Product Description

On the first day of the New Year, no one dies. This understandably causes great consternation amongst religious leaders - if there's no death, there can be no resurrection and therefore no reason for religion - and what will be the effect on pensions, the social services, hospitals? Funeral directors are reduced to arranging funerals for dogs, cats, hamsters and parrots. Life insurance policies become meaningless. Amid the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration: flags are hung out on balconies and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity - eternal life.But will death's disappearance benefit the human race, or will this sudden abeyance backfire? How long can families cope with malingering elderly relatives who scratch at death's door while the portal remains firmly shut? Then, seven months later, death returns, heralded by purple envelopes informing the recipients that their time is up. Death herself is now writing personal notes giving one week's notice. However, when an envelope is unexpectedly returned to her, death begins to experience strange, almost human emotions. In his new novel, Jose Saramago again turns the world on its head - an everyday event is snatched away, and humankind is left to make of it what it will.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17393 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
`a genial mix of satire, fantasy and the comically prosaic'. --The Financial Times

Review
`I wish more novelists writing exhibited this much intellectual ambition, and this much humanity and elegance in realising it'.

Review
"Confirming Saramago's `most important novelist' status."

Customer Reviews

Better and better
This appears to be the third of a series of books in which Saramago's fictional city comes to terms with the effects of some implausible but brilliant affliction. In the first - blindness - we see the city struck down with an inability to see; The second - seeing - sees the city's inhabitants unanimously cast blank votes in th general election, and here, the city is now in the grip of death's abscence, literally unable to die.

Saramago's gift is the way in which he uses these events to explore the consequences in a society set up to deal only with the inevitable. In this latest, the abscence of death holds huge problems for the church's theologising, the government's ability to govern (for what of endless pension payments?!), the hospitals' intake and the funeral homes' sudden insolvency. The book is riddled with small snapshots of the effects on ordinary people, nicely juxaposed with the government's reaction on a larger scale.

Saramago commands his prose beautifully, and his ability to constantly both engage and involve the reader (we are reminded throughout that this is all taking place on the page) is credit to his ability; if you haven't read any Saramago yet, begin with The Double (still his best) and then if not this series, then this particular book. Wonderful.

Great idea so what went wrong?
The book suffers due to its length. The premise is straight forward; what happens if death takes a break and people don't die. Then if death returns portrayed as an earnest, committed female skeleton, what happens when having been given more free will the people refuse to accept their fate. These are presented as profound philosophical questions laced with stick dry humor. Over the length of the book though their impact is weakened by an overly detailed explanation of plot without -dare I say this- any of the characters being really fleshed out. In summary I thought it was a great idea but too similar in style to his other books so becomes annoying rather than enlightening. A disappointing read.

death, where is thy sting?
There are several reasons why this is not Jose Saramago's best book. The first is that it is, if anything, two books rather awkwardly spliced together. The first is a satirical piece about a country reacting to the withdrawal and, later, return of Death - or rather "death" herself. Whereas in earlier novels such as "Blindness" or "The Cave", Saramago revealed the world to us through the eyes of his characters, slowly unveiling their confusion and disturbance, here he chooses the omniscient narratorial view traditionally favoured by satirists. I must say, it did not work for me. Saramago's steady and measured (at least in this translation) prose lacks both the necessary lightness and bite, and as a consequence his satirical observations can seem somewhat banal: politicians try to talk their way out of problems and do dodgy deals, the Church tries to cover things up, the mafia (or rather "maphia") make money, people muddle through. So what?

The second - more successful - novel is the story of death herself, a death worn down - unknowingly - by millennia of dutifully and flawlessly performing her allotted task. When one of her "victims" fails to die, she chooses to investigate matters in person, finding her own outlook changed in the process. This section finds Saramago on much better form. He has a real empathy with the victim, whether that victim be an old potter, a seeing woman among the blind, or even Christ and his family. Here he shows us the vulnerability of a figure usually seen as the ultimate victor. Unfortunately for the author, however, he has pitted himself against another satirist, who has specialised for a long time in showing us the humanity of death: Terry Pratchett. Pratchett's Death, like Saramago's "death", is weighed down by years of service and, like Saramago's version, decides to take a leave of absence. Unlike Saramago's death, Death also has a sense of humour and is given to popping to the takeaway for a curry. He also seems to have a more sophisticated take on his own destiny and that of humanity than Saramago's death, whose decision at the end of the novel seems inevitable and rather trite long before death herself decides to make it.

Overall, if you want to read a brilliant book by Jose Saramago, read "The Cave" or "Blindness" or any of his other marvellous works. If you want to read a brilliant book about Death and its vital role in our lives, read "Mort" or "Reaper Man" by Terry Pratchett.