Jose Saramago has died at 87 years old. Link
He was one of the great ones. My first dog was named “Achado” after the faithful dog in “The Cave”.
I am sad I won’t get to read any more books by him.
There’s a rather interesting interview with him in The Paris Review here. I must admit I’ve never read any of his work, but some people I follow on twitter mentioned his death, and I’ve some sort of long-term ambition to read something by every Nobel Laureate. What would you recommend?
Everything. But especially Blindess and the Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis.
I recommend The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.
This is the first I’ve heard of his death and my heart sank at the thread title. How sad. He will be missed.
Very sad to hear this news. I’ve read Blindness and Baltasar and Blimunda. I second Blindness as a good first Jose Saramago novel, but it is rather graphic. There is a movie of the same name with Julianne Moore, I think, made from that novel. I finished reading Baltasar and Blimunda and was stunned for a few seconds at the subtely he ended it with. It might be the best love story ever.
So I’m a big fan of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. Last year, I realized that I had watched civilization fall apart so many times in a row that I was getting rather depressed. I couldn’t take it any more. But my passion for reading about everything going to shit raged on.
I had Blindness on my shelf, so I figured it would at least show a different kind of societal breakdown. You know–mix things up a little. I got about a third of the way into it and started to feel like I wanted to throw myself off a bridge. So I stopped reading it.*
I doubt I’ll ever pick that book up again, but I was pretty blown away by the writing. This is a great loss to the literary world.
- Then I did the only sensible thing and read Lucifer’s Hammer.
Personally think The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis is his best, but probably not the place to start. First I read was The Stone Raft, which worked well as an introduction and is pretty light - even silly, given the premise.
It was the first I read and it’s still my favourite. It’s wonderfully slow to read. I normally read books too quickly but this slowed me to it’s leisurely pace.