This was the first book by Saramago I've read, and I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship...
I feel as if I've just come back from a long trip. Saramago's quixotic narrative brings to life five characters whose lives become connected after a series of strange, dream-like natural events centered around the Iberian peninsula breaking off of mainland Europe. His writing is beautiful and the narrator's self-consciousness in telling their story I find especially appealing.
(p.5)"Writing is extremely difficult, it is an enormous responsibility, you need only think of
the exhausting work involved in setting out events in chronological order, first this one,
then that..."
He has a lot of love for his characters and the way he endears them to himself, and by extension, the reader. Reminds me of (my favorite author) Italo Calvino in that way.
Ultimately, he has a lot of compassion for human foibles and the smallness of our place in the midst of things.
Wish I could read Portuguese. This was an english translation.

Mr. Saramago came to call - well I mean I invited him in - he doesn't just turn up on your doorstep uninvited that would be rude, wouldn't it, well, maybe not rude but discourteous and my impression of him is that he would never be knowingly discourteous, I don't think it's in his nature, which seems to me to be warm, like that lovely feeling you get when you've had a glass of something stronger, there's that warm glow that starts somewhere inside and spreads until it reaches your face and puts a smile on the same, but anyway where was I again, ah yes, Mr. Saramago and of course I asked him in, wouldn't you do the same, because there's a guarantee with him that something good will happen somehow, it doesn't always look that way to start with and sometimes things can get very disturbing, but then it all steps just very slightly outside the realm of reality which is kind of wondrous, sort of mind expanding, the idea of being followed by a flock of starlings, see I think I'd like that although starlings are not really my favourite bird, so noisy, but even if I don't get to choose the kind of bird that would be magnificent to have my own personal flock of birds, and really it would have to be something raucous and sociable because other birds don't flock, so I'd take starlings, yes, or the ability to draw a line in the sand that always reappears no matter how often or hard you try to rub it out or ride in a car that is almost human and whose name is Deux Chevaux, not the brand name now, I mean that is what it is called in the same way as a character might be Jose or Pedro, and those who are called Jose or Pedro are as courteous to the feelings of Deux Chevaux as they are to each other and this makes it all sound a bit fey and unreal, but it's not I assure you it's not, the people do have to make ordinary every day practical decisions that require logical thinking and a discussion of how best to go about this and they do it calmly and without shouting or screaming at each other and it all seems quite sensible even though the situation is crazy mad with the Iberian peninsula zooming westward and a dog that leads Deux Chevaux to where it needs to go in order to deliver the passengers to the place they need to be and to carry out the task they need to do which all seems fitting and right as if this was always how it was meant to be, preordained years before so that they would be here, now, where they are the ones to do this. To bury Pedro Orce.
Oh, and the Peninsula does come to a halt. In case you wondered.

Saramago's works not only keep me up late into the night reading, they also wake me from sleep in those hours after midnight that belong more to death than to life and force me to think again both about the words he has written and about those he has not. The Stone Raft is as multi-layered as the strata exposed when the Iberian Peninsula separates from the continent of Europe and begins an erratic journey through the Atlantic Ocean. There is, of course, the expected magical realism together with Saramago's incisive critiques of religion, politics, science, culture, and the human condition. There is the quest narrative with more than a subtle reference to Miguel de Cervantes' Iberian classic. There is the marvelous narrative style of the Maerchen used to tell of ordinary people having extraordinary experiences as they follow a fabulous hellhound in a pilgrimage across an insula that has lost its prefixed paene to become a pilgrim itself. There is the nature of pilgrimage, revealed in the peregrinations of these characters and in the relationships that develop among them in the course of their journeying. But most of all, what Saramago has written is a description of life, that pilgrimage toward death we all must make, which derives its meaning not from its destination but from those we learn to love along the way. We are all passengers on the great stone raft of Earth. According to Saramago, it is through relationships with our fellow voyagers that we make the journey worth the time.

الحب ولَّع في الدرة :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLJA-...

المثل بيقول الرواية اللي تقرا منها 100 صفحة، وما تشدك ..
ويبقى كاتبها ساراماجو .. اللي إنتا أصلاً زهقت منه، وبتكابر
..
يبقى ما تقراهاش
خالص،
ولا تقرا له تاني
.
بس الواحد برضو بيشعر ببعضٍ من الحقد والحسد لهؤلاء القراء الذين رؤوا فيها مالم أره!!

«Os homens e as mulheres, estes, seguirão o seu caminho, que futuro, que tempo, que destino. A vara de negrilho está verde, talvez floresça no ano que vem.»

it’s giving episódio de scooby doo mas a península ibérica separa-se do resto da europa com uma pitada de crítica política



( o livro de Saramago de que menos gostei até agora )

Physical secession of Iberian peninsula presents novel opportunities for mating.

We are told at the opening that the “entire universe was nearing its end” on account of the chorus of dogs in Cerbere (1). We are reminded “the world is coming to an end” before the end (260). Though this is presented as hearsay within the setting, it’s an accurate designation of the genre, as the novel adopts the apocalyptic. It’s mostly a travelogue, though, both of the peninsula and several characters thereupon. Those parts are less engaging than the general political sections, regarding how various states handle the secession, such as if the peninsula were to “drift forevermore over the seven seas, like the oft-cited Flying Dutchman, and the peninsula is currently going by another name, tactfully suppressed here to avoid any outbursts of nationalism and xenophobia, which would be a tragedy under the circumstances” (239).

That said, hard for me to detect much rising action, denouement, &c. Perhaps I’m too aristotelian or freytagian or whatever. We are reminded at one point that “the only logical conclusion to be drawn from all that we have witnessed so far is that the journey was not worthwhile” (222). I feel you, brother.

Recommended for those who deplore this yielding to the temptations of anthropomorphism, readers who think that putting nets on trees within everyone’s reach is just like getting other men’s wives pregnant, and persons who prefer to say this impressive feat of engineering that links the two banks of the river, because this construction, we are referring to the sentence, is periphrastic, and is used here to avoid repeating the word bridge, which would result in a solecism, of the pleonastic or redundant kind.

This has to be one of the most unusual and creative books I have ever read. The Iberian Peninsula breaks off from Europe and becomes a traveling island. It threatens to crash into the Azores. The storyline focuses on three men and two women that feel a sense of responsibility, expressed in terms of magical realism, for the breakaway. They are joined by a dog and two horses. They travel around Spain and Portugal, witnessing the responses to this unexpected event.

Saramago examines the social and geopolitical ramifications of profound change, while inserting a good dose of dry humor, especially with regard to how governments (Spain, Portugal, France, US, Russia) respond to the crisis. It is written in a literary style, with Saramago’s standard long sentences and embedded dialogue. I am not sure I took away all the author intended, but I did find thought-provoking observations about the roles of coincidence and interconnectedness in life.

Memorable passages:
“Life is full of little episodes that seem unimportant, while others at a certain moment absorb all our attention, when we reappraise them later, in the light of their consequences, we find that our memory of the latter has faded while the former have come to seem decisive or, at least, a link in a chain of successive and meaningful events…”

“No journey is but one journey, each journey comprises a number of journeys, and if one of them seems so meaningless that we have no hesitation in saying it was not worthwhile, our common sense, were it not so often clouded by prejudice and idleness, would tell us that we should verify whether the journeys within that journey were not of sufficient value to have justified all the trials and tribulations.”

أنا بحب النوعية دي من الرويات , النوعية المتشائمة السوداوية الكئيبة , اللى بتكون أقرب للواقعية من أي شئ آخر , فالواقع سخيف لن تقدر على التعبير عنه إلا من خلال كتابة سوداوية تواجه ذلك السخف.

الرواية عبارة عن مجموعة من المصائب , مصيبة إثر كارثة وهكذا , فتجد أن الرواية في النهاية مآساة إغريقية جديرة بالتسجيل.

وتسجيل الكاتب لتلك الأحداث كان في غاية الظرف , تسجيل سلس مؤثر حقيقي للغاية .

ويبدو أن الكاتب قد بذل مجهود جبار لكي يخرج لنا مثل هذا العمل ففي النهاية يرى الكاتب أن :

(الكتابة عملية صعبة للغاية , إنها من المسئوليات الكبرى , يكفي التفكير في العمل الشاق الذي يحتاجه الترتيب الزمني للأحداث , أولًا هذا , وبعده ذاك , أو , لو كان متوافقًا مع الفعل المطلوب , فحدث اليوم موضوع قبل فصل الأمس , وألعاب أخرى ليست أقل خطورة , كتابة الماضي كما لو كان يحدث الآن , والحاضر كما لو كان مستمرًا بلا نهاية , لكن مهما بذل المؤلفون من جهد , هناك قدرة لا يمكنهم إعلانها , أن يضعوا في وقت واحد شيئين وقعا في ذات الوقت . )

وقد برع في ذلك للغاية , فالأحداث متداخلة بصورة مكثفة ولكنه متقنة , الكاتب يمسك بخيوط عمله بابداع .

العمل معقد عميق , تتداخل فيه الشخصيات مع الأحداث مع براعة الوصف لينتج لنا عمل مميز للغاية.

لقاء آخر مميز مع الساحر البرتغالي .

Another classic Saramago I am glad I finally read.

3,75*