Love And The Unknown Woman

This review is from: All the Names (Paperback)

Henry David Thoreau famously observed that most people "lead lives of quiet desperation." Thoreau could well have been speaking of Senhor Jose, the main character in Saramago's fine novel, "All the Names". Senhor Jose, age 50, is a clerk in the National Registry of a large, unidentified, city. His job is to record deaths, births, marriages, divorces on official documents covering the living and the dead of the city. The work is dull and routine. Senhor Jose is a confirmed bachelor, stuck in his habits, with no friends. He amuses himself by clipping newspaper articles and other information on famous people.

In the course of pursuing his hobby, Senhor Jose comes across the record of a 36 year old woman who has recently divorced. The novel turns upon Senhor Jose's attempt to find this woman and upon his motivation for doing so.

The story is told in a surrealistic, allegorical, Kafkaesque way. It is written in long, unbroken sentences and paragraphs which do not stop for details such as quotation marks. This style is effective because it allows the reader to enter into Senhor Jose's mind and into the minds of the many characters he encounters along the way of his search. The tone of the writing varies from sharply ironic to deeply serious and reflective. There is also a startling change of voicing in the book from third to first person in one pivotal passage which is not fully explained until the end of the story.

The novel is one of spiritual seeking with many astonishing characters assisting Senhor Jose in his quest. The characters include the Registrar at the National Registry, a Shepherd at a cemetry, and the ceiling (!) in Senhor Jose's apartment.

I found the story moving in its description of the need for human love and connectedness. Near the end of the book, Senhor Jose discusses the nature of his quest for the unknown woman. He is told that he loves her even though she is a person he has never met: "You wanted to see her, you wanted to know her, and that, whether you like it or not, is love." (p. 211) At the very end of the book, Senhor Jose himself observes, in discussing the activities of the shepherd at the cemetery in rearranging identification markers on tombstones: "it's all to do with knowing where the people we're looking for really are, he thinks we'll never know." (p. 237)

In his strange quest, Senhor Jose, and the reader, have learned something of the mystery of human love, and of the connection that binds the living and the dead.

In Jose Saramago's All the Names, we encounter a character named Senhor Jose, age 50, who seems to be suffering from something akin to existential angst. After many years of service in the records department, he is still a low-level clerk rather than a senior clerk, occupying the bottom rung in the hierarchy at the Central Registry.



Meanwhile, the Registrar serves as the grand master of the governmental bureau that lists births, marriages & deaths in an exceedingly methodical manner, with the cards of the still living distinctly separate from the cards of the dead, a system unchanged for centuries, with its own semi-mythological language, all housed within a dungeon-like building.

There is something rather Kafkaesque about Jose's plight, a sense that others are in charge of his every move, excepting when he resides in his very small house, the last of its kind, attached to the Central Registry but with a direct entrance by a door that he is not officially permitted to use. While at home, Jose collects clippings & data on the lives of famous people he has selected, with the data obsessively recorded on file cards.

In fact, everything about Jose's regimented life seems obsessive, until one evening, having snuck into the Central Registry via his private entryway while in search of documentation for those on his collection of notecards, he accidentally takes hold of a card from an anonymous woman.

Jose gradually takes a keen interest in locating & documenting her life, much as he has the lives of the famous people on his notecards. It is said that "strictly speaking, we do not make decisions but rather our decisions make us." The search for the mysterious woman becomes a life-changing quest & it may be the first time that Jose is free to chart the course of his own actions.


There seems a common theme in Saramago novels of characters cutting loose from their past in search of redefinition. There is also a kind of residual spirit of a very discordant fellow Portuguese man named Fernando Pessoa, someone whose rambling, journal-like jottings in his Book of Disquiet seems an enigmatic influence on the author. Another novel by Saramago, The Year of the Death of Robert Rais borrows the heteronym for one of Pessoa's alternate voices, separate identities rather than merely pseudonyms, as the name for its main character.

It is said that not doing things according to the format prescribed by the Central Registry rules is akin to attempting to envision a square circle and in an odd but very imaginative way, that is what the author, via the character of Jose, has the reader attempt to do, perhaps what we presently describe as "thinking outside the box.". Jose intones "Its about time I did something absurd in my life". In fact, Jose strives to redefine himself:

The fact that psychological time is not the same as mathematical time was something that Senhor Jose had learned in exactly the same way as, over a lifetime, he had acquired other types of useful knowledge, drawing first of all, of course, on his own experiences, despite never having risen higher than the post of clerk, he does not merely follow where others go, but drawing too on the formative influence of a few books & magazines of a scientific nature in which one can put one's trust or faith, depending on the feeling of the moment, and also, why not, a number of popular works of fiction of an introspective kind, which also tackled the subject, though employing different methods & with an added dash of imagination.

Throughout All the Names there is a strange blending of voices, with an occasional humorous authorial comment parenthetically included, a conglomeration of Jose seeming to speak aloud to himself, then responding with his own inner voice but also blending in the voices of people he encounters either at the Central Registry or en route to learning more about the woman he seems compelled to find or at least to document, for the data card he has unwittingly captured states only that she is 36 years old & divorced.

Beyond that, there is virtually no punctuation & what occurs is quite non-standard, much like overhearing a mix of voices that seem to blend together but which in time takes on a rhythm of its own for the reader.


The quest for the woman whose name is affixed to the Central Registry card causes Jose to break in to a school she once attended & where she later taught, secretly interview a few who knew the woman in the guise of official registry work & in time visit the General Cemetery, where the entry building architecture seems to resemble that of the Central Registry, while undertaking (so to speak) his search for her missing spirit.

There is even a curious shepherd who informs Jose that there is no real pattern to the layout of the graves or the names on them, something that completely contradicts the inflexible design of the Central Registry.

The Registrar is a complex figure but one who in my own interpretation of the Saramago novel eventually finds Jose's quixotic quest, which he seems to have known about for some time, one that may have altered his own masterful rigidity. It is the Registrar who seems to give an unstated seal of approval to Jose's curious pattern of misbehavior, quite out of keeping with his normal role as a sort of papal guardian of everything deemed sacred at the Central Registry.

Admittedly, All the Names & Saramago's other works as well, may not have a wide appeal but I enjoyed this imaginative novel very much, seeing it as a look at life from a different angle, perhaps one that attempts to separate the living from the living-dead in much the same way that the Central Registry does with the living & the dead but in a far more rigid manner.

*Within my review of All the Names are 3 photo images of Jose Saramago, including one of the author displaying his Nobel Prize for Literature medal.

What a PAIN...

Este último trimestre do ano não li tanto quanto desejaria, mas consolou-me tê-lo percorrido na companhia de Saramago. Depois de duas releituras para a Comunidade de Leitores, li pela primeira vez este n  Todos os Nomesn, um dos poucos romances do autor que nunca tinha lido. Confesso que, por via de algumas opiniões de terceiros, as expectativas não estavam muito altas, mas acabei por mais uma vez me render à capacidade que Saramago tem de contar uma história sobre o que quer que seja, até a (aparente) maior das banalidades.

Li algures que a ideia para este livro, que nos conta a história de um Sr. José, funcionário da Conservatória do Registo Civil, partiu da história do registo de nascimento do próprio José Saramago, que, sendo filho de José de Sousa e Maria da Piedade, era suposto chamar-se José de Sousa, tal como o pai, não fora o funcionário do Registo Civil, por sua própria iniciativa, ter-lhe acrescentado a alcunha por que a família Sousa era conhecida na aldeia: Saramago. E assim foi chamado de José de Sousa Saramago.

Em Todos os Nomes, o protagonista Sr. José também parece achar que precisa de acrescentar alguma animação à monotonia da sua profissão altamente burocratizada, que vem exercendo de forma exemplarmente disciplinada: nunca fica doente, nunca falta, nunca desobedece a uma ordem, cumpre escrupulosamente o dress code, fato, gravata, barba feita etc.
[nesta parte podem ler a sinopse que resume bem a premissa sem cair em spoilers].
Neste romance, Saramago leva-nos, na forma de uma das suas alegorias, aos Josés deste mundo que vêem a sua individualidade subjugada à rigidez de uma realidade burocratizada de forma quase kafkiana. Conduz-nos também numa viagem à descoberta da pessoa que está por detrás de um nome, e consegue transformar essa viagem numa aventura em que o Sr. José, para obter as respostas que procura, se vê obrigado a desafiar os seus medos e as suas amarras, resgatando-se de uma existência até aí pautada por uma subordinação marasmática. Uma aventura que, para o leitor, chega a ter alguns momentos de suspense.
A morte volta a marcar presença nesta obra de Saramago, que desta vez a põe em causa enquanto motivo de apartamento e olvido.
O final talvez não seja o que se espera, mas, para mim, o importante aqui é mesmo a viagem.
Senti esta obra como de uma simplicidade aparente, plena de subtileza e de grande humanismo.
A escrita, como sempre, pautada pelo domínio primoroso da linguagem, da arte narrativa e da utilização da metáfora, da ironia e do humor. Uma forma feliz de (provavelmente) terminar este ano literário.

n  Homem, não tenhas medo, a escuridão em que estás metido aqui não é maior do que a que existe dentro do teu corpo, são duas escuridões separadas por uma pele, aposto que nunca tinhas pensado nisto, transportas todo o tempo de um lado para outro uma escuridão, e isso não te assusta, há bocado pouco faltou para que te pusesses aos gritos só porque imaginaste uns perigos, só porque te lembraste do pesadelo de quando eras pequeno, meu caro, tens de aprender a viver com a escuridão de fora como aprendeste a viver com a escuridão de dentro, agora levanta-te de uma vez por todas, se faz favor.. n

.

I never thought a novel about a lonely and duller than dull file clerk could turn out to be so readable, but that's exactly how I found this, it was difficult to find a reasonable place to stop, of which I simply had to, as it's a bit too long to gulp down in one go, although for those who don't get fidgety cramps, don't have much of an appetite, and with plenty of time on their hands, it may work out beneficial. In fact, this is the very book the protagonist of All the Names would likely read in one go, sat up in bed, with a cup of weak coffee, and an unfulfilling sandwich, as he doesn't exactly have a busy schedule away from work, that is, until an unknown woman enters his life, no, he enters hers, only without her knowing it.

With a deceptively simple prose that uses ironic comments that intersperse within the story of an obsessional quest, and with omitted inverted commas, question marks, exclamation marks and the like, Saramago's narrative runs as smooth as silk as we follow the slightly eccentric slightly mad (he talks to his ceiling) clerk Senhor José of the Central Registry who enters into a metaphysical labyrinth of names, names and more names, tons and tons of them. He eats, sleeps, and breathes them, day-to-day. But out of hours, he takes on the task (to quell boredom most likely) of tracking down a random female, from a random card, located within the Central Registry. His nocturnal activities within the Central Registry are made that little bit easier seeing as he lives in an adjoining room to the main building.

Within the first few pages, Saramago establishes a tension that sings and rises, producing engaging revelations that culminates when the final paragraphs twists expectations once again. The title simply refers to the miles of archival records among which the protagonist toils at the Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths in an unnamed small city whose inhabitants still live by ancient and tight rules and regulations. It's the sort of system that East Germany would have been proud of. The registry is quixotically disorganized in places, the further you delve into the abyss, so that the files of those most recently deceased are buried under miles of paper at the furthest remove of the massive building that seems to go on forever. Senhor José collects clippings about famous people and surreptitiously copies their birth certificates purloining them from the registry at night and returning them stealthily, when suddenly, and it is literally suddenly, he is stricken by a need to learn about an unknown woman's life. There's no special reason for this pursuit, which becomes an elaborate and increasingly surreal catalogue of misdeeds and lies, but consumed by an overriding passion to find her, and taking more and more risks along the way, he is forced to become practical, clever, and brave, in ways he never thought possible.

Saramago relates the novels events in a finely honed and precise way, pervaded with irony, but also playfully mocking with humour. Alternately farcical, macabre, surreal and tragic, but also chilly in a kafka-esque way, his narrative depicts the loneliness of individual lives, and the universal need for human connection, even as it illuminates the fine line between those of the living and those of the dead. Starting off slowly, the pacing accelerates eventually, and José's clandestine mission turns into an adventure you simply hope in the end pays off, as he is the kind of character that appeals in a humble and hapless, but all so real way, he warms the soul the longer his escapades continue. Speaking of soul, Saramago clearly had it in abundance. Not entirely positive about it's ending though, so a minor smudge there, but that aside, All the Names was a top notch piece of fiction.

آقای ژوزه یک کارمند مقرراتی و مبادی آداب سازمان ثبت احوال که برای پر کردن تنهایی خود، سرگرمی کوچکی درست کرده است و آن ساخت کلکسیونی از اطلاعات آدم‌های مشهور است. که برای این سرگرمی خود گهکاه خلاف کوچکی هم می‌کند. اما به طور اتفاقی با اطلاعات زن گمنام یا به قول خود آقای ژوزه، زن ناشناسی مواجه می‌شود و تصمیم می‌گیرد به دنبال شناختن آن فرد برود. و در این راه است که آقای ژوزه خود را می‌شناسد.از آن جاست که خلاف‌های کوچک آقای ژوزه بزرگ و بزرگ‌تر می‌شود و دیگر مثل سابق یک کارمند منظم نیست.
از میانه‌های کتاب، آقای ژوزه مرا به یاد فیلم محبوب «زندگی شگفت‌انگیز آملی پولن» انداخت. در آنجا هم مرد جوانی‌ است که سرگرمی مورد علاقه‌ش، ساخت کلکسیونی است از عکس‌های فوری که توسط صاحبان‌شان در ایستگاه‌های مترو پاره میشوند و دور ریخته می‌شوند. و در این بین مرد عاشق دختر ناشناسی می‌شود ک نه او را دیده است و نه حتا چیزی ازش می‌داند. پسر جوان هم با اشیاء خانه‌ش صحبت می‌کند و راهنمایی می‌گیرد ،درست مثل آقای ژوزه که با سقف خانه ش صحبت می‌کند. انگار این قابلیت آدم‌های تنهاست که می‌توانند با هر چیزی هم‌صحبت شوند.
اما به این کتاب دو ستاره بیشتر ندادم چون نتوانستم بفهمم نویسنده چه مساله مهمی را می خواست بگوید. احساس می‌کنم باید کتاب دیگری بخوانم که برایم نمادها و استعاره های این کتاب را روشن کند.چون فکر میکنم این سازمان ثبت احوال، این دنیای مردگان و زندکان، این آقای ژوزه و رئیس او، همه استعاره‌های از دنیای بزرگتر بودند. در کل نتوانستم بفهمم چه چیزی را میخواست بگوید ولی کتاب نثر خوب و روان و بامزه ای داشت و گهگاه جملاتش مرا به فکر فرو میبرد.

This is he third Saramago book I have read, and coincidentally the best so far (perhaps partly because I have become accustomed to his exotic use of punctuation and unique style.) It tackles so many themes and genres that it is really very hard to describe, it's Kafkaesque to a degree, focuses on loneliness and its similarity in a way to death, the fragility and short time we have on earth, the idea of identity, the possibility of love, how well we know ourselves and those around us, curiosity, our purpose, and loss. I really can't do justice to this book in this brief review. It blew my mind; the prose is breathtaking. I'm glad I gave Saramago another chance after being only somewhat satisfied by Blindness and Cain.

In general I do not really like novels of ideas in which the characters are flat, only carriers of the ideas the author wants to expose. This book is no exception. The omniscient narrator is meant to be funny but is really annoying. His formal language winds itself in unnecessarily long sentences that ask a lot of concentration. The ideas the author wants to bring across, if present at all, do not seem very interesting. A waste of time!

آلف الشوارع
وأتوه في المدينة
أضيع في المواجع
و دموعي الحزينة
وفي كل الشوارع
لا ضاعت مواجع
ولا هديت عيوني
ولا عاد اللي راجع

موظف خمسيني يعيش على الهامش. ليس لديه أي طموح و لا أمل و متعته الوحيدة في تتبع المشاهير بأخذ قصاصات من أخبارهم و رصد رحلة صعودهم أو أفول نجمهم.

لن يجد مفرا لإخبارها بكل ما تبقى. و ما تبقى هو مجموعته من الشخصيات المشهورة. و خوفه من المرتفعات. و الأوراق المسودة. و شباك العنكبوت. و خزائن ملفات الأحياء الرتيبة. و فوضى خزائن الأموات. و العفونة. و الغبار. و اليأس. و أخيرا البطاقة التي خرجت لسبب ما ملتصقة بالبطاقات الأخرى.

كانت تنقصه المغامرة و قد جاءت تماما في وقتها و أجبرته على التخلي عن نمط حياته و الانطلاق في هذا العالم الذي لم يدخله قط.

لقد قيل منذ الأزمنة الكلاسيكية بأن القدر يحمي الجسورين. وقد كانت الوسيلة المكلفة بالحماية في هذه الحالة هي المطر. أو بكلمات أخرى. السماء مباشرة.

ربما كان القدر هو من أرسل إليه هذه المغامرة و من هنا توجب عليه أن يحميه و يؤيد خطاه. أو هكذا ظن.

الحال في المحفوظات العامة ليس على هذا النحو. ففي المحفوظات العامة لا توجد إلا الكلمات. في المحفوظات العامة لا يمكن رؤية كيف تغيرت الوجوه. أو كيف هي آخذه بالتغير.

و من رتابة الإدارة العامة لمحفوظات السجل المدني إلى العالم الملون المليء بالصور. الزاخر بالحياة. تبدأ مغامرته و من ثم متاعبه.

لقد كنت أعيش بسلام قبل أن يتسلط هذا الهاجس العقيم إلى عقلي. البحث عن امرأة لا تعرف حتى أنني موجود. و لكنني أعرف أنها موجودة. و هذه هي المشكلة. من الأفضل أن أتخلى عن الأمر دفعة واحدة.

شيئا فشيئا تتفتح عيون السيد دون جوزيه على حقائق لم يكن سيراها أو يعيها أبدا لولا أن القدر ألقى به في التجربة.

القصة متشابهة بالنسبة للجميع. ولدت. ماتت. و من ذا الذي سيهتم الأن بمن كانت. فالأبوان إذا كانا يحبانها. سيبكيان لبعض الوقت. ثم يقل بكاؤهما فيما بعد. ثم يتوقفان بعد ذلك عن البكاء. هذا هو المعتاد. و الرجل الذي طلقت منه لن يكترث. صحيح أنها قد تكون على علاقة عاطفية. أو عاشرت أحدهم. أو قد تكون على وشك الزواج مرة أخرى. و لكن هذه القصة ستكون قصة مستقبل لا يمكن لها أن تعيشه. فليس هناك في العالم من يكترث للقضية الغريبة للمرأة المجهولة.

تلك المرأة المجهولة التي برزت إليه من العدم عن طريق بطاقتها التي تظهر القليل من المعلومات عنها ثم صورها التي ظن أنها تنبض بالحياة ثم لم يلبث أن ضاع الخط الفاصل بين الموت و الحياة في قصته مثلما هو ضائع في إدارة المحفوظات و في المقابر العامة نفسها.

إن الصور القديمة تخدعنا كثيرا. فهي توهمنا بأننا أحياء فيها. و هذا غير صحيح. لأن الشخص الذي ننظر إليه فيها لم يعد موجودا. و لو كان بمقدوره أن يرانا فلن يتعرف على نفسه فينا. و سيقول: من هذا الذي ينظر إلي بوجه محزون.

كل الأسماء ستؤول في النهاية إلى المقبرة العامة و ما الإدارة العامة لمحفوظات السجل المدني إلا رافد من روافد المقبرة برغم أن المقبرة لا تضم إلا أسماء الميتين و السجل المدني يضم أسماء الميتين و الأحياء معا إلا أن الأحياء ما هم إلا موتى مستقبليون و من هنا فإن كل الأسماء عمليا هي داخل المقبرة سواء كان ذلك حادثا الأن أم في المستقبل سواء البعيد أو القريب.

ربما كنت على حق عندما قلت إنه لا يمكن إيجاد تفسير لأي انتحار. إذا ما فسر عقلانيا سيفهم كل شيء جرى. كما لو أنها لم تفعل أكثر من فتح باب و الخروج. أو الدخول. حسب وجهة النظر. في هذا تجد تفسيرا رائعا. لقد كان تعبيرا مجازيا و المجازات هي أفضل طريقة لتفسير الأمور.

لينك أغنية ألف الشوارع لمحمد منير

تجد مراجعتي للجزء الأول  هنا
تجد مراجعتي للجزء الثاني  هنا

"É sabido como os nossos pensamentos, tanto os da inquietação como os do contentamento, e outros que nem são disto nem daquilo, acabam, mais tarde ou mais cedo, por cansar-se e aborrecer-se de si mesmos, é só questão de dar tempo ao tempo, é só deixá-los entregues ao preguiçoso devanear que lhes veio da natureza, não lançar na fogueira nenhuma reflexão nova, irritante ou polémica, ter, sobretudo, o supremo cuidado de não intervir de cada vez que diante de um pensamento já por si disposto a distrair-se se apresente uma bifurcação atractiva, um ramal, uma linha de desvio. Ou intervir, sim, mas para o impelir com delicadeza pelas costas, principalmente se é daqueles que incomodam, como se estivéssemos a aconselhá-lo, Deixa-te ir por aí, que vais bem."

«Todos os nomes», mais do que uma história que conta a vida do Sr. José (com as respetivas aventuras e desventuras), pode ser visto como um ensaio sobre o absurdo da vida e da morte – o início e o fim – momentos sempre marcados naquela Conservatória do Registo Civil; sendo certo que, no intervalo entre esses dois momentos, vamos vivendo uma inevitabilidade mais ou menos monótona.

Mas, de quando em vez, há acasos que pontapeiam com pujança essa monotonia e são os principais responsáveis por dar sentido a uma vida. O Sr. José que o diga.

I have read some of the glowing reviews of this book, and recognize that others see an expressive genius in it, but I was left unmoved. In fact, I was amazed that my copy had three pages of study and discussion questions at the end for students. I can’t imagine assigning a book like this to young people who are still forming their impressions of life and literature. The plot moves so slowly, the characters are so wooden and unrealistic, and the writing style has the high pretension of a Nobel Prize submission. Make kids read this and you will turn them off from reading for life; they will end up like that football player Rob Gronkowski, who boasted about not having read a book since grade school.

There are occasional flashes of insight into the motivations of sad, lonely people caught up in meaningless, incomprehensible lives, but they are often so oblique they made little impression on me. The protagonist talks to his ceiling, which talks back, portentously, of greater meanings and life’s purpose, but that is a heavy handed way for the author to abstract some philosophical depth from a shallow plot device. The first time this happened I rolled my eyes and laughed, wondering what my professors would have said if I had tried something like that in one of my papers. A talking ceiling, really?, why not a talking dog or goldfish?

The man, known only as Senhor José, embarks on a meaningless quest to find out about a woman he has never met and who has no idea he even exists, and the search is used to give meaning to his pathetic life. If I make a real stretch I suppose I could see some of Don Quixote in the silly quest, but it is a poor imitation of Cervantes. There is also some black humor in the absurd way the city’s bureaucracies are run, but Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil did it better.

The book lingers on the interface between life and death, which is apparently a theme in Saramago’s books, but there are no grand insights. Death is a labyrinth, mirrored by the cavernous hall of records, so vast and so disordered that researchers have to unspool a thread as they go in, so that they can find their way out. Yes, just like Theseus and Ariadne. It’s a joke, but not a very good one, and the whole metaphor of death as bureaucratic incompetence has been overused to the point of self-parody.

Okay, so who am I not to like what is apparently a great and timeless work of literature? I’m just another reader, and if you like this book, great, De gustibus non est disputandum. For me, though, it was less than the sum of its parts.