The intention in no way is to take away from the official LitReactor Book Club. It offers a great place to get together and discuss cutting-edge literature, often created by people close to our hearts. It promotes a lot of independent writers and encourages us to get the word out to our communities about a lot of high-quality, low-promotion work.
Some of us feel the site could be benefitted by another Book Club that encourages and discusses the reading of more classical/classicist/canonical literature. It is a segment of literature that, as writers, we ignore to our own detriment. Strong writing, after all, is built on a broad foundation. So we offer this alternate Book Club to explore some of the cornerstone works of literature. By studying how the masters have created their work, perhaps our writing can come a little closer to the individual versions of perfection we all hold in our hearts.
I'd like to encourage everyone to participate in this. It should be pretty cool.
'Death With Interruptions' by Jose SaramagoSynopsis: On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.
Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, became human and were to fall in love?
Author Bio: Jose de Sousa Saramago was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as a permanent part of the Western canon.
Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. More than two million copies of his books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages. He founded the National Front for the Defence of Culture (Lisbon, 1992) with Freitas-Magalhães and others. In 1992, the Portuguese government, under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva, ordered the removal of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ from the European Literary Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Saramago complained about censorship and moved to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain, where he resided until his death.
A proponent of libertarian communism, Saramago came into conflict with some groups, such as the Catholic Church. Saramago was an atheist who defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition.
Discussion begins March 19.
BANNED!!!!!
"Some of us..."
I'm one of those 'us' people. I'm pretty excited about the idea. I'd love if people could give suggestions of books they would like to read/discuss.
Thanks, Utah, for being such a grown-up and drafting these sorts of things.
I didn't realize. Is this first book a banned book somewhere? Even better!
Downloaded my copy last night. Word.
Thought about Googleing my copy this morning...
word?
Yeah. I'm all gangsta.
Okay - downloaded.
I couldn't stand it.
I love the premise. The personification of Death is always an amusing subject to me.
A friend of mine recently wrote a book about a woman who has to take over the responsibilities of death and gets led around by the prophet Elijah. It's amazing.
I'm interested to see how this plays out
Wow. I'd be interested in that book.
It's so good. But...not published yet. She started shopping it in December. It is an amazingly good premise. I was jealous of her creativity. Ha.
Shit, I am too. That just sounds cool.
Pete is going to beat you up. I don't have time for the regular book club but if I find myself getting froggy to do both book clubs, I'll partake.
Ah, Pete won't beat me up. He likes it when people appreciate good books.
But seriously, find the time. This is going to be good.
I started this over the weekend. I'm having a slow start. I like the premise, but they style is slowing me down right now.
Yeah, it's definitely different. But I think the effect is really unique. His construction of three and four person conversations composed of a single, gigantic run-on sentence is very precise. And I think I get what he's after in setting it up this way, but I want to read a little deeper into the book to be sure.
If you get what he is after, you are smarter than I am. But we might have already known that.
What surprised me is how quickly (relatively) I was able to pick up and follow those strange run ons. Part of my brain rejected it (COMPLETELY), but another part was able to follow fairly well if I just didn't think about it too much. But I think that really speaks to the author's precision in creating these. He didn't just slap a bunch of things together haphazardly. I think he must have planned it out to make it flow enough to be understandable.
Or I'm thinking too much about it.
I have this idea that what he's getting at, in those conversations between government and religion, or philosophy and religion, is that in the event of death ceasing to do its job, every piece of those conversations is exactly as important as all the others. Not important at all. I think he's using the technique as a way to smear all the opinions together.
But I'm not sure. It would seem, by that logic, that if there is other stuff that occurs later in the story that is uniquely important that it would be set apart from this device. So I'm kind of anxious to see how his structure plays out.
I agree, though, I think he planned out that otherwise very confusing technique very deliberately and with an eye to somehow remove uncertainty of direction. Just with that it seems as if the guy's truly brilliant.
How's everybody coming on reading this book?
Everybody?
How are you coming, because I have a question - will there be a story at some point?
I'm not disliking what I am reading, but it's more like a documentary. I really like the religious aspects of it. It rings very true.
I haven't read any in a bit over a week. It' s back on after the Pollack book.
Any one ever watch the show Being Human?
...no...
Check it out. It has to deal with death, vampires, werewolves (not in a completely cheesy way). There is a death for mortals and another reaper for souls. Quite an interesting concept.
Almost all of Saramago's books are like this. Towards the end of his life he even stopped capitalizing the names of his characters.
I haven't read Death With Interruptions. I've read a number of others, and I love several of them. This one is on my shelf. I'll give it a read.
I'm completely unfazed by the run-on sentences. They're not complicated. But for someone encountering writing like this for the first time, it's probably weirder than it needs to be — stick it out. It's usually worth it.
@Fylh: thanks for that. And you're right, those run-ons aren't complicated. One of the amazing things about the way he pulled off this technique is that he created run-on sentences that went on and on without making them complicated. It's one of the things that really indicates the tight hold he had on his craft.
Didn't I already say that above? It's cool.
I'm hoping to get some more reading done tonight. I'm not far enough along to know how I feel yet.
Off topic of the Saramago book, the other book club seems to really be shaping up. We've got some exciting selections coming up for the next couple months. Everybody stay tuned.
I got it on audio. I'm about halfway through, I think. So far, I'm glad I got it on audio because the thickness of the language would have slowed me down a lot. But, walking through the woods and listening to the story, I'm having a good time with it.
Audio might have been the way for me to go. I didn't consider that.
It's read well and the pacing of the sentences doesn't make them sound like run-ons. Audible has a free month offer, too.
And there are a few stories in it so far, although the political/religious/philosophical discussions do keep making a come back. I feel like parts of it read like World War Z (which is a GREAT book).
Hey, thanks! I think I'll check out the audio, see if I enjoy it.
This book keeps getting better. I'm really struck by the narrator. It's not often that I run across a narrator with a omnicient first person POV that uses the royal-we when talking about what is going on.
I feel like this book is actually 3 or more connected novellas. The government and church, the criminal element, the human reaction to death, the close up personal short stories of dealing with death, and then the story of the personification of death and her journey (which I won't spoil here, but which is getting pretty interesting).
On thing that it says in the book is that Death (or death) has always been personafied as a woman in most cultures. I'm only aware of death as a woman in Neil Gaiman's Sandman books. The skeleton in a dark cloak with a scythe has always been a male figure in my mind. Does anyone else have examples of death as a female?
edit: wiki for death (personification)
There are two great Portuguese writers from Saramago's generation: Saramago himself, the only Portuguese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Antonio Lobo Antunes, the only man who ought to have won the Nobel Prize.
If you think Saramago is tough, my God, you'd hate Lobo Antunes, whose work has only become more difficult with time. He's now an old-ish man, well-regarded but intimidating to casual readers. I get the feeling it's generally accepted that Antonio Lobo Antunes is the superior writer of the two — the one possessd of real genius. I haven't read much by him, because he's published dozens of progressively more obscure books and my Portuguese reading skills are more at a Saramago level. But what I have read, I have been amazed by. The Splendor of Portugal, his most famous novel, which is open beside me in translation, is maddening and depressing and gorgeous.
Saramago, yes, won the Nobel Prize and was extremely controversial for his anti-religious views, his communism, his alleged misanthropy — but his writing appears to have weakend toward the end. If you want to see him at the height of his powers go for The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, or Blindness.
Bryan - thank you for turning me toward the audio book!! I listened to a couple hours yesterday at work, then went home and read those same sections and found it really great. I'm not letting everyone down this time, I'll have the book read on time.
Off the top of my head, I remember the fates being women. I'll have to go thinking about that.
I am beginning to get irritated with myself. I'm going to have to try really hard now to have the book finished by the 19th! Son of a...
And it's not even a difficult read. What's going to happen to me when we get to Ulysses in May?
I thought that was a secret!
I have to say I hit a roll with this one. I even got a little emotional at one section in particular. I'm actually really glad you picked this one now.
Sweet! How far in are you now?
I'm about halfway in now.
Son of a...
I'm gonna have to up my game.
Yes, yes you are.
You won't be disappointed. And it was NOT lost on me when the narrator addressed my specific complaint (how I kept saying it was a documentary). He mentions that it was a panoramic view or something like that. I should have marked it...
I really like the deliberate and honest narrator who is proud to tell you, "I am a narrator. I am currently narrating to you a story which is not real. Don't mind me."
Have you read the part *spolier? when the narrator tells you that the family was poor, but then goes back and tells you all the reasons that was not true? Like that they owned a cart and what not?
I loved that.
Yeah, that was awesome! "You know how I told you they were poor? Well, you know, they weren't, really."
Yeah! I really loved that, because even more than interesting in the story itself, it showed me how allthese little details build a certain picture. And even how she articulated a sentence said something about her social and economic standing. It was like a small lesson all on its own.
Yes! That part was great. This narrator really does tell the story as if (s)he's sitting across from you in your living room. "So there's this cool thing...but wait on that, I'll tell you in a minute. There's this other cool thing first."
It really does feel like a man sitting with you in the living room telling you this story. And I think the writing style (lack of punctuation) really lends to that. And you are so aware of the narrator all the time, and it doesn't bother me at all. Sometimes you read things and it seems strange to have an omniscient narrator with a personality, but in this I really like it.
It's been a while since I've read this book (maybe 2-3 Saramago books ago, equaling 2-3 years ago), but I do recall enjoying it.
Something Saramago (or his publisher) always seems to do is build the book way to high via the synopsis. The book jacket for Death with Interruptions makes it seem as though you are going to be reading a book with action and drama and layers of plot. But not true. Not true with any of Saramago's books. So, for anyone unfamiliar with Saramago's writing, I'd say stay away from the synopsis.
The UK title is Death at Intervals. Thoughts?
