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Rating: The recently deceased Nobel laureate must have had great fun writing this story. Aside from the grandeur of the title, so musical, evocative, perfect, the content astonishes with the extreme skill with which Saramago adheres to a single idea.
A novel born from the "what if..." formula, exploring all possible logical consequences arising from the application of an idea to reality, namely the suspension of human mortality, in a country that is not better specified.
As the author demonstrates, the difficulty does not lie so much in finding a valid, compelling, original idea, but rather in bending one's creativity to this project, without stepping out of a container which, in some respects, can be tight, even if chosen with full awareness.
The explanation of all this lies in one word: craft.
The craft of writing, the professionalism that underlies a talent, an art that is characterized also as a daily practice, becoming meticulous research, a chiseling of an idea.
An artwork, therefore, that is readable, entertaining, but does not stir the souls, does not generate pathos. Rather like a very pleasant evening with an excellent entertainer, who doesn't miss a word.
Sure, there are some sharp critiques of the political, economic, religious status quo, masked by ironic considerations on the relationship between society and death. But all this instrumental skill, one might say, while supporting the pleasure of a clean, sober, fun, and somewhat complicit reading, does not hide a certain detachment from the emotional matter, from the impulses that stir in the depths of the sea of ideas.
A great lesson in style, of what a true writer must (also) be capable of doing, for all the wannabes scattered everywhere, which also gives us a truly spectacular ending.
Perhaps it won't be the novel that will move you, or make you dream, but that's not its purpose, its design, one might say.
Saramago. Architect of storytelling.
Beginning:
"The following day no one died. The fact, being absolutely contrary to the norms of life, caused enormous disturbance in the minds, which was entirely justified, we need only remember that there was no mention in the forty volumes of universal history, even if it was just a sample case, of such a phenomenon ever occurring, with an entire day passing, with all its generous twenty-four hours, between day and night, morning and evening, without a death from illness, a fatal fall, a successful suicide, nothing at all, zero smashed."
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By dado
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