfulness and grace embodied in a tale such as The Princess Bride or The Last Unicorn is sorely lacking in The Tale of the Unknown Island.

The illustrated edition, however, is still well worth the time and money. Peter Sis' drawings, composed of clean lines and classical beauty have a fey air of antiquity about them and achieve all that the story set out to do but did not.

Saramago is a world class writer. That cannot be denied. The fact that The Tale of the Unknown Island failed to make the grade is a flaw as tiny and insignificant as is the book itself.

"The Tale of the Unknown Island," by Jose Saramago, has been translated from Portuguese into English by Margaret Jull Costa and is accompanied by illustrations by Peter Sis. It's a short book--only 51 pages long. A capsule bio on the dustcover notes that Saramago was born in Portugal and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

This short tale has the flavor of a parable or fable. It concerns a man on a quest to find an unknown island. The story opens in an unnamed kingdom, and none of the characters have proper names; this gives the tale a sort of universal, mythic feel.

The story is well enhanced by Sis's charming, surreal illustrations. Saramago weaves some nice concrete details into the story. His prose style, as translated by Costa, is smooth and clear. This is a story of discovery with an open-ended but satisfying conclusion.

I am not familiar with the author's other books, but I really liked this short story. As with a small amount of other foreign writers whose works are translated to English, the story is a huge metaphor. A man wants a boat to explore the unknown island, which can be compared to any personal ventures we have in our own minds. A cleaning woman overhears and wants to go, too. This short book might be the key to simply letting my friend know how I feel about him. It's the journey, not the destination, and keep your eyes open to the people right next to you. You may be missing out and not even know it!

Jose Saramago is one the most important writers in the 20th Century. His 'Memorial do convento', 'O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis', 'O evanghelo segundo Jesus Cristo', and 'Ensaio sobre a cegueira' are true literature classics, both in depth and form. Those novels were almost all-embracing, covering an incredible diversity of subjects in the space of 300-400 pages. Now, with 'Todos os nomes', Saramago probes deeper into one of those subjects that are so dear to him: how to defeat death. Probably because of this, 'Todos os nomes' has a simple plot, but is highly philosophical and symbolic.

Saramago's theme in 'Todos os nomes' is best stated as a question: When do people truly die? Saramago seems to be saying that, in the world of the living, the dead must also have a place, and it is our duty to remember them. Therein also lies our dignity. In this enterprise, ironically, individual names don't matter; they are all, in the final analysis, the same because everybody (the famous and the not-so-famous) is equal in death.

Even though I enjoyed 'Todos os nomes', I found some sections verbose and trivial because too much time is spent in relating things that don't add much to the main theme. In those cases, it seemed as if Saramago didn't have a clear idea of where he was heading to in the narrative. But the main character of 'Todos os nomes', Sr. Jose (incidentally, the only character that has a name in the novel), is truly engaging, probably because in his obsessive nature he has an intense internal life that reminds us so much of ourselves.

Perhaps 'Todos os nomes' is not one of Saramago's best novels. It is, however, one that deserves attention, particularly from those interested in Saramago's worldview.

This is one of the most engrossing, absorbing and challenging books I have read this year. The deceptive simplicity of the plot, which I do not wish to give away, is belied by the fabulous richness and complexity of the language Saramago uses. It deals with such diverse themes as loneliness, obsession, self-doubt, personal development and fruition with a mastery I have rarely seen equalled. An excellent book, and a deserving Nobel-Prize winner.

El autor en este libro, a través de su estilo, lleva al lector a explorar el mundo de la duda dentro de un contexto social en el que los actos se encuentran ¨predeterminados¨. El ir y venir del personaje y del lector hacen de esta obra todo un deleite espiritual.

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.

I have read José Saramago's Stone raft in Portuguese, some years ago. I encourage everyone to read this book, even if I cannot speak about its translated versions. The Stone Raft has left me a very strong impression, above all for the author's style: his very particular ponctuation produces a very lively reading. The story just blooms in one's mind, and the author's rythm - his very breathing - takes control of the reader, which can't help but following the characters' trip through a deriving Iberian Peninsula. Arriving at the end of the last page is like awakening from a dream: I couldn't tell the story of the novel then, just as I'm unable to do it now. Still, I find this quite significant to point out: The Stone raft, which is about the Iberian Peninsula separating from Europe, was published in 1986, the year when Portugal and Spain joined the European Community. Separating us from Europe in the moment we were achieving to join it, indeed creating a new "us" that has been thoroughly refused for centuries, could not have been the fruit of hazard. Indeed, this was not the most evident way of inventing a disoriented world where people that didn't know each other met on the road, gathered by a surnatural experience. I feel here that, unlike most novels, the background itself is of an utmost importance - not only a pretext to a story - and the "conclusions" of the novel are intimately linked to the pertinence of that imagined reality. Was Saramago doing his part of "Velho do Restelo" (Luís de Camões' skeptic character who tries to persuade portuguese navigators of the dangers of their enterprise)? Likely so, but let us not condemn too quickly the Velhos do Restelo of all times, and acknowledge what Saramago, maybe unvoluntarily, reveals: skepticism about the ways of our time is simultaneously a reactionnary attitude and a revolutionnary virtue, for time doesn't go backwards, and in 1986, only a geographical revolution - or an imaginary one - could keep things as they were for Portugal and Spain.

I bought The Stone Raft several months after Saramago won the Nobel Prize, and I cannot pretend I had even heard of him before that time. I was wandering a bookstore in Reykjavik looking for something new and interesting. I figure that most of the time the Nobel committee selects authors for an outstanding body of work, so I trust their judgment. Having just finished read the majority of Nadine Gordimer's works, I was seeking a fresh voice, but something equally as intelligent and entertaining. The Stone Raft seemed a promising title with a most ridiculous and fantastic premise-Spain and Portugal breaking off the European continent and floating off into the Atlantic. I had not seen something this promising in ages. I bought The Stone Raft and The History of the Siege of Lisbon at the same time, and I immediately delved into The Stone Raft. It was slow going at first, and I could feel a great wave of disappointment creep over me because this was really not as interesting as I anticipated... but WAIT! Within 20 or 30 pages, I was riveted. I am not sure what transformation took place in the course of those pages, but suddenly this was a book I could not put down. I didn't put it down again until I finished it.

Other people have provided plot synapses and analysis, so I won't bore you with further repetition on that subject. All you need to know is that Saramago is one of the most brilliant writers alive, this is one of the most creative books of the 20th century, and Saramago's ability to pose questions that seem at once quite obvious but at the same time quite obscure is uncanny. Saramago's brilliance for observing minutiae in people's daily lives and behaviour is remarkable, and his characters are unforgettable and lively. You will never regret making the time to read this book.

I read The Stone Raft after Blindness and was immensely impressed by both novels. The story concerns the drift of the Iberian peninsula from the rest of Europe. The premise is intriguing as the stone raft sails into the Atlantic heading for God only knows where. It shifts and turns so that North is South and East is West. This crisis brings together the citizens of Iberia challenged to prepare for the possibility the island will slam into the Azores or Canada or the U.S. possibly leaving cities like New York,Boston and Philadelphia inland. The five main characters are brought together by personal miracles and find solace in each other as they witness this drift.I found myself fighting the scientific plausibility of such a phenomenon until I hit this quote: "We're already traveling on a stone raft." Indeed, the planet drifts through the galaxy just as Saramgo's stone navigates the currents of the sea. In Blindness I began to realize that Saramago's writing style, devoid of quotation marks, is the grammar of discovery, of a narration of characters trying to find their way. In Blindness we are challenged to search the text for hints about whom is speaking and where the author is venturing. Such a narrative style suits Saramago well as these two novels deal with the search for meaning in a chaotic universe. Such meaning inevitably seems to terminate with the sense we make out of each other. This is a great and wise novel, which I highly recommend.

Casi un objeto is a book that is strongly bonded to the history of Portugal and that of the modern world. The vast descriptiveness of Saramago makes the reader enter the world where the objects lie and develops a sort of suspense whether to what is going to happen to that particular object. The complex writting style makes de reader strive to the maximum to understand the meaning of the words and their strong relation to history.

I read this book, hoping for something eye opening and startlingly and amazingly overwhelming like The Stone Raft, but this book did not have that same ability to captivate. I cannot deny that The History of... is a well-crafted and, well, for lack of better diction, interesting book. It is. I read it with interest and sometimes amusement. The main character is charming, and you learn that his career as an editor has been long, distinguished and honorable (if indeed an editor can be called "honorable"). In his entire career he has never abused his position, but one day, as you will read, he does... and his liberty changes everything. Indeed Saramago raises interesting questions with this concept... when you change one single word, even the smallest of words, the entire meaning of everything can be changed. Saramago, naturally, delves more deeply into this subject in the book than I will here, but I think the book is worth reading simply for the merits of Saramago's verbal and philosophical meanderings.

If you can handle a reworking of the concept of 'punctuation' as we know it, Saramago's History of the Siege of Lisbon is well worth reading. It's not easy, by any stretch of the imagination: dialogue becomes a single block of text, single paragraphs go on for pages with no breaks and often without a period, and the whole concept of 'run-on sentence' is mostly ignored.

But it adds an incredible flow to this book. Based on a fairly simple premise--adding a single word to a history to change the entire course of the story--the book rises above plot, due in large part to the aforementioned style. Once you get used to it, the dialogue feels completely natural, not forced at all, and the sub-story of love between the proofreader and his editor falls into place perfectly. The characters are well developed to a fault, and by the end of the novel, you feel like you know them on a personal basis.

And it's got a two-page discussion of the beauty of toast. How can you not be fascinated? ("...it is so perfect and crunchy golden brown that one thinks one could go without the butter entirely, but you'd be a fool, only a fool would forego the butter...")

Overall, it took me a solid two weeks to finish this book, but it was worth my time: I completely understand why Saramago won the Nobel Prize.

When I started reading this book, all I knew about Saramago was that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature; so I did not know what to expect. Although the publisher compares him to Borges, Rushdie, and Garcia Marquez, what we have in the man from Portugal is a true native original.

We are introduced to the dusty world of a professional proofreader -- a fussy type who regrets having two gerunds in his name. I felt as if I were propelled into MOLLOY or some other of Beckett's novels as the beginning spiralled around this seemingly unlikely character.

Suddenly, everything changes. At a critical juncture in a history of the siege of Lisbon he is proofreading, Silva suddenly introduces a caret and adds the word "not" -- thus completely changing the history.

His new boss, a Dr Maria Sara is enchanted by this Bartleby-like act of negation. She challenges Silva to write a "what if" novel on the supposition that the history occurred as modified by the "not": that the Crusaders, instead of helping the King of Portugal defeat the Moors, actually sailed on to the Holy Land directly.

Meanwhile, Silva is clearly becoming enchanted with Maria Sara. What ensues is both the strangest and most convincing of love stories. Silva writes his book, brings us into the thick of the history as he imagines the various characters from the blind muezzin to the German knight to the king himself. All along, he and Maria are romancing each other through the events of the siege.

What an incredible ride! Saramago is a master at easing from one world into another and taking us with him. He is both a master story-teller and an authentic modern in his handling of a character's state of mind -- a writer who easily could hold his own in the company of the great writers of our time.