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Title: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero ISBN: 0-15-699693-6 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: April, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (25 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: EACH ONE OF US IS HIS OWN ILLNESS
Comment: "We are all ill, with one malaise or another, a deep-rooted malaise that is inseparable from what we are and that somehow makes us what we are, you might even say that each one of us is his own illness, we are so little because of it, and yet we succeed in being so much because of it."
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis is a meandering novel, which strolls along at the pace of Ricardo Reis's last year of life. Reis is returning to his native Lisboa after more than a decade of absence, living in Brasil practicing medicine. This is a fascinating character portrait, brilliantly characteristic of Saramago and consistent with his style. Yes, Saramago has a consistent style, but this is not to say in any way that he writes and rewrites the same book. No, each of his stories has its own momentum, its own plot and its own rich texture. The reader will definitely get a different feeling from each of Saramago's offerings. Reis is not the best of Saramago's work, but the work as a whole is quite compelling. It was not a book that I could sit down and read straight through. The pace of the book lent itself well to being a bedside-table book, which I would read from once every two or three evenings before falling asleep.
Saramago again uses his novel to probe the complexities of language and philosophy, "Why is it that words often make use of us, we see them approach menacingly, like an irresistible abyss, yet are unable to ward them off and end up saying precisely what we did not wish to say." And later in the novel, he observes, "But what kind of attention, he could be telling the truth, he could be telling a lie, such is the inadequacy, the built-in duplicity of words. A word lies. With the same word one can speak the truth. We are not what we say, we are true only if others believe us."
Throughout the novel, Reis engages in conversation with the deceased poet/writer Fernando Pessoa, which is a frequent and fantastic element to this novel, which foreshadows Reis's impending demise. In one scene, Pessoa is growing increasingly annoyed because Reis is still on the side of the living-the dialogue that follows is quite typical of Saramago's writing style: Pessoa: "It is difficult for one who is alive to understand the dead." Reis: "I suspect that it is just as difficult for a dead man to understand the living." P: "The dead man has the advantage of having been alive, he is familiar with the things of this world and of the other world, too, whereas the living are incapable of learning the one fundamental truth and profiting from it." R:" What truth is that?" P: "That one must die." R:" Those of us who are alive know that we will die." P: "You don't know it, no one knows it, just as I didn't when I was alive, what we do know without a shadow of a doubt is that others die."
And later, more thoughts on the nature of death are posed, "Death is a strange thing, stranger still when you see it from the shore where I am standing and suddenly realise that no two deaths are alike, to be dead is not the same for everyone, in some cases a man takes with him all life's burdens."
Naturally there are many characters and events that populate the book, but these are generally secondary to Saramago's tales. Reis is the focus here, and Reis is a thoughtful, contemplative man. "Ricardo Reis takes stock of his own ambitions and concludes that he craves nothing, that he is content to watch the river and the passing ships, the mountains, and the peace that reigns there, yet he feels no happiness inside him..." As with all of Saramago's work, which can be sometimes burdensome and challenging to read, I highly recommend that you accept the challenge.
Rating: 5
Summary: Enter the mind of a great writer
Comment: On taking up this book and engaging in its words I immediately felt I was privy to the real thoughts and feelings of the narrator and those of Doctor Reis. I didn't feel as though this novel was a construct, an artifice. And the shifts in points of view, the different punctuation, the ghosts, the gloom, the lack of plot all give substance to the feeling that the writer is one of incredible sensitivity to what it means to be Dr Ricardo Reis. One quote - "Ricardo Reis takes stock of his own ambitions and concludes that he craves nothing, that he is content to watch the river and the passing ships, the mountains and the peace that reigns there, yet he feels no happiness inside him, only this dull insect-gnawing that never stops."(p278) Added to this are the concerns that face individuals in the modern world, such as the sense of terror engendered by the State and its bureaucratic need to know all, which Saramago brings out so well. Tenderness towards the characters - the two lovers, the concierge, the hotel guests, the lonely policeman on his nightly rounds, even the taxi driver - also help to make this a moving and rich reading experience.
Rating: 2
Summary: It's a new style... and I couldn't understood it
Comment: "Every new style in every sort of art, must demand a commitment. That is the only way to understand it". Unfortunately I couldn't...
As a literature reader fan, as soon as Saramago won the Nobel, I though "I have to read something about him". Unfortunately, the result was dissapointing.
I don't want to offend all the people that love the style of Saramago. The problem is that I found the book and the style totally boring and the result predictable (that's my standpoint, and I respect all the people who disagree with it).
There are however a couple of remarkable things in the book: The conversations with Pessoa and the ability to show some sort of fascination in an individual as Ricardo Reis, that really is a shadow.
My problem was that I found the book too boring to read. At the end I finished it, but with a big deal of pacience...
Two weeks later, I went to the bookstore and found some other books from Saramago. I found that his style was common in all of them, so I finally decided to finish my intend to read something else from him.
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Title: Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero ISBN: 0156005204 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 05 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Cave by Jose Saramago, Margaret Costa ISBN: 0156028794 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 15 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: All the Names by Jose Saramago, Margaret Costa ISBN: 0156010593 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago ISBN: 0156001411 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: September, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Stone Raft by Jose Saramago ISBN: 0156004011 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 14 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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