For many good reasons, besides being a brilliant dark and dense piece of text, this novel seems very actual to my state of mind. Not precisely within the same circumstances and effects (thank, god) but still it feels to go in line with some of the events that happened in my own country in the last 30 years (since we are again a free democracy) and I felt very strange about it.
To be perfectly honest I feel as if I was lost in the middle of a minefield. But, is there a reason to be worried? Well, yes, if looking at the streets, you see how peaceful and quiet the city is because, well, that’s what worries me, there is a city with no one in charge, with no government, no security, no police and no one seems to care… And all because it is presumed by a handful of people from the government (actually more or less, mainly by the interior minister) that just a single woman is capable to put in place a diabolical plot that had caused the government’s current state of humiliation, having forced it to bow his head and kneel, which was rather seen initially as a strategic move…
Like his other most important novels, this one tells us also a great deal about the craft of fiction and the demands of creative prose, and, again, Saramago did it strongly. However, I had a bit the feeling that even the narrator had never been quite sure how to bring the story to a successful conclusion.
This is an extraordinary tale of a city which, en masse, decided to return blank ballot papers, and which is linked with a case of blindness that hit the same city some four years ago (of course, I need to read Blindness, too, which is actually the first before the “short-sightedness” depicted in Seeing), and made all the people outcasts from the world. The government is keen to solve the puzzle by suggesting that the first blindness helps to explain this second blindness (casting blank ballot papers), and both might be explained by the existence and possibly the actions, of one person. What can be more absurd than that? Well, this might have been written about another country and another century, under a state of siege, abandoned by its own government and surrounded by its own army, who knows!
However, the explanation is well inserted into the story somewhere in a paragraph, and, of course, is something that we all are familiar with: “…the people who cast the blank votes had not done so in order to bring down the system and to take power, they wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway, they had voted the way they voted because they were disillusioned and could find no other way of making it clear just how disillusioned they were, they could have staged a revolution, but then many people would undoubtedly have died, something they would never have wanted, all their lives they had patiently placed their vote in the ballot box, and the results were there for all to see, This isn’t democracy, far from it…”
Well, I haven’t missed any election day, and, despite more or less favorably expressed opinions, I have always thought it is most important to cast my vote and not to let it die blank. Having performed this civic duty (not punishable by law in Romania in case of non-presentation before the ballot box, by the way), it doesn’t mean that I’ve (always) been satisfied by the results and of the state of current affairs but, still, I thought and still think it is a right that I am entitled to exercise fully and free-willing.
This is a great fable that the narrator is creating. Apart from the first chapter, in which there are a few careful brush-strokes applied to the area of the polling station, everything else, which is quite a lot, has passed as if the characters in the story inhabited an entirely insubstantial world, were indifferent to the comfort or discomfort of the places in which they found themselves, and did nothing but talk. By the way, what else to do in a free democracy?
I feel very sorry for the conclusion applied for the police superintendent and for the woman who was allegedly in charge with this subversive action of destroying the normal pace of existence in a capital of the world, even if we don't know eventually in which world...

≪…Superintendent, Yes, There’s a question I’d like to ask, but I’m not sure I dare, Ask it, please, Why are you doing this for us, why are you helping us, Because of something I read in a book, years ago now, and which I had forgotten, but which has come back to me in the last few days, What was that, We are born, and at that moment, it is as if we had signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf, Fine, thought-provoking words, what’s the book called, You know I’m ashamed to say it, but I can’t remember, Never mind, even if you can’t remember anything else, not even the title, Not even the name of the author, Those words, which probably no one else, at least not in that precise form, would ever have been said before, had the good fortune not to have lost each other, they had someone to bring them together, and who knows, perhaps the world would be a slightly better place if we were able to gather up a few of the words that are out there wandering around alone, Oh, I doubt the poor despised creatures would ever find each other, No, probably not, but dreaming is cheap, it doesn’t cost any money… ≫

لأن عمي ساراماجو من رواياتي المفضلة
ولأن الاجواء المصرية الآن تدفعني دفعا للهروب بين صفحات الرواية، بالاخص تلك بسبب ما كتب علي غلافها الخلفي

“في يوم ممطر في مدينة متخيلة، يحجم المقترعون عن التوجه إلى صناديق الاقتراع حتى الساعة الرابعة بعد الظهر، ثم يصلون جميعا في الوقت نفسه. و عند إحصاء الأصوات يتبين أن نحو ثلاثة أرباع المقترعين وضعوا في الصناديق أوراقا بيضاء، و بعد أسبوع من حالة ذعر تسيطر على الحكومة تجري عملية الاقتراع مرة اخرى في يوم مشمس فتأتي النتيجة صادمة حيث يلقي ثلاثة و ثمانون في المائة من الناخبين بأوراقهم بيضاء”

فقد قررت الإنتقال لمدينة سارماجو المتخيلة تلك لأري ماذا فعل سكان تلك المدينة في الإنتخابات

ولكن هل يكفي المكتوب علي الغلاف الخلفي ولو كان مثيرا؟
هل تكفي الأفكار الجهنمية لقيام رواية عظيمة؟
حتي لو أستغلت نجاح رواية مبهرة بديعة لتاتي كتتمة لها؟

للأسف رغم العمي الأبيض، والأصوات البيضاء..جائت الرواية بنهايتها سوداء لتقضي علي سبب اعجابي بالجزء الأول
أتذكر انني انهيت المرعة بجملة
((خلي عندك أمل))

لكن ماذا فعلت القصة هنا؟
للأسف ليس الكثير، إن لم تكن اضعفت فكرة الرواية السابقة الأصلية، العمي


** القصة **
النصف الأول
--------
بالضبط كما يصفها الغلاف الخلفي، لقد صوت ناخبو العاصمة بأصوات بيضاء بما لا يتعارض مع القانون الدستوري
ولكن بما يفضح السياسة الشمولية القمعية للدولة الشبيهة بشكل مريب ب■■■ البرتغال

ستجد النصف الاول بين اجتماعات الوزراء ورئيس الوزراء ورئيس الجمهورية ، ال'دحلبة' البيروقراطية وال'محلسة' لمن هو اكبر وغيرها من مظاهر التعريص الشهيرة -اسف حقيقي لا ادري كيف اعبر عما قراءته من اسلوب واقعي يصور القادة سوي بتلك الالفاظ

وكيف ان الاب ...الرئيس، ومظاهر الدولة الأبوية حاول ان يصل بقطعان الاغنام اللي هما الشعب للديموقراطية ولكن ابناء العاصمة الجاحدين، الضالين، حق عليهم القول فصار مغضوب عليهم ووضعهم في حصار دون شرطة وبوليس

وبصراحة ياريت الحكاية انتهت عند نصفها الاول وتوقفت لهذا الحد....فرد فعل اهل العاصمة ، المصوتين باصوات بيضاء كان مذهلا، عبقريا، ساخرا، سيريالي بشكل بديع (إنارة النوافذ والبلكونات لتشير للوزراء والجيش ووالشرطة طريق الخروج كان من المشاهد التي اتمني رؤيتها سينمائيا...مشهد مكتوب بشكل ممتاز ، تعاون اهل العاصمة واستقبال الفارين منها اكثر من ممتاز ) لكن يبدأ النصف الثاني بشكل اكثر سيريالية...وقاحة وواقعية سوداء

** القصة **
النصف الثاني
--------
الحكومة والقيادة كلها يستشيطون غيظا...بعد كل أساليبهم الوسخة كالتفجير يريدون حفظ ماء الوجه امام العالم

وهنا يستخدم ساراماجو روايته الأشهر والانجح والتي تسببت في لفت انتباه القائمين علي جائزة نوبل للأدب لمنحه اياها ليغتالها فعليا وبعد 9 سنوات من نشرها يعيد فتح قضيتها، قضية العمي، ليربطها بتلك الرواية وقضية الاصوات البيضاء

ربما يريد هنا اثبات ان الحكومة والسياسة القذرة قد تنجح دوما في العثور علي كبش فداء ولو كان بريئا تماما لتلطيخه ومسح ماء وجوههم به

لم استمتع علي الاطلاق بالنصف الثاني، ليس فقط بسبب النهاية -والتي هي السبب الرئيسي لغضبي من الرواية - وانما لان الاسلوب كان فيه الكثير من التطويل والملل في تحقيقات غبية بلا أهمية بين مامور ومفتش ومعاون للبحث عن بطلة رواية العمي
نعم لوهلات بالنصف الثاني شعرت ببعض الامل في التغيير...شعرت ان الاحداث قد تنقلب بقوة لتخفف اغلب اجزاء النصف الثاني المملة

لكن للاسف لم يكن

*** الاسلوب ***
------------
العجيب ان رغم انني لم امانع كثيرا من اسلوب ساراماجو العجيب في عدم وجود فواصل بين الجمل الحوارية ، بالضبط كالاسلوب الذي اتبعه في رواية العمي ، لكن الاطناب الكثير هنا في تلك الرواية مع قلة الأحداث تقريبا تماما او ضعفها جعل ايقاع الرواية سيئا جدا

للاسف كنت اجر نفسي خلال الصفحات مجبرا إجبار الناخب علي الإدلاء بصوته في الانتخابات

لكن يظل في النهاية الحسنة الوحيدة بالرواية هو حوارات الحكومية الأثيرة التي لن تشعر بغربة تجاهها..لن تشعر انها غريبة عننا
لكن، اعود واقول...اعجبني العمي لانني كما قلت بنهاية مراجعتها
خلي عندك أمل

واذا كان بين سطور رواية البصيرة كتب سارماجو جملة بديعة
“الامل كالملح لا يغذي لكنه يعطى للخبز طعماً”
لكني شعرت ان تلك الرواية احتاجت المزيد من الملح
بالاخص بنهايتها السوداء
الذي غطي علي كل البياض


محمد العربي
من 25 مارس 2018
الي 27 مارس 2018
فترة الانتخابات المصرية

قد تكون البصيرة مزية من المزايا حين يدرك الإنسان حقوقه فيطالب بها ويتمسك بنيلها .. وقد تصبح عيبا من العيوب حين يبصر المرء عيوبه فيتعامى عنها وينكرها بدلا من إصلاحها ..

في رواية البصيرة أدرك الشعب حقه الإنتخابي في ان يصوت للحكومة أو ضدها أو يمتنع عن التصويت لأي مرشح (الأصوات البيضاء) .. ولكن عندما جاءت نتيجة الإنتخابات بأغلبية كبيرة للأصوات البيضاء جن جنون الحكومة .. وبدلا من أن تبحث وراء الأسباب المؤدية لذلك في محاولة لإصلاح عيوبها وكسب ثقة شعبها ، قررت الحكومة الإنتقام من الشعب .. بالترهيب والعنف تارة وبالدسائس والخديعة تارة أخرى .. فهل تريد الحكومات شعوبا عمياء لا تعي حقوقها حتى يسهل إخضاعها والسيطرة عليها !! فإذا ما أبصرت وأدركت حقوقها كان لزاما عليها أن تدفع الثمن !!!
.

It is the wet dream of every anarchist: a society without government, without coercion and repression, where everything runs by itself, where everyone knows his place and does his duty. In this book Saramago outlines such a situation in an unnamed capital. The city is completely abandoned by the government, in a panic reaction because in two successive elections the citizens had voted blank. The focus is not so much on the anarchist virtues, but on the cramped and especially cynical way in which the politicians and government leaders respond to this tacit popular uprising.

Saramago here unleashes his most fierce sarcastic talents, resulting in hilarious conversations between ministers of government, in which the world is turned upside down, showing how gruesome the exercise of power can be. Simply delicious! This part deserves at least 3 stars in my (harsh) rating system.

But after about 200 pages the author suddenly changes tack and turns the story into a sequel to his masterly novel Blindness. Out of the blue a number of characters from that novel emerge again. It is not entirely clear to me what the point of this is, and what it adds to the story. In addition, Saramago gets lost in side intrigues about a at first stern, but then very conscentious police officer. No, this "Seeing" – apart from the absurd sarcasm in the first half of the novel – does not reach the level of the fabulous "Blindness". (rating 2.5 stars)

n  

... and besides, it was arrant nonsense to take away the rights of someone whose only crime had been to exercise one of those rights.

n
While this partly operates as a sequel to Blindness, it also has a different tone, more Kafkaesque as Saramago guts the workings of a 'party on the right' government faced with the quiet subversion of a populace who leave their voting papers blank. For all the Government's self-righteous rhetoric about the undermining of democracy, they themselves have easy recourse to activities that are, of course, distinctly undemocratic: spying, interrogating without reason, torturing and terrorising the people they are supposed to protect and on whose behalf they are supposed to work.

The connections to Blindness are striking: this voting strike is designated a 'plague', the whiteness of the blank papers are juxtaposed against the 'white blindness' of the earlier text, and the Government describes the people peacefully and democratically rejecting their rule as 'blind'.

It's only in the second half that more solid links are forged with the earlier book as the first blind man and, especially, the doctor's wife and brought into the plot.

I'd say this is more overtly political than Blindness in how it deals with questions of the corruption of governments, and more cynical in its unravelling of power and autocracy, though there's laughter here, too, albeit of the most savage kind. And the ending is powerful in its brutality. Just make sure you read Blindness first to get the full effect of Saramago's tragicomic vision.

Set in an unnamed city, once again Jose Saramago creates an impossible sitiuation in order to write about the human condition. Jose Saramago was a humble genius, one of the rare few writers who could talk about the trival and mundane and make them seem so magical and important.

As usual, he sets out to explore and joust with preconceived universal truths and every day notions, and exposes them, flips them on their heads, re-affirms familiar and age-old truths because in his own words "But truths need to be repeated many times so that they don't, poor things, lapse into oblivion" and even recalls to my own memory something I read by the controversial novelist and critic John Gardner last year “What the best fiction does is make powerful affirmations of familiar truths...the trivial fiction which times filters out is that which either makes wrong affirmations or else makes affirmations in a squeaky little voice. If the shoe fits.

This time around in the nameless city, 83% of the population have cast blank votes in an otherwise well run, organised democratic nation, as shown at the beginning of the novel. This novel acts like an inverted Kafka piece; this time the bureaucracy and snivelling politicians are having the nightmare.

The idea explored here, and it is a novel of ideas, is what would happen if democracy failed? Casting a blank vote is a perfectly legal thing to do and since the novel has no secret eventually-revealed conspirator behind the blank votes (other than Saramago himself) it is quite clear that it is not important how the masses managed to simultaneously think and act upon the radical action of casting a blank vote. Saramago is concerned with the aftermath, the ramifications and gives him a unique canvass to paint his wise thoughts onto.

The first half of the novel is bitingly sarcastic as he spends entire chapters attacking goverment protocal, endless ill-defined jargon and just seems to have fun trivialising and mocking government hierarchy; the powers that be spend unusual amounts of time putting each other in place and correcting each other's words. This is something Saramago does in all his works that I have read thus far, he is fascinated with linguistics, I mean, how can people lay siege to a city that they are already in?

In Blindness, Saramago showed how ordinary people would resort to barbarism when everything failed, this time around it is the government (The Interior Minister and his sub-ordinates) who act inhumanely; spying, imprisonment, interrogation, and more which ends in them evacuating the city, thus leaving the amusingly named "Blankers" to their own ends. It goes like this, the city's inhabitants get by fine and the government behaves worse and worse.

In typical Saramago style (Style is imperfection says Orhan Pamuk in his novel My Name Is Red) he writes sentences that run on for large paragraphs, sometimes even entire pages, he only uses commas and full stops, the occasional parentheses,never an exclamtion mark as he is too gentle an author to do that. The characters are named by their job titles and position within the hierarchy.

"When we are born, when we enter this world," he explains, "it is as if we signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf, well, I asked myself that question"

Those are the words uttered by the hero of the novel, who starts off as a specially trained police inflitrator, who goes into the city to find out the cause of the mass blank voting, everyone is baffled and desperate, and they decide to blame the heroine from Saramago's novel Blindness (This is a loose sequel of sorts, don't be fooled) who kept her sight while everyone else went blind. It is only after some time that our hero-the superintendent ponders and utters those words quoted above that he decides to do the right thing and brings all the information he has collected about the case and the government's plan to scape-goat the woman from the previous disaster to the media who help expose their plans.

There isn't really a resolution to the story in any conventional story-telling fashion, and it's worth noting that the original titles for this novel and blindness translated literally into english would be "An Essay On Blindness and An Essay On Seeing"

I'd recommend this novel to anyone who loves language, disgressions on just about all the usual worldly topics that Saramago talks about, and all the metaphysical and philosophical questions that he asks and ponders so well. His comments on religion, faith and gods are always a treat to read, so insightful historically and joyously, pointedly funny.

Romanzo magnifico. Nonostante questo, all'inizio ho pensato che mi avrebbe coinvolta meno di Cecità. Leggevo con piacere e mi gustavo la prosa densa e così particolare, quella logica stringente, quei ragionamenti limpidi che fanno di Saramago uno scrittore praticamente unico. Tuttavia, per così dire, mi sentivo anche "staccata" dalla vicenda, come se la potessi solamente osservare e non compartire.
Ma, da un certo punto in poi, si è messo in moto quel meccanismo bellissimo che fa sì che un lettore la storia la viva più che ascoltarla.
Ed è così che mi sono ritrovata alla fine persino commossa. Non me l'aspettavo proprio quel finale. Accidenti a te, José!

This novel takes place four years after “Blindness” in same capital city.

On a rainy day of nationwide local elections – there is almost no turn out in the Capital until 4 when en masse there is 100% turnout. Having initially panicked the authorities congratulate themselves on this unprecedented display of civil duty only to find that 75% of the ballots are blank. Confused and angry the government orders a re-ballot a week later, this time there seems no order to the voting but 83% of the ballots are blank.

Despite no crime having being committed, the government of the “party on the right” regards this exercise of their rights by the capitals citizens as a direct assault on democracy. Despite rejecting the ideas of a foreign or anarchist plot they are convinced there must be some form of conspiracy and the refusal of the capital’s citizens to explain themselves only increases their belief that something must be done. The government and the compliant media attempt to provoke some form of more violent protest nothing seems to happen.

The first part of the book concentrates on the attempts of the authorities – particularly the (resentful for being) figurehead President, the Prime Minister and the conspiratorial Minister of the Interior. They place the capital under a state of siege; interrogate 500 suspects identified from comments made in the ballot queues; place spies in the capital who also attempt to act as agent provocateurs and eventually withdraw from the Capital with all army and police and place a ring around the city – believing anarchy will result and the people will ask to reembrace the paternalism of the state.

The Interior Minister also plants a bomb, which was designed to be blamed on the subversives but only provokes more protests in the capital and causes the Head of the City Council to resign. The 17% of voters (particularly those of the Party on the Right) try and evacuate but this fails when it becomes clear there is no way of identifying that none of them are “Blankers”. Expecting trouble when they return back to the Capital, the Cabinet is shocked when the Blankers quietly come out and help them put all their things back in their houses.

The second part of the book is very different.

The Prime Minister decides to reinvoke the taboo memories of the Blindness plague and introduce a series of academic and media discussions of it – before then claiming that the blank ballot papers are a new plague. The President insists on an air drop of his own views on this and it provokes the first Blind man from Blindness to write to him denouncing the Doctor’s wife (who he mentions was a murderer) as being the only person not to go blind four years ago and insinuating that she could be linked to the new plague.

The interior minister finds this hypothesis while not compelling a satisfactory one for his purposes and sends a Superintendent and two other policemen to prove there is a conspiracy involving the characters from Blindness. After meeting them all, the Superintendent realises the Doctor’s Wife was a remarkable woman and the original Blind Man “a swine” and refuses to co-operate. The media publicly denounces the “conspirators” but the Superintendent has the story of what he was asked to do published in a more left wing paper.

The Interior Minister arranges the assassination of the Superintendent. The Prime Minister sacks him as a result – but then as the story ends the same assassin kills the Doctor’s wife and the Dog of Tears.

As in “Double” the narrator intervenes more in the story and talks directly to the reader or comments on the proceedings.

Most noticeably when seeming to admit that the device of linking the story to “Blindness” by way of the denunciation letter was introduced to give a more satisfactory ending to the allegory of the blank ballots.

Interestingly this device also gives a more satisfactory ending to “Blindness” which can be criticised for seeming overly long with a very detailed narrative but with no real sense of purpose.

The themes of the book and Saramago’s anti-right stance are more obvious than in “Blindness” – partly due to the narrator’s comments but also due to the interactions between the different ministers in the government – particularly the Interior Minister who regards innocence or guilt as a choice of the security forces rather than an objective truth.

The story has his usual devices – dialogue style, characters having no names and being more like devices – particularly in the first part (as the narrator at one point admits).

The second part comes in well just as the story in the first part seems to be more like “Blindness” – a detailed and complex narrative that could also have been a powerful short story, and as result is starting to get overly long.

من أي الهام مجنون تجد الأفكار سيد ساراماغو
بعد اربع سنوات من قضية العمى التي ضربت المدينة تدور احداث هذه القصة المجنونة ، واي صفة أخرى غير الجنون لن تعطيها حقها ، فالجنون هو انساني مؤكد لذلك اؤكد اني احببت مدينتك ، انها يوتبيا واقعية ،،مجنونة، يوتبيا بشرية وهي النوع الاول على ما اعتقد التي تصلح ان تكون بجانب جنونية ، ايضا انسانية ، لقد كانوا بالامس بشر عميان يستطيعون ان يروا لكنهم لا يروون ، فإذ بهم اليوم يرون ولاول مرة يستحقون كلمة بشر ، ويصفعون كما يجب على وجوه الساسة العميان الذي يحكمون ، أسعدني بشكل خاص لقائي الثاني مع زوجة الطبيب كما لقائي بصديق بعد فترة غياب

Αν και αρχικά δε φαίνεται να αποτελεί εννοιολογική συνέχεια του (υπέροχου) Περί τυφλότητος, κινείται στο ίδιο τοπικό και χρονικό πλαίσιο, παρουσιάζει κοινούς χαρακτήρες και κυρίως τη "λευκή απειλή" που τώρα παίρνει τη μορφή της ψήφου-καταγγελίας ενάντια στο διεφθαρμένο σύστημα εξουσιας. Ή μήπως τελικά δεν είναι και τόσο άσχετο;

Έργο βαθύτατα πολιτικό, με σαφείς αιχμές στον τρόπο σκέψης του ανθρώπου όταν απειλείται η θέση ισχύος στην οποία βρίσκεται, την ειρηνική επαναστατικότητα και την αναζήτηση εξιλαστήριων θυμάτων που θα επωμισθούν ευθύνες που δεν τους ανήκουν. Το βρήκα κάπως πιο δυσκίνητο από το βιβλίο που το ενέπνευσε, τη γραφή του πιο πολύπλοκη γι' αυτό και, αν και σχεδόν άρτιο, με άγγιξε λιγότερο. Ίσως, πάλι, φταίει το γεγονός ότι στην Τυφλότητα ο Saramago τόλμησε να διεισδύσει στο βάθος της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης, ενώ εδώ πραγματεύεται την πολιτική που θεωρώ προέκταση της ανθρώπινης φύσης κι όχι αναπόσπαστο τμήμα της.

Mi-a plăcut acest roman.
Acțiunea se petrece la patru ani după incidentul cu orbirea din "Eseu despre orbire", deci este o continuare; de data aceasta ivindu-se un eveniment cu conotații politice.
La alegerile municipale din capitala fără nume a țării fără nume, alegătorii nu se îngrămădesc la vot în prima parte a zilei, poate și din cauza ploii torențiale, stârnind neliniștea autorităților. În a doua parte a zilei, oamenii încep să își facă apariția în fața urnelor electorale, situația fiind astfel salvată. Politicienii răsuflă ușurați, vor mai putea fura în liniște încă un mandat. Dar nu e chiar așa fiindcă apare o surpriză la numărarea voturilor: Partidul de Dreapta strânge 13% din voturi, Partidul de Centru 9%, iar Partidul de Stânga doar 2.5%, restul voturilor fiind voturi în alb. Autoritățile se panichează, nu înțeleg rațiunea acestor voturi și pun totul pe seama unei greșeli, așa că alegerile sunt reluate. După al doilea rând de alegeri situația nu se îmbunătățește deloc, procentul voturilor în alb crescând chiar de la 70 la 83%.
De aici romanul lui Saramago devine cu adevărat interesant; stilul este același - fraze lungi, deseori cuprinzând o pagină întreagă, cu reguli de punctuație proprii - și aș putea adăuga în plus aici umorul subtil al scriitorului.

Deviza celor care conduc:

"..cea mai sigură diferențiere pe care am putea s-o stabilim între oameni nu este să-i împărțim în isteți și proști, ci în isteți și prea isteți, cu proștii facem ce vrem, cu isteții soluția este să-i punem în serviciul nostru, pe când cei prea isteți, chiar dacă sunt de partea noastră, sunt intrinsec periculoși, n-o pot evita, cel mai curios e că prin actele lor ne spun în permanență să avem grijă cu ei, în general nu dăm atenție avertismentelor și după aceea suportăm consecințele,..." pag. 232.

Absolutamente maravilhoso. O melhor de 2024, uma obra seminal numa escrita difícil onde o ritmo e concentração do leitor é imprescindível para o acompanhamento e compreensão de um texto onde Saramago nos apresenta uma história fascinante, fruto de uma imaginação brilhante e um espírito tão irónico e mordaz, quanto subtil e bondoso.
Todos os espíritos livres e geniais repudiam os lugares comuns, são críticos inflexíveis do politicamente correto e observadores atentos da mundividência e do quotidiano. São como Saramago, são estruturalmente anarquistas.