José Saramago
L'uomo duplicato

What would happen if an epidemic of white blindness erupted in a city? What would happen if everyone left their ballot blank in the elections? What would happen if, at a certain point, in a particular place, no one died anymore?

One of the winning formulas of Saramago's books has been to start from fantastic, simple but universal premises to calmly, skillfully, and extremely logically investigate the behaviors and choices people make as a consequence. This material is moreover handed to a loquacious narrator who tries to explore the streets of possibilities not realized by the characters, only to return with a heightened awareness to those they take…

This week, after watching Enemy by Denis Villeneuve, I decided to reread The Double, to which the film is said to be inspired; and indeed, the plot of the two works is quite similar, almost identical in development, but different in the initial situation and in the conclusion.

It tells the story of a history professor, the thirty-eight-year-old Maximo Tertulliano Afonso. A fairly ordinary man: a marriage behind him, a precarious relationship in the present but with no eye to the future, and a job that engages and satisfies him enough.

The balance is disrupted by a conversation with a math colleague, who recommends a film: it's an anonymous film, in which, however, Maximo identifies a familiar face, resembling—indeed, better said, identical to his face five years earlier: the same hairstyle, the same goatee, the same mole, the same scar.

What would you do if you were to discover that in your city there is someone who is not only identical to you but has changed, is changing, and will change in the same way you have changed, are changing, and will change?

Maximo is shocked, restless, and anguished; he doesn't notify anyone but begins an investigation, carried out passionately and methodically, using all legal and illegal means to find and track down his double. He acts alone: he doesn't talk about it with his colleague, doesn't mention it to his partner, doesn't tell his mother. Yet, he uses them to achieve his goal, until he makes contact with the actor, his double, who, frightened, shuts the doors on him. However, now that they are aware of the strange case, not only is Maximo fatefully attracted to it, but also the actor and his wife. Maximo does not listen to the common sense that tells him to stop and which remains, like a Cassandra, unheard for weeks, until the cows have left the barn, the city is on fire, the palladium is in enemy hands or, as in this case, the keys to the game have passed from Maximo to Antonio.

And then? What will happen?

The Double takes its time and calmly recounts the chain of events that will involve Maximo, his double, and their respective partners, not breaking even at the end of the book.

A reason to read it? Not just for the plot twists, no. Rather, it's worth reading if you like novels that reflect on history, as well as themselves, through continuous digressions, which have become characteristic of what the novel became in the twentieth century; if you like not only immersing yourself in fiction but entering and exiting, taken by the collar by the author's skillful hand.

Three reasons not to read it? If you only like books with dense plots, rich with events and characters, where the narrative speeds along, driven by action; if you haven't read Saramago, this isn't his strongest book; finally, don't read it, especially if you're not ready to put at risk the certainties offered by the nest you've created for yourself.