This is the first book by this Nobel Prize winner I have read although I have wanted to read ‘Blindness’…my library does not have it. This was a nice introduction to Saragamo’s oeuvre. A very solid 3 stars. Close to a 4 but for the first 2/3rd of the novel. It moved too slow—that section of the book while clever, moved too slow for me.

•tThe book was clever throughout. Imagine what would happen if in a country nobody died. Death takes a holiday literally. Who would be happy? Who wouldn’t be happy—in this novel, religion and in particular those believing in resurrection of the body (how can our bodies rise from the dead at the Second Coming of Christ if we are not dead, yet?) …life insurance companies (nobody will pay for it)…funeral homes (no need for these folks!)…
•tBut Saragamo throws in an added clever “fact” …people do not die but only in one country—in adjacent countries life…and death…go on. You wouldn’t think people would want to willingly go over to the other countries, would you? Well, eternal life isn’t for everybody.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live forever ?
But if eternal life would not coincide with the cessation of bodily degradation that old age entails, the dissapearance of death could suddenly no longer be such an attractive idea.

"The next day, no one died ".

This is how Saramago begins his novel. Obviously, the first reaction is joy, with people feeling like they have just escaped the biggest fear of their lives, and that from that moment on, their whole existence will change radically.
But people continue though, to have all the suffering that disease and old age bring. At this point, people come to realize that the fear felt throughout their life, towards death - it is less intense than that generated by the absence of death. Saramago launches, in this context, in the analysis of human feelings towards the fatality of death. These are put face to face, with peoples position on divinity, the idea being that death has a much more active and powerful presence in people's lives than God. (the spelling folows the one proposed by the narrator).

This quasi-bogumilic thesis aims to reconsider the most intense desires. Ultimately, aversion to death - is just a fear of the unknown.

The moment Death becomes a character, and interacts with people directly - the way we relate to it - changes.
Death becomes an active and visible character when he decides to warn those who are going to die, that they have only one week to live.
The only problem occurs when one of the letters of this type, sent by Death - does not reach the adresant. Here, Death decides to mingle with people, to see why his letter did not arrive.
Thus, we find an interesting character, a violinist - who feels that he has missed his whole life.
Death seems unable to penetrate the intimacy of man who should have another chance at gratitude, to salvation from regret for eternity.
This story being the most beautiful of the novel, I let you discover its finality by yourself.

The initial interpretation can be reconsidered when , at the last sentence, I discover that this is the same sentence with which Saramago begins his story.
So, are we dealing with a cyclical novel ? I think not, which means that the key to unraveling the mystery of the death- defying violinist lies precisely in this suggestion of cyclicity.

In addition to the creativity and novelty of the theme, the novel is worth reading, because it is one of the most beautiful demonstration of how suspence is constructed in a narrative, without becoming commercial, in the bad sense of the word.

I love the cover of this book, the cartoon woman in black, paused on the doorstep of someone's life, her symbolic scythe held aloft. A light switch features in the centre of the illustration as if she might jokingly dim the lights while she fulfills her task. We almost expect to see a grin on her face and the illustrator has kindly left her features blank so that we can fill in that smirk for ourselves. A perfect book cover for a satire about death.
I’m not so keen on the title however; Death At Intervals sounds odd to me. The original title was As Intermitências da Morte, and when the book was translated into English, there were two versions of the title, Death at Intervals and Death with Interruptions the French for 'light switch' is 'interrupteur'. I prefer the second version but I’d have really liked a version that stuck closer to the Portuguese and used the lovely word ‘intermittences’, a word which always make me think of those heart-stopping moments in life when we suddenly recall things that had previously been buried too deep to remember. I’ve taken that idea from Proust, of course, who had many 'intermittences of the heart' moments so it’s interesting to note that Saramago mentions Proust in relation to the 'final' heart-stopping moment of life. Yes, Saramago’s narrator refers not once but three times to the woman in black whom Proust reported seeing in a corner of his room just before he died, so I imagine Proust’s dark figure must have been some sort of trigger for this humorous tale about a woman called death, even if it may not be the sole inspiration. In fact Saramago wrote this book in 2005 at a time when his own health was poor; he was eighty-three and suffering from leukaemia and there was a point around then when his own death was interrupted: he was pronounced dead but recovered and lived on until 2010. Two years before he died, he wrote in The Notebook, The truth is, I feel myself alive, very much alive, whenever for one reason or other I have to talk about death. As we read Death with Interruptions we really appreciate the truth of that statement. It’s as if Saramago managed to access some memory about death that the rest of us have repressed. This allows him to treat death in an audaciously irreverent way, and we are fairly certain that he has a wide grin on his face as he spins out the narrative, aiming delightful darts at his favourite targets in the process; the Church is not spared, nor are politicians; royalty also comes in for some satire, as do many of society’s institutions. It is all so smoothly done that we can only stand back and admire the perfect blend of what is said with the way it is said.
No one writes quite like Saramago.

Pagină cu pagină, frază cu frază, José Saramago mi se furișează irevocabil în suflet.

Cum ar fi dacă, într-o bună zi, moartea ar dispărea pe nesimțite din peisaj, dacă nimeni nu ar mai muri, nici măcar cei aflați la o suflare de tărâmul neființei? Ei bine... se pare că nici măcar biserica (catolică, romană și apostolică) nu e prea încântată de amânarea judecății de apoi și de perspectiva eternului "acum", iar nemurirea (mai ales în absența "tinereții fără bătrânețe") e supraestimată.

Trecând peste tragicomedia implicațiilor dispariției morții asupra firmelor de pompe funebre, azilurilor de bătrâni sau a spitalelor (umorul subtil cu care Saramago ilustrează absurdul, neliniștea și strădaniile acestora este pur și simplu delicios), are oare viața vreun sens, vreo împlinire în absența morții? Sau poate farmecul amar al acesteia se naște din efemer, din conștiința sfârșitului inevitabil? Ei bine... habar n-am. Cred că oamenii sunt printre puținele ființe care își poartă moartea adânc îngropată în sine, știm că e acolo, că fiecare suflare e un pas în direcția ei, ne înspăimântă necunoscutul care o învăluie, căutăm mai mult sau mai puțin conștient să o înfrângem, să o amăgim, "să lăsam ceva în urmă", să ne câștigăm eternitatea prin familie, religie, carieră, cunoaștere sau "fapte bune".

Dar în fine, mă pierd în valuri. Saramago e genial.

This book is unique. It needs a whole new genre to itself, fantasy philosophy perhaps. See All the Names for a review that really covers both these books since they are very much linked. They seem to be the working out of an obsession with Death, but a very unconventional view and ideas indeed.

ماذا يحدث إذا انقطع الموت فلا أحد يموت فى بلدة صغيرة وهل سيكون الناس اسعد حقاُ هل نظام الكون سيستمر بدون خلل وكيف سيكون رد فعل الناس والحكومة تجاه ذلك الحدث الغريب ..تلك هى فكرة سارماجو فى تلك الرواية العبقرية
الجزء الأول من الرواية يستحق خمس نجوم بجدارة ولكن الجزء الثانى به ملل عندما تنزل ربه الموت الى الحياه الواقعية
اول قراءة لسارماجو وأفكاره المجنونة العبقرية

José Saramago's imagination appeals to me: I cherished Death with Interruptions from the first page. It's was not only the author’s incredible creativity or his masterful writing but also the fact that here he deals with something so close to all human beings: n  death.n Who, after all, at some point in life, hasn't asked why do we have to die? The dream of immortality has fascinated humanity forever.

n  n    "The following day, no one died."n  n

So simplySaramago begins: in an undisclosed small European country, without any logic or harbinger, people suddenly stopped dying.

n  n    "Having lived, until those days of confusion, in what they had imagined to be the best of all possible and probable worlds, they were discovering, with delight, that the best, the absolute best, was happening right now, right there, at the door of their house, a unique and marvelous life without the daily fear of parca’s creaking scissors, immortality in the land that gave us our being, safe from any metaphysical awkwardnesses and free to everyone, with no sealed orders to open at the hour of our death, announcing at that crossroads where dear companions in this vale of tears known as earth were forced to part and set off for their different destinations in the next world, you to paradise, you to purgatory, you down to hell."n  n

A dream come through, correct?

But nothing is for free on this earth of ours, and very soon the exultation starts to die down. As the days goes by what we discover in Saramago’s fascinating story is ultimately thousands of people suspended on the edge of dying. Slowly the country finds itself disoriented for what to do, immersed in a new confusion. People lose jobs (no more jobs for undertakers or gravediggers, and so many others that depended on it). Religion has lost its reason and its greatest reward, resurrection. And philosophers are left speechless facing the fact of a n  “society torn between the hope of living forever and the fear of never dying.”n

How everything seems to have turned upside down: life is now the inconvenience: n  "If we don’t start dying again, we have no future."n Apart from any judgment on Saramago's religious feelings that probably dwell underneath his novel or any religion discussion, his unique narration is so superbly delivered that it conquers the reader. And he is always amazing us:

n  n    "Due to some strange optical phenomenon, real or virtual, death seems much smaller now as if her bones had shrunk, or perhaps she was always like that, and it's our eyes, wide with fear, that make her look like a giant. Poor death. It makes us feel like going over and putting a hand on her hard shoulder and whispering a few words of sympathy in her ear, or, rather, in the place where her ear once was, underneath the parietal."n  n

Saramago simply captivates the reader. Read it if you enjoy something that will leave you with much more than with what you started before opening one of his books. As his literature Nobel Prize attests, he knows how to write. He is brilliant, and you won’t forget him after the first taste.
____

“Nuestra salvación es la muerte, pero no esta." Franz Kafka

Debo reconocer que ciertos escritores merecen el Premio Nobel que ganaron precisamente por cada palabra que escribieron, y este es el caso de José Saramago.
Me alcanzó con leer sólo dos de sus novelas, y más allá de su peculiar estilo narrativo, sin guionar o al menos encomillar los diálogos que hacen que uno se agobie un poco con la lectura del texto que tiene enfrente, difieren de cualquier otro autor.
Dejado este detalle aparte, lo que más puedo resaltar de Saramago es su originalidad inigualable a la hora de elegir la temática o el argumento de sus novelas. Que todo el mundo se quede ciego con la excepción de una sola mujer, que un hombre que trabaja en un registro de las personas se obsesione con una en común o como en este caso suceda que en un país la muerte deje de ejercer su histórico permitiendo que la gente siga viva es realmente de destacar.
Celebro la inventiva y la genialidad de Saramago y con cada novela que leo lo voy admirando cada vez con más fuerza.
Ya en "Las intermitencias de la muerte" nos encontramos desde el principio con la noticia de que los que tenían que dejar este mundo no lo hicieron. Todo quedó en suspenso y la muerte se tomó vacaciones, desaparición o vaya uno a saber qué le pasó por la cabeza (y la de su guadaña), pero el hecho es que realmente la gente ahora no se muere.
Al principio todo parece genial. Imaginemos esto solo por un momento, especialmente aquellos (como yo) que le tienen cierto temor a la muerte y les gustaría vivir más años que Matusalén. Suena genial, ¿no? Bueno... parece que no lo es tanto.
Lentamente y con el correr de las páginas, el autor comienza a mostrarnos que no todo es color de rosa, que surgen problemas inesperados, que los que quieren morirse no pueden y los que no quieren morirse y viven en los países limítrofes quieren meterse ilegalmente para no morir y vivir por siempre.
Hay un desconcierto generalizado y una falsa alegría que terminará enfrentando a la población de alguna manera. El supuesto beneficio de "no morir" que la muerte le otorga a los ciudadanos de este país me hizo recordar a la novela "El hombre invisible" de H. G. Wells puntualmente porque esa otra novela Wells nos cuenta que no es tan divertido ser invisible: el personaje de Griffin es invisible, pero está desnudo, sufre frío, tiene hambre porque si come todos verán el alimento en el aire, no puede dormir porque sus párpados son invisibles, todo el mundo lo choca, no lo ve, no puede caminar más porque sus pies están lastimados y muchas otras circunstancias inesperadas se cruzan en su camino.
Lo que sucede aquí tampoco es un don o un privilegio. En cierto modo termina transformándose en un castigo.
Todo, especialmente a nivel institucional queda al borde del colapso. Tengamos en cuenta que los que quieren morir comienzan a querer escaparse para enterrar a sus moribundos en los países vecinos, el Estado no sabe a ciencia cierta cómo resolver la cuestión, la Iglesia pone el grito en el cielo ya que uno de sus principios, además de Dios es la muerte y esta ya no es un problema para los feligreses. Las religiones entran en crisis.
Por otro lado, los geriátricos deben sostener indefinidamente a todos los ancianos internados con los costos que ello acarrea, los seguros de vida no puede cortarse, por ende comienzan a endeudarse ante el hecho de seguir sosteniendo todo el sistema de sus asegurados; los filósofos se quedan a mitad de camino con sus ideales sobre la muerte, las compañías de sepelios quedan al borde de la quiebra y es lógico: nadie se muere. Aparecen un organismo clandestino, la "maphia" (con ph) que se encarga de trasladar a los moribundos para que mueran fuera del país. Todo esto ocupa media novela.
Pero... ¡la muerte vuelve! y aquí encontramos nuevamente un giro inesperado, tan imprevisto como el de la primer línea.
Es maravilloso la manera en que Saramago caracteriza a la muerte, asociándola con una mujer y especialmente en cómo esta decide volver a poner manos a la obra con el lógico resultado: miles de muertos de golpe y un nuevo colapso dentro de este pobre país.
Saramago filosofa, pero tampoco convierte su narración en una cuestión trascendental ni existencial sino que simplemente nos cuenta que es lo que pasa con esta muerte que en el fondo no sabe bien qué es lo que quiere...
La muerte decide la muerte de la gente enviándoles cartas en papel color violeta para que sepan que van a morir.
Imaginen esto: les llega una carta que les dice que tienen siete días y después, al infierno, el purgatorio o el paraíso. ¿Cuántas cosas nos apuraríamos a hacer? Tal vez intentaríamos miles y simplemente haríamos algunas o tal vez nada. Entraríamos en pánico sin saber para dónde ir.
Pero, como en la ficción todo es posible, hasta a la muerte le salen mal las cosas ya que una de estas cartas le es devuelta.
Al parecer hay un violonchelista de cincuenta años que debería haber muerto a los cuarenta y nueve. ¿Cómo? ¡Eso no puede ser! Bueno, para Saramago sí es posible. Entonces pone en marcha su plan final para a última parte de la novela.
Utiliza toda la ironía posible y un finísimo humor negro para caracterizar a la muerte, ésta, desconcertada decide ir a ver al violonchelista convertida en una sensual mujer pero... la involucra sentimentalmente con él al mejor estilo de la película "¿Conoces a Joe Black?" interpretada por Brad Pitt y Anthony Hopkins.
El resultado es un final abierto de una originalidad que a pocos se les ocurriría. La novela termina fantásticamente, entonces yo cierro el libro, me pongo de pie y aplaudo a José Saramago.
Julio Cortázar decía que no hay buena o mala literatura, sino temas bien o mal tratados en la literatura.
En el caso de esta novela, "Las intermitencias de la muerte", Saramago toma un tema tan trascendental para el ser humano como es el de la muerte o como lo son también el amor, Dios o la vida y lo convierte en una novela casi perfecta.

What happens if people stop dying? After a general celebration many people are actually in trouble: undertakers, those who work for cemeteries and insurance companies and others. The nation passes a law that pets must be given full burials! Insurance companies change procedures so that people in their 80’s get the benefits. Even religions have a problem: if people don’t expect to die….?



Lady Death has taken a holiday in this one country. (And she is a she in languages with gendered pronouns.) But people still age. Now Grandma will be suffering up in that corner bedroom indefinitely. Some people start smuggling the very elderly across the border where they die and are buried. A new industry grows up around that. Are they heroes or villains? A lot of the early part of the book is a cynical description of political compromise and government inefficiency and corruption.

After all this ruckus, Death (although she prefers using the lower case ‘d’) decides to send a letter to the prime minister of the country announcing that Death will resume her duties but that in the future everyone will receive a purple envelope with a letter announcing their death a week in advance so they can put their affairs in order.

But one letter keeps getting returned by the post office – nothing mystical, probably just the usual bureaucratic screw-ups. Death leaves her cold, windowless office and decides to investigate. The person the letter is addressed to is a middle-aged man, a cellist, living a solitary life with his dog. Death starts spying on him as home without being seen, but then assumes human form and starts going to his concerts…

Some lines I liked:

“…but neither did we want merely to relegate it to the darkness of the inkwell.”

“…they went out for wool and came home shorn.”

“One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.”

The book has chapter breaks but is structured in page-length paragraphs with mostly commas. There is occasional dialogue but no quotation marks.



A good read although not my favorite by Nobel Prize winner Saramago.

En este libro Saramago relata las peripecias de un pueblo donde la muerte dejó de cumplir con su cometido. De un día a otro ella decide que nadie más va a morir y a partir de este evento inesperado, el autor teje su libro.

Funebreros desesperados porque les desaparece el negocio, jefes religiosos debatiendo qué pasa ahora con la creencia en el cielo y el infierno, parientes deseosos de herencias que ven frustrados sus planes, la aparición de nuevas formas de tráfico...

Qué puedo decir de este libro. Tiene pasajes tan divertidos que la gente a mi alrededor se sorprendía cuando estallaba en carcajadas en medio de lectura.

Es una obra magistral, con pasajes reflexivos increíbles y con esa prosa tan extraña de Saramago a la que una debe acostumbrarse, pero que siempre da momentos placenteros.

Todas las estrellas y más para él.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

انقطاعات الموت ـ للكاتب خوزيه ساراماغو

الكاتب خوزيه ساراماجو ماكر مراوغ استطاع بحس فكاهي وَبِسُخْرِيَة لاذعة أن يلعب بالحروف والكلمات، بالزمن والقدر وبعقل القارئ، في فانتازيا ملحمية خيالية بين الحياة والموت. يصيبك الكاتب بالتوتّر، يجعل القارئ يغوص إلى عمق معنى الحياة. في السؤال الهام: هل الموت من صالح البشرية؟ هل الخلود الأبدي على ظهر الأرض مُجدي؟

يُعرّي الكاتب في رواية“ انقطاعات الموت ”رجال الدين، المسؤولين، شركات التأمين على الحياة، حتى المافيا التي تظهر سرًا وعلنًا لتمارس أعمالها القذرة، وابتزاز الحكومة. الكل يلهث وراء مصالحه بكل بشاعة في استغلال الإنسان سواءً كان حيًا أو ميّتًا.

خوزيه ساراماجو جعل كلمة الموت في الرواية مؤنثة، في نهاية الرواية كانت المفاجأة.. المنية “الموت” وقعت في شباك الحياة مغزى عميق! عمل أدبي رائع تمنيت أن لا ينتهي.


اقتباسات من الرواية


“ لكل واحد منكم موته الخاص، تحملونه في مكان خفيّ منذ ولادتكم وهو ينتمي إليك، وأنت تنتمي إليه”.

“ إنّها المافيا يا سيدي، المافيا، أجل يا سيدي، المافيا، فالدولة لا تجد بُدّا في بعض الأحيان من البحث عمّن ينفّذ الأعمال القذرة”.

“ بالمناسبة، لا يمكننا مقاومة تذكّر أنّ الموت وحده، وفي حد ذاته، ودون مساعدة خارجيّة، قد قتل على الدوام أقل ممّا يقتل الإنسان”.

“عزيزي السيّد، يؤسفني إخبارك أنّ حياتك ستنتهي خلال مهلة الأسبوع التي لا رجوع عنها وغير قابلة للتمديد، فاستغل بأفضل ما تستطيع الوقت المتبقّي لك، خادمتك المخلصة، موت”.

“ إخبار شخص بأنّه سيموت في موعد محدّد هو أسوأ الأخبار، إنّه أشبه بكون المرء في حجرة المحكومين بالإعدام منذ سنوات عديدة وفجأة يأتي السجّان ليقول له، ها هي رسالتك فاستعدّ”.

قالت موت للمنجل طويل الذراع الصامت، ليس هناك في العالم وخارجه من امتلك مثل سلطتي، إنّني الموت وما عداي لا شيء”.

"يا للفضيحة غير المسبوقة، أنّ شخصًا يتوجّب أن يكون ميتا منذ يومين ما زال حيّا”.

إنّها السيِّدَة موت مثلما يجب أن تكون، قادرة على جعل الأرض ترتجّ تحت قدميها، تجرجر كفنها، والدخان يتصاعد منها في كلّ خطوة. إنّ موت غاضبة. وهذه هي اللحظة المناسبة لنخرج لها لساننا”.

“ باختصار، لم تروَ عن الرب والموت سوى قصص وهذه مجرّد قصّة أخرى من تلك القصص الكثيرة”.

“ تردّدت موت، ولم تستطع حسم أمرها بين الزهو والمذلّة، ومن أجل بلوغ التعادل، من أجل الخروج من التردّد، شغلت نفسها في مراقبة الموسيقيّ، آملة أن يكشف لها تعبير الوجه عن العيب، أو ربّما اليدين”.

“ فاليدان كتابان مفتوحان، ليس لقراءة الكفّ، المزعومة والحقيقيّة، بخطوطها الخاصّة بالقلب والحياة، أجل، بالحياة، ما سمعتموه صحيح أيّها السادة، بالحياة، وإنّما لأنّهما تتكلمان عندما تنفتحان أو تنطبقان، عندما تداعبان أو تضربان، عندما تمسحان دمعة أو تخفيان بسمة، عندما تحطّان على الكتف أو تعبّران عن وداع، عندما تعملان، عندما تهدآن، عندما تنامان، عندما تستيقظان“.

Death is never too far away. She follows us from the day we are born and keeps an eye on us every step of the way. She’s not waiting for the right moment to take us (back) to that dark and silent place where we were before we came to this world. She doesn’t have to wait. She needs no sense of time as she already knows exactly when that moment is going to be for each of us. She knows it all, and she’s everywhere. The time will come.

But what if death stopped coming to get us; If all of a sudden we all find out that she’s taken a holiday, or worse (better?) she’s probably not coming back?
What would you do?
What would we all do?
Would we all go crazy and overdose on our new found freedom?

And so at the start of the novel we discover that no one is dying anymore. Death is nowhere to be found. Saramago has a strange but very clever way of making the reader believe the most random, disturbing and unbelievable situations without even a single drop of disbelief. There’s no “Nah, this is bullshit” or “Wtf, this is impossible”. No! You’re going to “buy” it all. You’re even going to start feeling like, after all, the implausibility it’s not that implausible. If you ever read one of his novels you’ll know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t then I think it might be time for you to find out.

But, yes, there’s a “but” about this one, and I’m not going to rate it five stars like I did with Blindness and The Double. Four stars for this one. Why? Well, because I feel like I’ve read two different novels in just a few more than two hundred pages. Not that I think that that has to be a bad thing, but I’m only saying this because of how much quicker I was turning the pages in the second half of it. The first part lacked a main character. It was too focused on the social, political and religious effects of the absence of death, and I’m too much of a lover of strong characters to fully appreciate a story with no one in particular to love or hate.

It wasn’t by any means bad, don’t get me wrong, that first half. Saramago’s writing was on top form (he was in his mid eighties at the time this was published) and there was plenty of food for thought but after I reached the mid-point something (really surprising and exciting) happens which meant I literally couldn’t stop turning those deadly pages! At that point there wasn’t just one but two main characters. And two very charismatic ones, by the way. Guess whose back in town!

And the ending...! Oh my goodness, that was pure genius.

Obrigado, Saramago.