(3.5)

They say each person is an island, but it's not true, each person is a silence, yes, that's it, a silence, each of us with our own silence, each of us with the silence that is us.

Cipriano, the main protagonist in The Cave, is a potter by occupation. Just like with other things, some products eventually get overtaken by technology and become obsolete. His wife has recently died and now his livelihood is being taken away; life was good and time seemed to pass slowly, but now it seems to pass by faster and faster - the sun which once shined creating shadows is now dim as the shadows disappear.

Cipriano had said with usual vehemence, progress moves implacably forward, and we have no option but to keep pace with it, and woe to those who, fearful of future upheavals, are left sitting by the roadside weeping for a past that was no better than the present.

Saramago takes us on a path with a man that sees the waves flowing in and then ebbing out, but ultimately those waves come back crashing in again.

دخمه داستانی که آخرش خوب و شوکه کننده تمام می شود و کتابیه که بخوبی در مورد مرگ و سرنوشت و زندگی و عوامل تاثیرگذار بر انها حرف میزند و در آهر هم نتیجه خوبی و حس خوبی به مخاطبش می دهد، یک حس عجیب ناشی از اتفاقاتی که در آخر داستان می افتد که میتونه مخاطب رو به این فکر فرو ببره که آیا چاره کار و غلبه بر تنهایی، کاری است که قهرمان داستان یعنی پیرمرد می کند یا نه.....قهرمان داستان مهاجرت و تغییر مکان را انتخاب می کند که شاید بنظرم بهترین گزینه ممکن بووود....
این اولین کتابم از ساراماگو بود. سبک خوبی داشت خوشم آمد،
منحصربه‌فرد آثار ساراماگو استفاده از جملات بسیار طولانی است، که گاه در درون آن زمان نیز تغییر می‌کند. او از میان علائم نگارشی تنها از نقطه و ویرگول استفاده می‌کند و از سایر علامات که مثلاً جمله سئوالی را مشخص می‌کند یا آن را در گیومه می‌گذارد و... مطلقاً می‌پرهیزد. گفتگوهای شخصیت‌های داستان را پشت سرهم می‌نویسد و مشخص نمی‌کند که کدام جمله را چه کسی گفته و به ندرت یک پاراگراف را تمام می‌کند.

یک پاراگراف خوب کتاب دخمه:
«موقعیت هایی در زندگی پیش می آید که انسان باید سکان کشتی خودرا به دست جریان سرنوشت بسپارد،درست مثل اینکه قدرت مقابله در برابر امواج آن را ندارد. در این صورت ممکن است خیلی زود متوجه شود که جریان آب رودخانه،به نفع او بوده است. این موقعیت را تنها خود خود او درک می کند. ممکن است شخص دیگری صحنه را ببیند و فکر کند که کشتی در حال غرق شدن است، غافل از اینکه هرگز آن کشتی چنین ناخدای استوار و محکمی نداشته باشد. خدا کند موقعیت ما هم یکی از همین رویدادها باشد. خیلی زود این موضوع را خواهیم دانست.ما باید خود را در جریان اتفاقات رها کنیم. بعضی مواقع فرا خواهد رسید که ما احساس می کنیم جریان رودخانه به نفع ماست.»
کتاب خوبی بود..

عمل أدبي وفلسفي جميل يستند على أسطورة كهف أفلاطون
يتأمل في النفس البشرية وقدرة الانسان على إدراك الفارق بين الحقيقة والوهم
ساراماجو يصحب بطل روايته صانع الخزف العجوز وعائلته الصغيرة
في تفاصيل حياتهم وما يدور في نفس كل منهم وينتقل معهم من حال إلى حال
صانع الخزف الذي يفقد عمله وحياته المُحببة الحقيقية بدعوى التطور والحداثة
ويتبقى له الخيار بين الانقياد للواقع الجديد الزائف أو الهروب من الكهف
والتحرر من سلطة الحياة المُصطنعة وقيودها الواهية
رغم ان السرد مُطول بتفاصيل صناعة الخزف لكنه مميز في الفكرة والحوار
ومهارة ساراماجو في تجسيد الأفكار والمُثل الفلسفية في شخصيات روايته

" هناك من يقضي حياته كلها في القراءة دون أن يمضي لما هو أبعد من ذلك. هؤلاء يبقون ملتصقين بالصفحات لا يدركون أن الكلمات ليست سوى أحجار مصفوفة تعترض تيار النهر. و إذا كانت هناك فإنها موجودة لكي نتمكن من عبور الضفة الأخرى. الضفة الأخرى هي المهمة. إلا إذا لم تكن لهذه الأنهار ضفتان و إنما ضفاف كثيرة. و كل شخص يقرأ تكون تلك هي ضفته الخاصة. و تكون له و له وحده الضفة التي سيصل إليها."

کارای این نویسنده برام جالبن ...

كالعادة جمال الأهداء إلى بيلار في بداية الرواية يزيدها رونق على رونق فهي بيلار التي لم تتركه ليموت :



الكهف ..... جوزيه ساراماجو

أننا لا نعرف أكثر بكثير عن تعقيدات الحياة إذا ما عكفنا بجد على دراسة تناقضاتها بدلًا من أن نضيع وقتًا طويلًا في أوجه التماثل و التناسق التي يفترض فيها أن تعبر عن نفسها بنفسها .

يعني إيه أسلوب روائي متفرد ؟ يعني الكاتب يأخذك في رحلة طويلة , تختلط فيها الواقعية بالرمزية بالفلسفة العميقة , لينجح في النهاية بكل سلاسة في توصيل رسالته العظيمة في أقوى صورها.

ساراماجو : الكاتب المؤمن برسالته الإنسانية , البليغ في توصيلها , الناجح في التأثير على حياتنا , من قال أن الصفحات المسطورة لا تلعب دور في تكوين عقولنا ؟ إذا فلماذا قدّسها الإله و أقسم بها في تنزيله ؟
لقد أقسم بها الرب لعلمه بأن صفحة مكتوبة من يد مخلوق نابغ قد تؤدي دور رسالة دينية ما .

ساراماجو هو ذلك الإنسان النابغ , ورواياته هي صفحات عظيمة و كلماته رسائل بالغة التأثير.

ببساطة مطلقة : هي رواية عن الإنسان في شتى صوره , الإنسان البسيط المطحون تحت مدنية زائفة وحضارة لا تحترم آدميتنا , الإنسان بسليقته وطبيعته المسكينة , الضعيف والقوي في آن واحد , الرافض لمصيره المستسلم له , ليظل يحارب في الحياة إلى أن يوافيه أجله.

فهكذا هي الحياة , إنها مليئة بكلمات لا تستحق النطق بها , أو أنها استحقت ذلك في وقت ما ولم تعد تستحقه , فكل كلمة نقولها تنتزع مكان كلمة أخرى أكثر جدارة منها , و تكون كذلك ليس لذاتها , و إنما للعواقب المترتبة على قولها.

الكاتب خبير بالحياة , متمرس في فهمها ومعيشتها , ليست الحياة الراقية المليئة بالنعم , بل حياة التقشف والصعوبات , فعبر عنها بأبلغ ما يكون.
الأقلام الشيوعية ياخوانا هي الأعظم بلا استثناء , إيمان نابع من داخل السطور , و قضية يدافعون عنها إلى الموت .
العمق الفلسفي أضاف للرواية الكثير , فصنع مزيج مبهر بين الحياة الصاخبة و المثالية المرغوبة لتنتج لنا عمل أدبي من الطراز الرفيع.

الترجمة : ترجمة صالح علماني , بس.

José Saramago wouldn't shop at Kmart even if Martha Stewart offered to decoupage his Nobel Prize. The unrepentant communist from Portugal has just released "The Cave" in English. It's the most deeply affecting critique of consumer culture since "Brave New World."

Saramago sketches a near future in which the efficiencies of capitalism have conspired to produce The Center. It's the ultimate corporation - as though the good people at Monsanto had finally managed to crossbreed the Pentagon and Disney World.

He describes the size of The Center with a kind of mock Old Testament precision, its dimensions piling up to suggest an incomprehensibly large and constantly growing residential shopping mall that provides every product, service, entertainment, and employment. (Two years ago, the author expressed a similar anxiety about these massive organizations with his depiction of the Central Registry in "All the Names." Kafka's dread seems to have outlived the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.)

The Center stays in the shadowy background of his simple story, but evidence of its boundless growth and voracious appetite is everywhere. The lifeblood of neighboring towns and villages is gradually draining into this commercial vortex, leaving only dry husks outside its enormous walls. The message is easy to see. It hangs above the highways "in letters of brilliant intense blue: LIVE IN SECURITY, LIVE IN THE CENTER."

But for a 76-year-old potter named Cipriano Algor, that's not an attractive invitation. He still lives with his daughter and son-in-law in one of those vague antiquated places outside The Center, making pots and dishes as his father and grandfather did. Every week, he packs the rickety truck with his wares and joins a long diesel caravan of manufacturers to deliver his merchandise at The Center's subterranean loading dock.

Saramago's ear for bureaucratic language suggests that he's spent half his life at the Department of Motor Vehicles. His parody of redundant office workers, the petty tyrants who speak only in the phrases of contracts and regulations, is so witty and disheartening that you'll dread your next encounter with Sprint customer service even more.

But Cipriano is a savvy man. He can't afford to offend these worker bees who hold an exclusive contract on his pottery. Besides, he's still wedded to the old-fashioned notion of real communication between people, a kind of graciousness and candor that catches the loading-dock officials off guard - charming some, annoying others.

One day, without warning, an assistant manager of reception announces that they'll take only half his regular order. "Sales have fallen off a lot in the last few weeks," he explains brusquely. "We'll probably have to return anything of yours that we've got in the warehouse too." Cipriano is stunned. He assumed The Center would buy his wares as regularly as sunrise, never realizing that his livelihood depended on the fickle tastes of cash-strapped consumers.

Plastic crockery is "so good that it looks like the real thing," the assistant manager explains, "with the added advantage that it's much lighter and much cheaper."

"But that's no reason for people to stop buying mine," Cipriano protests unreasonably. "Earthenware's earthenware, it's authentic, it's natural."

For most people interested in the small, disruptive effects of globalization and corporate monopoly, the dark comedy of "The Cave" will prove more illuminating than reams of economic analysis. Even Saramago's pinko reputation doesn't cast the rose-colored glare you might expect. His novel isn't a Marxist critique of consumerism so much as a heartfelt lament.

Naturally, Cipriano reacts badly to this loss of employment, the first setback his steady though tepid career has ever faced. He feels like "a cracked bowl which there is no point in clamping together." But the narrator is the first to admit that the old man "bears some of the blame for this himself" because he failed to anticipate the changing tastes of his customers and adopt the latest methods of manufacturing.

Encouraged by his daughter and the arrival of a stray dog (whose thoughts are marvelously transcribed for us), Cipriano decides he's not too old to learn new tricks after all. He throws himself into a mad week of learning and retooling to make ceramic dolls.

This hardly seems like a surefire scheme for economic revival. But when The Center places an order for 1,200 of his little mud people - in one week! - he confronts an entirely new problem for small-time manufacturers.

The Adam and Eve myth is clay in Saramago's crafty hands, the material for wise commentary about the nature of creation, labor, and artistic expression. Indeed, what's particularly remarkable about this novel is what beauty he can form from such ordinary matter.

In this tiny family, he manages to capture so much tenderness and tension, the perfectly realized dynamics of two generations with wholly different expectations. The frustration and respect between son-in-law and father-in-law develops with particular care. His narration is a fine dust that reveals the fingerprints of even the lightest emotional contact in the small moments of domestic life.

Ultimately, there's no effective resistance to The Center and the scrambling economic force it represents - except for the permanence of family relationships and little revolutionary acts of kindness.

This tender, allegorical story would be reason enough to read "The Cave," but what truly elevates it to something essential is Saramago's style; this fantastically agile, irrepressibly funny, sympathetic, cerebral, and sometimes even corny voice. Throughout, he interrupts his tale to discuss the process of storytelling, calling into question the conventions of fiction, mocking his characters' foibles even while cradling them in his affections. He lulls us into easy interpretations only so he can foil them later on.

This is a novel that seems prematurely aged with the luster of ancient legend, but it addresses a future we face.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1114/p1...

There is something beautiful here that is certainly not lost in translation. The story itself seems so simple that it cannot possibly be interesting, but the writing transcends the story and pulls you in. I could not stop thinking about this book and if I'm honest with myself, I think there are lessons in these pages that will stick with me for some time to come. I was slightly worried by where the story was heading near the end, but Saramago pulled the story into an allegory I was not prepared for and this book gets emotional. Well written, I am officially a fan.

“Cipriano Algor put the spade down and plunged his two hands into the ashes. He touched the thin and unmistakable roughness of the fired clay. Then, as if he were helping at a birth, he grasped between thumb, forefinger, and middle finger the still buried head of a figurine and pulled it out. It happened to be the nurse. He brushed the ashes from her body and blew on her face, as if he were endowing her with some kind of life, giving to her the breath of his own lungs, the beating of his own heart.” - José Saramago, The Cave

Protagonist Cipriano Algor, an artisan living in the country with his daughter and son-in-law, sells his handmade tableware to the Center. The Center’s agent tells Cipriano his services are no longer required, so he attempts to find another way to make money from his skill as a potter. It is a story of everyday life involving a family, a stray dog, a budding relationship, and how these people deal with change.

This book requires patience, as the meaning of The Cave is not apparent until the end. It is not for anyone looking for plot-driven action. As is typical of Saramago, it is written in stream-of-consciousness without quotation marks or separation of dialogue, so the reader has to keep track mentally. He strings together a series of words to convey many shades of meaning.

It is a story of human (and animal) connections in uncertain times, how people can deceive themselves, and how we maintain our illusions rather than confronting the truth. It is a social commentary on the increasing artificiality of our world. I think it is particularly pertinent to our present time.

I embark annually on a project to read five works from a notable author. This year I picked Portuguese author José Saramago, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. This is the fifth of five for the year. I just loved it and am adding it to my list of favorites.

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In case anyone is interested, these are the others I have read. His work is consistently high quality.

José Saramago: 2020
- Blindness - 4 stars - My Review
- The Stone Raft by José Saramago - 4 stars - My Review
- The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - 4 stars - My Review
- The History of the Siege of Lisbon - 3 stars - My Review

Stunning! Five Stars! For all audiences!
If your not reading Saramago yet ...
This guy’s got game!

This is an amazing book. However...

Why, why, why must people give away important plot points? The Cave's story, of a potter and his small family, is a simple one. So why did Harcourt, Inc. feel the need to describe the entire story on the back of the book? There are literally things mentioned on the back jacket which do not happen until around page 250 of the book. (And the book only hase 300 pages.)

I know that Jose Saramago was not trying to write a mystery. But a little suspense is nice.

Anyway...Saramago is considered by many to be the Earth's greatest living writer. I can certainly see why folks would think so. (Though my money is still on Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Interesting that both Garcia Marquez and Saramago are communists and friends of Fidel Castro.)

Read the book. Ignore the jacket. Write to your congress person and demand that publishers stop giving away important plot points.

Empecé pensando que La Caverna se trataba de una distopia... Casi por terminar pensé que podría ser una utopía, y tras cerrar el libro concluyo que simplemente es la realidad.

Se me pusieron los pelos de punta con el final de una historia que en realidad... No tiene mucha trama, simplemente relata la vida de un viejo alfarero y su casi "inútil" trabajo; sin embargo, aborda la sociedad contemporánea y la deshumanización del mundo con una profundidad indescriptible.

Durante todo el relato solo acudía a mi mente una semejanza con "Casa tomada" de Julio Cortázar. Presentando a los personajes una "Presencia" ausente, que se interpone en sus vidas y acaba por destruirlas.

Por más que intento no me salen las palabras para describir esta obra maestra, en la que Saramago refleja mediante su prosa, lo que puede pasar como poesía o ensayos. Simplemente, si tienen la oportunidad, lean "La Caverna"