José de Sousa Saramago (16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his “parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality.” His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as “the most gifted novelist alive in the world today” and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be “a permanent part of the Western canon,” while James Wood praises “the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant.”
More than two million copies of Saramago’s books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages. A proponent of libertarian communism, Saramago criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. An atheist, he defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from the Aristeion Prize’s shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his work, Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived alongside his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010.
(Wikipedia)
Saramago on Necropolitics and Resurrection
Art may not be able to evade death, but through performance it can be a vehicle of resurrection.
- Saramago, José. Death with Interruptions. Trans. Margaret Jull Costa. New York: Mariner, 2009.
Saramago Videos
BOOK REVIEW | Episode 2: Death with Interruptions – Disaster, Letters, and death with a little d:
Death with Interruptions-BookTalk-80:
Who Is Jose Saramago and Why You Should Care:
LCCE Presents Kurt Rohde – Death with Interruptions:
From Memory to Fiction through History with Jose Saramago:
josé saramago: a humanist | documentary | leg: english:
Jose Saramago, a life of resistance:
Tesi and Daniel’s Saramago slides
Here you can find Tesi and Daniel’s slides used for today’s discussion of Saramago’s Death with Interruptions.
The wine made in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira (off the coast of North Africa) is fortified with brandy or neutral grape spirits. Historically, this both stabilized the wine for export and appealed to the tastes of consumers in the Caribbean and the United States. A further distinction of Madeira wine is that (unlike, say, port or sherry) it is also heated as part of the production process, and partially oxidised by being exposed to air. As early as the late-seventeenth century, travellers reported that Madeira “has one very particular and odd Property, that the more ’tis expos’d to the Sun-beams and heat the better it is, and instead of putting it in a cool Cellar they expose it to the Sun” (qtd. in Liddell, Madeira 28). The result is that it is both artificially aged and resilient against further degradation, in almost any environment. As Alex Liddell comments, Madeira is remarkable for its “apparent capacity to survive over centuries as a wine which can be drunk with pleasure” (188). It is as though the drink had cheated the pernicious effects of extreme old age.
Saramago Questions
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
On Death
So how would you define the meaning of death? What other consequences regarding the absence of death do you think would happen to society apart from reasons the author already listed?
What is your view/thoughts on death? Do you deliberately avoid or feel compelled to steer clear of such discussions?
How would living an infinite life alter your perception of fulfillment, relationships, and purpose?
What would you do if death sent you a letter that you were going to die in a year? Would you do your taxes, write your will, etc. as the government would like you to or do something different?
What do you guys think the role of memory is in the life after death of people?
How would you spend you pre-death week?
What institution or job (i.e., health care system, funeral institutions, etc) would be the most affected if there was no death in our world?
Reflecting on a world in which you have to decide whether to let someone you love live in pain or die, which would you choose? What are the moral implications of either choice?
Did this book change your perspective on death, or did you feel the same all the way?
Would you relax with your life more and not be worried about all of life’s stressors or would you take advantage of the new found time you have and accomplish all you can (without the possibility the maphia would get rid of you and you could do whatever you wanted)?
What do you think this book tries to reveal about death (not the character), and did it change your perspective on it?
Do you think life is worth it without death after reading this book? Did this novel make you less scared of death or more? How did it change your perspective on things?
death the character
Do you think humanizing death rather than having it be this god-like being would make people fear it less or more?
Why do you think death is so often personified in popular media?
Why do you think death takes on the form of a female woman? What does this add to our understanding of the book?
Before reading the book, what gender did you associate with death and why?
What are your thoughts on the way death is explored in this novel?
What do you think was the purpose of death becoming a character?
Why do you think death burned up the man’s letter: do you think she had fallen in love with him, or do you think she had a different motive?
What do you think happened after the end? Saramago leaves it open-ended about how we might deal with the absence of death for eternity.
Does death have you in her grasp? Or perhaps like Saramago possibly suggests, have you escaped her with love?
Were you also surprised by the portrayal of Death as a woman in the book? How does this aspect challenge or conform to traditional representations of death in literature?
On Immortality and Eternal Life
What do we, as readers think about this whole situation of experiencing no deaths? Would we also feel the same way that these people in the novel felt?
If you found out death wasn’t a thing anymore, how would you feel? Would you rejoice in your new found immortality or wish to complete your life at some point?
After reading this novel, would you still consider the idea of being immortal? If death disappeared in real life, would it be as chaotic as the novel presented?
After reading this book, what are your thoughts about immortality? If you were to die would you want to know in advance?
Is it really the right way to keep patients who suffer from pain alive?
In a deathless existence, would our pursuit of meaning and purpose change? Without the urgency of mortality, would we still seek knowledge, love, and creativity?
Did the novel change your perspective on eternal life?
Do you think dying should happen at some point of our lives? And for what reason do you think that?
Other
What do you think was the purpose of the run-on sentences?
Did you find yourself especially moved by any parts of the novel and if so, why?
Why do you think the names were not capitalized?
Why do you think Saramago chose to focus so much on the government when examining the topic of death? There was mention of religion, but the government took the main focus. Why do you think that is?
Do you think you are a chameleon? What makes you think yes or no?
I feel the novel pondered human nature itself and the experiences of humanity which I was not expecting from a novel seemingly pondering the significance of death I was wondering did anyone else share in a similar understanding?
What would you do if the people in Canada stopped dying?
What do you think is the significance of the envelopes being violet?
