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defrogWell, not that fast, maybe.
Death with Interruptions by José SaramagoMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ve never read Jose Saramago before, and I’ve been told more than once that if I dig Gabriel Garcia Marquez (which I do), I should read Saramago. Somehow I’ve never got around to it until now, when I came across a cheap copy of this 2005 novel, which is fairly late in his career, so I don’t know if it’s the best place to start. But it’s a place to start. And it’s a pretty good hook: in an unnamed country, one day people just stop dying. Which may sound like good news – until you realize that this has consequences.
On the one hand, people with terminal illnesses stay on the brink of death permanently. Secondly, you now have a growing elderly population problem. This also means hospitals and nursing homes are now overloaded. Meanwhile, the undertakers and insurance companies are in big trouble, and the Catholic Church has an existential crisis on its hands (i.e. how do people get to Heaven now, and does the Resurrection mean anything if there is no longer death, which is a prerequisite?). You get the idea.
Saramago spends the first two thirds of the book focused on this, as well as why death has decided to stop killing people, and – once she realizes this isn’t going as she planned – she devises a solution that makes things worse (and yes, the gender and lowercase ‘d’ are intentional). The last third features death taking the form of a human woman to find out why a cellist who is scheduled to die is still very much alive. My main complaint is that – unless the Kindle version is badly formatted – Saramago is one of those authors who writes really long paragraphs whilst ignoring the conventions of proper punctuation. Which makes it a chore to read, even once you get the hang of it. Anyway, It’s quite surreal and strangely amusing. Will explore Saramago further.
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Millions now living will never die,
This is dF
