The ideas the author wants to bring across, if present at all, do not seem very interesting. The omniscient narrator is meant to be funny but is really annoying. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Rate this book. My first difficulty was in understanding Senhor Jose's motivation to track down an unknown woman. Lisboa: Caminho, 1998. I am amazed at the effectiveness of Saramago style (at least as is comes across in translation). Book Of A Lifetime: All The Names, By José Saramago, Booking.com discount code: 10% with Level 1 Genius membership, Use this Debenhams discount and save up to 70% on men's lines - Spring offer, 20% off fitness with this exclusive Ideal World promo code, Receive a £2 AliExpress promo code with the official App, Argos discount code for 15% off selected Samsung Galaxy phones. But one day, when he comes across the records of an anonymous young woman, something happens to him. José Saramago is one of the most important international writers of the last hundred years. He's a poor, lonely man whose hobby is collecting newspaper clippings about the 100 most famous people in the country. There's no special reason for this pursuit, which becomes an elaborate and increasingly surreal catalogue of misdeeds and lies. It tackles so many themes and genres that it is really very hard to describe, it's Kafkaesque to a degree, focuses on loneliness and its similarity in a way to death, the fragility and short time we have on earth, the idea of identity, the possibility of love, how well we know ourselves and those around us, curiosity. All the names Item Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. His long paragraphs with limited punctuations containing entire conversations, including multiple characters thoughts and impressions are well done. Error rating book. That seemed harder to fathom when considering this character was middle. 17,400 ratings, 3.90 average rating, 1,313 reviews. Todos os Nomes (Lisbon: Editorial Caminho, 1997). Share via email. Thoughts fall through his mind unselfconsciously, without examination, which makes him a charming, humble, hapless and real narrator. I love the idea that we're so much more than what is ever recorded or known - and nothing that is recorded or not recorded can change that. Sometimes the way we read books is very much dictated by the context in which we read them, and this is true for me and 'All the Names'. In the process of generating snapshots of what we think, do, and experience and then archiving them, the line between originality and reproduction is blurred. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1999. REVIEW OF SARAMAGO'S ALL THE NAMES by Richard Eder José Saramago, All the Names. Clear rating. A human being of perfection (which should be there by birth itself) will love to live and will love to die. José Saramago was an author who began writing late in life but in the time he wrote he managed to share with the world some very disturbing thoughts and yet at the same time make those disturbing thoughts into very beautiful literature. Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. As with all his fiction, the largely unpunctuated prose flows like water, so that you don't so much read it as move through it fully immersed. Senhor José is driven by this need. He lives alone in an old building that used to be part of the registry, so he has access to an old door that secretly lets him into the building after hours. / Ana Sofia Ganho -- Beatriz Berrini. He’s 50-ish and still not even a senior clerk. Share to Twitter. I sat like this in front of my computer after finishing Blindness and The Stone Raft. Difficult questions. Excellent novel. MARGARET JULL COSTA has established herself as the premier translator of Portuguese literature into English today. Part mystery, part existential cry from the ether, ALL THE NAMES takes on a life of its own as we follow the protagonist, José, a lowly clerk in the Central Registry, while he searches for a woman he knows nothing more about than her name and date of birth. His long paragraphs with limited punctuations containing entire conversations, including multiple characters thoughts and impressions are well done. 245 pages San Diego: A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., 1997 ISBN: 0-15-601059-3. Also, is about to know how to take life and death: seriously or non-seriously? Welcome back. First reading: This was one of those reading experiences where you find a novel that’s entirely about a subject you’ve been thinking about for years and wondered if anyone else thinks about it. Senhor Jose becomes obsessed with trying to find her and learn about her life. JOSÉ SARAMAGO (1922–2010) was the author of many novels, among them Blindness, All the Names, Baltasar and Blimunda, and The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Free delivery on qualified orders. Senhor Jose is a simple man, he has the job of a lower division clerk at Central Registry of Births and Deaths. But according to mystic masters, everything is crystal clear and simple to rule: seriousness is a sick way of looking at existence. It's a novel that has soul, which Saramago offers to his readers with all his witty, intelligent, tender and magical generosity. Throughout the story, we are presented with wonderfully amusing anecdotes of satire concerning the operations of the day-to-day government. Jose Saramago often befuddles me. Senhor Jose is a friendless clerk who works in the Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the days before computers when all records were recorded by hand. I understood his impulse towards curiosity, especially given the banality of his job, but to lie, falsify documents, commit crimes and abandon his responsibilities? I was given a copy of José Saramago's 'All the Names' by a dear friend one Christmas. What's more, about halfway through, Senhor José gets the flu. About All the Names All the Names Summary Identity in such a world is fraught with questions of genuineness. I was given a copy of José Saramago's 'All the Names' by a dear friend one Christmas. [ even breaking into her old school to look at her old school records. When he secretly copies the registry information about the celebrities, he mistakenly takes the registry card of an unknown woman. All the Names). The book has been awarded with Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize … In All the Names, Saramago has written a strong and interesting novel. Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Given the characters' blindness, some of their names seem ironic ("the boy with the squint" or "the girl with the dark glasses"). It tackles so many themes and genres that it is really very hard to describe, it's Kafkaesque to a degree, focuses on loneliness and its similarity in a way to death, the fragility and short time we have on earth, the idea of identity, the possibility of love, how well we know ourselves and those around us, curiosity, our purpose, and loss. This primes us for an allusion to a character in Saramago's earlier novel, the Borgesian love story All the Names. It blew my mind; the prose is breathtaking. On the face of it, the novel doesn't seem to be about much at all – the long inner monologue of a lonely civil servant called Senhor José who works in the Central Registry for births, deaths and marriages, and who becomes obsessed with the records of a woman, called only the "unknown woman". In fact, this is the very book the protagonist of All the Names would likely read in one go, sat up in bed, with a cup of weak coffee, and an unfulfilling sandwich, as he doesn't exactly have a busy schedule away from work, that is, until an unknown woman enters his life, no, he enters hers, only without her knowing it. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published this is as all sarmago written in long, conversational descriptions and digressions, you are never not aware this is a human story, filtered through very human protagonist, ongoing authorial commentary, irony, comedy, make t. 151117: later addition: i think this is the third time read, though i did not review it the second time. I never thought a novel about a lonely and duller than dull file clerk could turn out to be so readable, but that's exactly how I found this, it was difficult to find a reasonable place to stop, of which I simply had to, as it's a bit too long to gulp down in one go, although for those who don't get fidgety cramps, don't have much of an appetite, and with plenty of time on their hands, it may work out beneficial. His formal language winds itself in unnecessarily long sentences that ask a lot of concentration. His/her life will be a dance, and his/her death will be a song, and there will be no distinction between life and death. The kind of read that I want with every book, but so rarely get. I am always amazed to discover in Saramago's creations how he managed to create and cover such a wide range of feelings and emotions through an ordinary character. Yesterday, June 18, 2010, the world suffered a great loss in the death of Jose Saramago. Ler Saramago: o romance. As usual, the language is beautiful and I recommend it. José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE, was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. The lack of proper character names in Blindness is typical of many of Saramago's novels (e.g. All in all, well worth the time to read it, even if it did try my patience at times. What at first appears to be a simple story about a humdrum civil servant's odd fascination with an unknown woman quickly becomes a stunning exploration of loneliness, bureaucratic absurdity, and the purpose of a meaningful life. Obse. We’d love your help. These are books that will be easily spoiled if you know too much about them before you read them. It is an … This one was odd. This book is about the sadness of being alone, love, and death. Not only did José and I suffer together; the novel also works itself out into a dreamscape which began to sew itself into my own feverish dreams. Secret door into Indian House of Records [s], whats the name of this novel?a guy who works at a post office he handles the letters and he just starts reading the letters like out of boredom .... [s], Susan Orlean's Library-Themed Reading Recommendations.