Saramago's death

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sat Jun 19, 2010 2:11 am

Hi, I don't know if many here likes to read, there is not much space to talk about literature (which is very normal since it's the forum dedicated to a software). Anyway, I can tell you I'm very affected with Saramago's death, one of my favorite writers and a person which I admire deeply beyond his literary work.
Saramago was a very active communist and, even when in all papers I have read today they don't say it, is that militancy that has marked all his work. He wanted a better world, he was very critical in politics and always defended the weak. If you read novels like Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness) or The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, you will noticed how around metaphors he builds his critic.
He also breaks schemes with the way he construct his prose dialogue and all the structure of his novels, which looks like a tree with many branches, where the principal trunk seems to lose its importance in favor of the speaker which always have something to add and enriches a lot the novel.
As you have noticed, it's hard to me to talk about literature here and more if it's in English, language which I have very little domain. I love several english speaker books, like kipling, carrol, melville, etc and one of my motivations on english learning is to be able some day to read them on it's own language.
Anyway, I'm losing my point, I just wanted to tell you that a very big one guy has left us today. He is not on the heaven, he is on the ground where he always thought he would be. If anyone have something to add, feel free to talk, if any of you haven't read any Saramago novel, I invite you to do it, I promise you won't regret.
I recommend you Blindness to start (and please do not watch the movie before reading), the novel which gave him the nobel price.

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:11 am

A coworker of mine gave me copies of Saramago and Haldor Laxness years ago, but I've never found the time to read these great writers. I might try reading Stone Raft this weekend as it looks the most accessible to my non-literary mind.