The Cave is my first experience of Saramago, and I suspect it doesn't represent the qualities that won him the Nobel prize, though it may well deal with representative themes. One of the blurbs mentions that Saramago described himself as an essayist who turned to novel-writing, and this work could easily be described as an essay on the dangers of urbanization and centralization, the inevitable but sad decline of the individual artisan, and the complicated but ultimately overwhelmingly valuable nature of family relations. The story is essentially a parable, and not a subtle one, so let me talk instead about the narrative.

The omnipresent, hovering, interjecting, digressing narrative voice is something of a shock to a reader whose Read shelf contains the works mine does: it's so intrusive that it vies with the plot for being the focus of the novel. There is much to be unhappy with in this approach, but somehow the reader -- this reader -- never was unhappy: the gentle confidence of the voice somehow makes it acceptable, and over this very old-fashioned style eventually cast a very modern glow through commenting on its own selection and narration of events. Almost against my will it led me to accept it.

The Cave maybe not actually be a novel but a fictional reworking of a cautionary tale, an essay on some of the pitfalls of life cast in fictional form. But if one can relax with the narrative voice, the work, whatever it might be classified, can provide much of interest, and of pleasure.

bettie's Books

The rating, any status updates, and those bookshelves, indicate my feelings for this book.

Nosotros lectores iremos penetrando en la humanidad del alfarero, de su hija, de su yerno y hasta de su perro, con quienes comparte su casa y su vida en el campo. Una prosa al más puro estilo de Saramago, sin guiones, pero con mucho humor y sarcasmo, interrumpida cada tanto por las explicaciones por igual minuciosas y deliciosas del narrador, que insiste en devolvernos a nuestro centro, no somos el alfarero, solo estamos leyendo su historia, ¿verdad?.
Saramago nos regala un profundo y estimulante análisis de lo que somos, fuimos y podemos ser como personas y como sociedad.

In un futuro non troppo lontano di una città non troppo difficile da immaginare, l'artigiano ceramista Cipriano Algor è in lotta.

Una lotta che tutti conosciamo fin troppo bene: la sua piccolissima impresa di produzione di terrecotte è stritolata dalle leggi della macroeconomia e, agli occhi senza morale e senza pudore degli operatori di mercato, è ormai virtualmente inutile. Non gli resta che chiudere e seguire l'unica soluzione che ha ancora la fortuna di avere, rassegnarsi ad una vita da inutile non lavoratore ed entrare a far parte del Centro, il grande e modernissimo impianto in grado di fornire a basso costo una vita piena di ogni confort. Di plastica. Da reclusi.

Questo "la caverna" segue la strada del romanzo apocalittico iniziata da Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, raccontando lo stesso mondo alienato, le stesse anime stritolate dentro uno stampino che ci rende tutti uguali per poter essere meglio governati, le stesse menti lobotomizzate dal divertimento.

Appartenendo ad una generazione successiva, Saramago sa essere più profetico e consapevole nel descrivere l'inferno del futuro: compaiono tematiche come la propaganda ed il divertimento come strumento di dominio, ma anche il doloroso tema del disastro ambientale, e soprattutto quello attualissimo e drammatico della crisi economica, la fine dell'illusione della crescita continua come strumento per produrre libertà. Ma paradossalmente, l'intuizione che da senso a tutta l'opera e senza la quale "La caverna" sarebbe solo una riscrittura più cinica e meno romanzata di 1984 e di Fahrenheit 451, è che l'immagine più scioccante e vivida della nostra condizione di uomini ridotti a cose, e del nichilismo che da cose ci riduce a nulla, non va cercata nel futuro ma nel passato.

Quanto somigliamo noi cittadini incosapevoli di quanto ci circonda, supernutriti nel corpo ma con l'anima addormentata da divertimenti sempre più fragorosi, annichiliti da una cultura del nulla, a quegli schiavi incatenati nel fondo della caverna che contemplano le ombre proiettate dal fuoco nelle tenebre e che, suprema stoltezza, si prendono gioco di quelli che per eccesso di saggezza non si adattano a quella logica fatta di nulla? Quanto c'è di somigliante tra la fallacia delle ombre diafane ed il luminosissimo mondo del marketing, che ci tormenta con bisogni fittizi o che toglie valore ad ogni cosa subito dopo che l'abbiamo comprata? O con la finanza creativa, che si illude di creare ricchezza dal denaro (un altro assurdo, secondo gli antichi) e che non tiene in nessun conto della reale capacità degli uomini di saper creare?

Per capire a che punto siamo arrivati e come poter reagire non dobbiamo guardare avanti, ma indietro. L'intuizione di Saramago è grande, la trasposizione in romanzo assai meno. Ossessionato dal sottolineare la frattura fra il mondo concreto e solido del piccolo artigiano ed il regno del nichilismo del centro commerciale, il romanzo soffre di un dualismo troppo schematico, e l'autore nel descrivere la vita artigiana cade in un naturalismo un po' di maniera ed un po' troppo idealizzato, arrivando in casi estremi a cadere in alcune elusioni un po' troppo spinte (non si capisce come un lavoratore agreste semianalfabeta possa conoscere a menadito il mito della Caverna di Platone).

Indimenticabile la figura del fedelissimo cane adottato dal protagonista col nome di Trovato e, a dispetto di quello che dicono in tanti, mi è piaciuto molto lo stile martellante, particolare e aggressivo di Saramago (anche se effettivamente non cosi facile da affrontare).

Lo avesse scritto chiunque altro, il solo parallelismo tra la caverna di Platone e le nostre metropoli sarebbe valso 4 stelle, e rende comunque il romanzo assolutamente consigliato. Ma con un premio nobel bisogna essere puù esigenti: tre stelle e mezza con ampie possibilità di recupero!

لم أعتقد أنه بعد سنواتي الثلاث بعد الثلاثين، وقراءاتي للعديد من الأعمال الادبية الشهيرة بإثارة العواطف، وبالأخص بعد التجربة القريبة زمنياً لفقدان عزيز أن هناك عمل أدبي قادر على إثارة الشجن والحزن لدرجة أن أكون على وشك أن تدمع عيناي.
والغريب ان من فعلها هو ساراماجو - كاتبي المفضل - الذي طالما استمتعت بأعماله بعقلي, وفي أحيان كثيرة كان حبي لأبطاله وتعاطفي معهم ومع الحالة العامة من الشجن والحزن التي تحيط بهم يأتي في مرحلة متأخرة بعد إنبهاري واستمتاعي بشكل رواياته وأسلوبه.
ولكن هذه المرة أجد نفسي متعاطفاً مع أبطال العمل جميعاً حتى الكلب "لقية" بل حتى مع زوجة اللص المتوقع في الفصل الأول. هذه الرواية بدون منازع أفضل عمل عبر - بجانب أشياء أخرى - عن فظاعة الفقدان وعن جبروت "التقدم".
يضاف لما سبق توجهي الشخصي وأفكاري التي تميل نحو كراهية كل ما هو ضخم ومصطنع, كل ما يمثل قيد على حرية الفرد في الإختيار. الصورة التي تتبادر إلى ذهني الآن مع كتابة مراجعتي هي قرية الفصل الأخير في فيلم كوروساوا الشهير "أحلام" ... يا ليت عائلة "الجور" تصل إلى هناك.
عودة لساراماجو وأسلوبه وعلى غير العادة ودون أن يؤثر ذلك على إعجابي بالرواية فأنني وجدت صعوبة أحياناً في متابعة الحوار خاصة عندما يكون ثلاثي - بعض الأخطاء في مكان الحرف "البولد" أربكتني زيادة وعندما غابت في أحد الفصول قرب النهاية لم أفتقدها- أيضاً شعرت بملل في إستطرادات ساراماجو اللغوية والفنية. قد يكون مرجع ذلك أن الرواية في معظمها - وما عدا بعض التفاصيل حول المركز - واقعية بإمتياز فيكون للإندماج أولوية على الأبعاد اللغوية والفنية.
لا أحب أن أنسى في النهاية دور مدير المشتريات ونائبيه وبخاصة "الودود" منهما الذي عبر ببساطة وبشكل تام الوضوح عن عقلية حكام العالم الحقيقيين المسئولين عما يشعر به أمثالي من بؤس كوننا نعيش هذا العصر.

The simultaneous simplicity and depth displayed in Saramago’s writing captivates, as always.

The characters, including a dog, are incidental and intrinsic to his storytelling.

(His nod to Plato, notwithstanding)

The reading of some novels feels like streaming down a fast river, with the story pushing your slim canoe along the waters. The unfolding of the plot as it presents and avoids the obstacles provides the seductive excitement. Driven by curiosity, reading the river engulfs you with its roll. This is not so with Saramago’s The Cave. Instead this novel offers a slow glide along the peaceful waters of a lake of nostalgia and wonder.

For with its simple story and during the measured drift in a simple boat there are inviting echoes from Biblical times that will make you lift the oars and ponder. For clay it was and clay it will be. And as you pause and look around in the open air and open waters, the novel will invite your understanding to a full spectacle in which there will be no shadows, no illusions, no screens, no chains. It offers a possible escape from Plato’s Cave.

What induces this state of placid and rescuing alert is the quality of Saramago’s lake. His flowing prose with continuous dialogues that sweep along uninterrupted lines of text—in which only a Capital letter signals the alternation of voices--; with the periodic authorial guidance that always strips out the unequivocal from trapping conventions; with his shrewd meditations on the nature of language and of creativity; with a much milder and sweeter presence of the humour to which he has accustomed us with other works; and with his inimitable candour and current of tenderness, makes the rowing and reading an exercise in healing serenity.

And out of this writing he has moulded his characters as representative bonecos or figurine-dolls in clay--without forgetting their dog, the appropriately found Achado -- that will behave like projections of ideas and help you notice that your boat can be easily managed and that you can make it take you where you want to go. For things come and go in our life and one has to try to stay under the clear light that helps us see crisp and far.

‘It is not only great works of art that are born out of suffering and doubt.’

Do we allow ourselves to be tricked into substituting simple pleasures and convenience for authentic reality? Do we willingly allow ourselves to be submissive pawns in a game of corporate and political control? Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s The Cave is an enlightening examination of Plato’s allegory of the cave as he depicts a natural world shrinking away as the cheap, plastic reign of a compartmentalized authoritative control casts its shadow across the land. The Cave chronicles the struggles and strife of the kind hearted Algor family, who find themselves in a difficult place when the powerful capital city The Center ceases purchasing their hand-crafted pottery, choosing instead to stock their shelves with plastic dining sets that are cheaper to mass produce, and are bound by a contract forbidding any dealer to the Center, past or present, from selling to anyone else. Saramago harnesses his marvelous poetic wit to make the readers hearts ache for the Algor family, and the plight of manual laborers as their livelihood is threatened by ominous forces that place profit and power over quality and general well-being. The political climate in The Cave creates a perfect breeding ground for a discussion of Plato’s Forms, with Saramago focusing his sights everywhere from plastic plates, police states, and language in order to examine the way we trade the authentic for cheap imitations and replicas.

All of Saramago’s classic motifs are immediately recognizable in The Cave, such as obdurate authoritative forces chasing the common man out of the light; menacing capital cities operating through an elaborate, yet faulty, chain of command; musings on the nature of a Creator; and his brilliant, signature style of blending dialogue into his dense paragraphs of meandering prose. For the uninitiated, Saramago doesn’t break up dialogue in the traditional sense, but instead allows multiple voices to blend into one continuous stream separated only by commas and a capitalized first letter to denote a new speaker. This reinforces his perspective that his stories aren’t of the individual, but of the collective voices and hearts of all humanity, inseparable from the natural world around them. His books are the voice of existence, flowing and unscarred by the borders of ego, asking us to seek freedom and happiness in collective equality and cooperation instead of a competition where those who have assert their dominance through force and fear. The Center becomes the focal point for his admonition against authoritarianism. It is like a grey concrete tumor of commercialism swelling outward and destroying the green countryside, accumulating power and wealth as it tightens its grip of authority and dominerence over the rural manual laborers. Saramago mocks the bureaucratic structure of The Center, viewing it as an unnecessarily complex web that is self-sufficient only by imposing its own authority down through the ranks.

n   …his position on the Center’s organization chart reminded him that the whole definition and maintenance of hierarchical configurations is based on their being scrupulously respected and never contravened or transgressed, and, of course, the inevitable result of being too free and easy with one’s inferiors or subalterns is to undermine respect and to encourage license, or, to put it more explicitly and unambiguously, it all ends in insubordination, indiscipline and anarchy
n

Plato used his allegory of the cave to further illustrate his concept of Forms, roughly speaking, a theory to address the problem of universals by asserting that Forms are the quality of reality, and that phenomena are shadowy interpretations of Form. Forms are atemporal and aspatial, but had distinct, individual qualities that are perceived in multiple ways when represented by objects. The cave allegory consists of people chained to the floor and forced to spend their lives watching shadows flicker across the back wall of the cave. They would perceive the shadows as reality and give names to them, when in fact they were just reproductions of the true reality. Saramago expertly meshes his admonitory themes of authoritarian force with Plato’s Forms to argue that we are becoming like the prisoners of the cave, trading the authentic for imitations. Saramago’s defense of manual laborers asserts that hand-crafted work born from sweat and blood is authentic and that the plastic, cheap mass produced plates are like shadows on the wall of a cave.

n  The ominous sight of those chimneys vomiting out columns of smoke makde him wonder which one of those hideous factories would be producing those hideous plastic lies, cunningly fashioned to look like earthenware.n

The Center and it’s hub of consumerism is the reproduction of authentic living. People are compartmentalized into tiny apartments away from the sun, living shallow lives that are dictated to them by the endless list of Center laws and experience the natural world through sideshow attractions—such as a ride that simulates each of the seasons and drops fake rain and snow onto the visitors—that are reminiscent of George Saunders’ short fiction. Even power is seen as only assumed and created, keeping people submissive through emotions of fear and hopelessness. The Center offers safety from the dangers of rural life, making a large show of the way they fight back against the shantytowns that rob trucks en route to The Center. It may be possible, however, that the robberies are staged to simply give The Center a reasonable motive to send in the troops and further build a sense of security and fear.

n  The truck had not been burned by the people in the shacks, but by the police themselves, it was just an excuse to bring the army…he had suddenly seen what the world was like, how there are many lies and no truths, well, there must be some out there, but they are continually changing, and not only does a possible truth give us insufficient time to consider its merits, we also have to check first that this possible truth is not, in fact, a probable lie.n

Saramago is a lover of words, and the heart of the marvelous allegorical clockwork of this novel is his examination of words and their relation to the world around us. ‘Words were born to play with each other,’ he writes, ‘they don’t know how to do anything else.’ In a manner reminiscent of both Jacques Derrida (of whom Saramago was associated with several times through both men’s activist actions), and Jorge Luis Borges (Saramago’s books are littered with allusions to the great author), Saramago explores the way words are merely shadows on the wall of reality. ‘Words, for example, which are not things, which merely designate things as best they can, and in doing so shape them…’ Saramago offers that the world of physical reality is experienced by putting our perceptions into words, but words are not the same tangible reality, and we must accept that they can only form imperfect representations regardless of how poetic and poignantly words can play with one another. While language is shown as another replica of Forms, it is through language that the mind can find a haven—language is the bridge through which we can glimpse true reality and meaning. By arranging words together into the magic of literature, we are able to point towards a deeper understanding and dig up the buried treasure of substantial meaning. Some read for pure enjoyment, some for escape, others to appreciate the aesthetics of linguistics organized onto a page like a painting on a canvas, and while each individual reader may take a different path through words, we all travel this path because it offers us a taste of our own personal heaven and a glimpse at overwhelming beauty.

n  The same method doesn't work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those rivers don't have just two shores but many, unless each reader is his or her own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching.n

Saramago hints at the true beauty of literature and how one idea can be interpreted in multiple ways, each shaping or reaffirming what we hold most dear in our hearts. Words may only take meaning in the way they interplay with one another, but it is through a careful consideration of words that we are able to deduce a fountain of wealth that flows through the author. ‘What you call playing with words is just a way of making them more visible.’

One of the many aspects that continuously pull me back into Saramago’s enchanting pages is his loving attentiveness to words and the reader. Saramago approaches his story as if it were a living thing independent from himself, being both the narrator delivering the story, but also an observer and participant much like the reader themselves. In a manner much like Macedonio Fernández, Saramago questions the motives of his characters, chastises them for their actions, and presents them as if they were writing themselves into his pages. ‘If this demonstrably ill-natured assistant head of department were to have any kind of future in the story we have been following, we would probably eventually get around to asking him to explain what lay behind his feelings on that occasion…’ This helps to build a camaraderie and mutual respect with the reader as you feel he is sharing the journey along with you. I greatly enjoy his authorial interjections, a tactic that often bothers me with other authors but seems completely endearing with Saramago. He gives off such an innocent joy to be an integral part to the creation of a story and just can’t contain his excitement when he blurts out his commentary on the characters and story. Reading Saramago is akin to having a wise, caring grandfather rocking you to sleep in his arms while bestowing the secrets of the universe to you in an engaging bedtime tale. Many of the novels shortcomings are easily glossed over because the reader is so captivated by his soothing narrative voice. This novel occasionally dips dangerously close to oversentimentality and often feels a uneven, yet chastising it beyond mere mention seems malicious. It would be like insulting your own loving grandfather for his bedtime stories, which you know please him to tell as much as they please you to hear. Saramago’s narrative voice is comforting while still cutting to the core of matters with a razor sharp edge.

Despite the growing tumor of consumerism and authoritarianism, The Cave offers a bright beacon of hope. Ciprano Algor and his family bond together to create a new product, a line of clay figurines (his selection of figurines speaks volumes about the human race and our attraction to warfare and power, but I’ve blabbed on long enough and shouldn’t spoil the discovery for future readers), to sell to The Center. The creation process in the kiln opens up a channel for Saramago to examine the role of a Creator, and he openly chastises any Creator that would knowingly damn their creations.

n  He will not, like Marta, call them rejects, for to do so would be to drive them from the world for which they had been born, to deny them as his own work and thus condemn them to a final, definitive orphanhood.n

Through caring, understanding, cooperation and hard-work, Saramago proposes a bright future. The son-in-law, Marcal, employee of The Center, finds his true purpose lies as a member of a family, a part of natural order as opposed to his imitation family as an employee to a company. At the end, we see that we must strive for the real instead imitation despite that the latter seems to be the easier way.

While The Cave is a wonderful allegory exploring Plato’s philosophy and the nature of language, it is not best suited as an introduction to Saramago. This book is best viewed as another glowing intersection for the themes that characterize Saramago’s fantastic oeuvre and would fall short without interpreting it through its interplay with his other novels. The book is creeps forward at a very leisurely pace, content to build its themes in authorial asides and intense investigations of mundane actions, which made it easy to set aside whereas other Saramago novels were impossible for me to put down once I'd been hooked. The Cave is a novel about exploring language and Form, not plot, and if you are patient there is an immense wealth of ideas to ponder and mull over that more than justify the effort. It is not a weak novel, but one simply best suited for those that already hold the wise Saramago as dear in their hearts. Of all his novels, this one shines as the most endearing as the way he presents the Algor family can be best described as a tender caress of words. Moving and heartfelt, yet slow and ponderous, Saramago brilliantly examines the way we trade the authentic for cheap imitation and begs us to not to be bound to the floor of a cave by consumerism and a willful submission to authority, but to be daring enough to step out from the cave and great the bright sun of our existence with open arms, an open mind, and goodwill towards all of mankind.
3.5/5

'[B]ut if ancient knowledge serves for anything, if it can still be of some use to modern ignorance, let us say softly, so that people don't laugh at us, that while there's life, there's hope.'

-Πόσο περίεργη η σκηνή που περιγράφεις
Και τι περίεργοι φυλακισμένοι,
-Όμοιοι μ΄εμάς.

(Πλάτων, Πολιτεία, Βιβλίο Ζ΄)


Εκπληκτικό βιβλίο. Τοσο απλό και τοσο μοναδικό που μπορεί να χαρακτηριστεί σπουδαίο.
Η σπηλιά του Σαραμάγκου αρχαικη και συμβολική με αμέτρητο βάθος συναισθημάτων και εννοιών.

Αυτός ο "φιλόσοφος" συγγραφέας ειναι κυρίαρχος ερμηνευτής και τροφοδότης σκέψης σαν πάνσοφος ρήτορας γράφει και αναλύει χωρις να παρεμβαίνει στην κατανόηση και την ερμηνεία που δίνει ο αναγνωστης στα νοήματα του.
Μπες στη σπηλιά,σου λέει, κοίτα, σύγκρινε,αναλογίσου,θυμήσου, νιώσε αλλα κυρίως χρησιμοποίησε το μυαλό σου, αγνόησε τα αισθηματικά κριτήρια, προχωρά στην κοσμοθεωρία της αλήθειας και της αυτοβελτίωσης.

Σίγουρα δεν διαβάζεται ανάλαφρα και επιφανειακά. Μεστή η γραφή του σε καθηλώνει αργά και σε προβληματίζει ή σε ταρακουναει σε κάθε πρόταση,λέξη-λέξη.

Η σπηλιά του τραγικά αλληγορική. Η υπόθεση απλή και καθημερινή. Πρωταγωνιστής ένας υπέροχος ιδιαίτερος άνθρωπος,ένας ηλικιωμένος κεραμοποιος που ζει με την κόρη και τον γαμπρό του σε ένα ταπεινό χωριατόσπιτο οικογενειακής κληρονομιάς όπως ακριβώς και το επάγγελμα του. Τρεις γενιές κεραμοποιών έζησαν εκεί και τώρα έρχεται ένα υπέρ-σύγχρονο εμπορικό "Κέντρο" να σπάσει τις παραδόσεις, να διαλύσει οικογένειες,να συνθλίψει τους θεσμούς και τα συναισθήματα,να καταστρέψει ολα τα συντεχνιακά επαγγέλματα στις γειτονιές του κόσμου.
Αυτό το μεγαθήριο αυτοαποκαλείται "θεός" και μπορεί να υποστηρίξει δυνατά και ακλόνητα τις αξίες του σύγχρονου πολιτισμού, της εικονικής πραγματικότητας, της αγοράς,της άνεσης, της βιομηχανικής αναπαραγωγής όντων και φυσικά την μοναδική αξία του κέρδους.

Έτσι ο τρυφερός και αξιοπρεπής κεραμοποιός μας έχοντας καταστραφεί επαγγελματικά και όχι μόνο, αναγκάζεται να ζήσει στο "Κέντρο" το οποίο τον δέχεται με την κόρη του μόνο και μόνο επειδή ο γαμπρός του ορίζεται ως φύλακας εκεί. Φύλακας- κατάσκοπος-καταδότης-δέσμιος- υπόδουλος ... μικρή σημασία έχει για την κοσμοθεωρία του παντοδύναμου "κέντρου".

Ολα τα υπόλοιπα θα τα καταλάβετε διαβάζοντας τη σπηλιά. Όταν θα νιώσετε πόνο και θλίψη για τα "Κέντρα" που μας καταπίνουν και αλλοιώνουν την συμβολική προσωπικότητα μας. Και φυσικά όταν θα νιώσετε πως πρέπει να απορριφθούν τα δεσμά,η αποδοχή, η παθητικότητα και η άγνοια.
Ίσως τότε μπορέσουμε να βγούμε στον ήλιο και να ρυθμίσουμε το πολίτευμα της ψυχής μας - όπως είπε και ο Πλατωνας στο μύθο του σπηλαίου.

* Λάτρεψα τον κεραμοποιό και την κόρη του για την αγάπη και τη φροντίδα με την οποια περιέθαλψαν ένα αδέσποτο σκυλάκι που τους χάρισε τη ζωή του.

Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!

I read "Blindness" by Saramago and really liked it, but "The Cave" didn't really do anything for me. Apparently, a lot of people consider this to be a brilliant and illuminating novel, and though I can see why they might say that, it was lost on me.

This book basically rambles on for 300 pages about an old potter and his struggle to find meaning in his life. Basically he makes pottery for a large residential/commercial complex and lives with his daughter and son in law. The complex tells him they don't want his product anymore. He starts making ceramic dolls to see if they'll want those. They don't. He finds a dog and befriends a widow. They move into the complex. This is the plot of the book up to about page 290. Seriously. It was very dry and boring.

The jacket cover of the book was totally deceiving, but not because the story was different. Strangely, the jacket cover tells you EVERYTHING that happens in the story. That's it. If you read the summary of the book here on Goodreads, it's similar. Normally you would expect this to be the starting point of the book and that it would develop from there, but no. It doesn't.

I guess you could squeeze out a few drops of social allegory from this story, but it was difficult for me. There are some touching moments in the book and some intriguing sentences, but they are few and far between. I don't deny that Saramago is a talented writer, he is. But in my opinion, he could have done much better with this one.

An old potter grapples with the new reality that consumers are transitioning to plastic

Recommended by Old Man and the Read in the video Best 77 books I've read over the past 77 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zYZC...

I understand what this book was trying to do, and that is why it is 2 stars instead of 1 ~ I like the idea of what it tried to do but could not stand the implementation.

This book is entirely composed of massive run-on sentences and paragraphs that go on for multiple pages. Dialogue is just thrown into the massive paragraphs with little indication that it's happening (no quotation marks, just capitalization of the first word of sentences, but multiple people are talking and the only thing separating who is talking is a comma, but ALSO people can talk with commas in their sentences). Online resources try to say that this artistic choice achieves something relevant to what the book aims to stand for, but I heard this author writes similarly in his other works which makes me think it's just an annoying thing he does :)

Basically I was so frustrated with the writing style I could not focus much on the content, and when I did focus on the content it was like 200/300 pages about the main character making dolls or overthinking things like the phone ringing.