London Book Club: November

Posted on December 3, 2011 in Uncategorized

For our November meeting, the London Book Club picked a novel by prolific Portuguese novelist José Saramago. Death at Intervals describes a nameless country, inhabited by nameless people identified only by their job title or social position. Here death comes to a sudden halt one New Year’s Day.

With Saramago being a Nobel Laureate whose work has been translated into 25 languages, our expectations of the book were understandably high. In the end, most of us were suitably impressed by the impact of his ideas, though confused by seeming contradictions, and also challenged by his unique literary style.

A novel in two parts

As soon as we sat down and started chatting, it became clear that the author’s choice to split the book into two unofficial yet very distinct parts had made some kind of impression upon all of us. In the first part, the aftermath of the end of death unfolds, with the self-aware narrative making powerful comments on the influence of the media versus the grotesque impotence of government, and on how death affects the way in which we treat our loved-ones.

The second part signals the return of death after her (yes, that’s right, her) prolonged absence. We follow her as she resumes her duties, this time sending a letter to give her victims a week’s notice of their impending demise – no need to detail the hysteria that ensues! – and becomes emotionally attached to her most elusive victim.

Though we agreed that it was undoubtedly impressive that Saramago was able to pull off both styles, we all felt that we had been drawn much more into one part than the other, and that it was therefore likely that few readers would come out of the reading experience loving the book as a whole.

Those of us who preferred the second part grew frustrated during the first part with never being allowed to delve deep into the lives of the characters when tempted with tidbits of their stories. In contrast, those who really engaged with the first part’s commentary on the merits and evils of euthanasia, and the necessity of death, felt let-down by something of a U-turn for the sake of circularity by the book’s end.

Unusual narrative style

Nonetheless, we all seemed to enjoy the challenge of tackling Saramago’s characteristic stream-of-consciousness narrative, which was largely punctuation-free. Though a couple of us found that it made it more time-consuming to get back into the story after putting the book down, it was pretty rewarding to make a departure from the norm and plunge into a different outlook in the world. Indeed, this style of jumping from person to person with one idea flowing seamlessly into another before metamorphosing into something else seemed like a perfect reflection of how rumour spread through the media and by word of mouth in this anonymous country, which, with its lack of names and defining details, could be anywhere in the real world.

Reader left to draw own conclusions

Overall, we felt that the philosophy that had come through so strongly at the beginning of the book was somewhat turned on its head towards the end. Where we had been convinced that Saramago and his protagonist, death, saw the human race as being deserving of the punishment of eternal life without youth or good health to match, death’s ultimate decision seems to negate this. So, while the author’s style and daring ideas no doubt earned him his reputation deservedly, we felt that we had been left to draw our own conclusions. Perhaps that was Saramago’s intention all along.