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copdisrespecter's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this enough, enough to want to read Blindness since this is my first of his (early, less developed, by nature short) and I expect it to be a better version of this. Some things not expressed in other reviews so here I am:
The Chair - A fun if not tedious microscopic view of the few seconds before during and after the fall of Salazar. The temporal aspect is interesting, to focus so much on a single moment that has, to its contrary, a long (2 year) fatal impact. Saramago's focus on the chair, it's material, the physics beneath its breaking, etc., all bring a crude determinacy of cause-and-effect to the Salazar's literals downfall-- something I consider to illustrate above all an attitude that Saramago holds for Salazar specifically and icons of power in general.
Embargo - There's something here about the displacement of human desire onto the appendage of organismic machinery and tools. The cars being a necessity of daily life, the petrol-energy being (as if) the fuel of the protagonist's body. The control that scarcity of resources (and thus geopolitics, the market, etc.) have on our being. And finally the psycho-emotional aversion to work that one only half-heartedly attempts to suppress.
Reflux - I'd echo everything others here have said about the dichotomy between life and death, the futile desire to expel all of death's semblances, and how one pole folds itself back upon its counterpart once it's become too suppressed or imbalanced. Life invites death, and death, life. Etc. Pretty. Also, the childish and sociopathic projects of Kings, not so divorced from reality actually.
Things - Really a highlight here, simply because it ties together to detailedness of Saramago with his quirkiness, but this time with a clarity that I think will tickle the brains of even the most passive readers. Something about alienation, and the dead labor embedded in all of our objects, all of our possessions, and the controlled/controlling paranoia of those things, and of humans/citizens/workers, in the economy. How such systems fall apart, how they resist themselves in order to fall apart. Revolutionary impulse felt by the unsuspecting citizen as his ideological conditioning gets withered away bit-by-bit with every "I'm sure everything is fine" and "surely everything is under control" sentiment.
The Centaur - Never before have I considered the internal tension that something half human/half horse might feel; that perhaps a centaur wouldn't feel a singular subjectivity but rather two varying ones that both agitate and compromise for each other. This is fun and beautiful, up to the end when the supposedly more-thinking human half reacts with the automaticity often prescribed to nonhuman animals. The tension between village and wilderness, man and gods, man and mystical beasts, dreams and fate and reconciliation and resolution and the tragic impossibility of happy endings all come together with the peacefulness of dreams.
Revenge - As most people have said here, this one is elusive. Short. Disturbing, though there's something so libidinal about the seemingly disparate parts being held together. I haven't seen any reviews that try to say anything about it at all, so I'll try. There's something here, maybe about boyhood, but also also the pubescent experience of young adults in general. The imaginative and charged narratives that minds spin while in the throes of hormonal development. This is what I'm ascribing something libidinal. The boy and girl witness each other at opposite sides of a river, swimming, un/dressing. The witnessing of the pig's castration. That forming a tension, wound up, perhaps uncomfortable like a hurt/wounded ego that inversely spurs on a sort of confidence to 'do something, anything' when you don't know what it is that you're supposed to do, and so that thing you do is to lean inward toward the tension and to see it through... all of that relieved in the motivation to undress yet again at the river as the girl mirrors the same. To cross the river, to lean in, to find out, that is the revenge for the pig, who will not be directed at all anymore by its hormonal life. And of course, the girl runs off - no one said they were supposed to meet. Another lesson.
The Chair - A fun if not tedious microscopic view of the few seconds before during and after the fall of Salazar. The temporal aspect is interesting, to focus so much on a single moment that has, to its contrary, a long (2 year) fatal impact. Saramago's focus on the chair, it's material, the physics beneath its breaking, etc., all bring a crude determinacy of cause-and-effect to the Salazar's literals downfall-- something I consider to illustrate above all an attitude that Saramago holds for Salazar specifically and icons of power in general.
Embargo - There's something here about the displacement of human desire onto the appendage of organismic machinery and tools. The cars being a necessity of daily life, the petrol-energy being (as if) the fuel of the protagonist's body. The control that scarcity of resources (and thus geopolitics, the market, etc.) have on our being. And finally the psycho-emotional aversion to work that one only half-heartedly attempts to suppress.
Reflux - I'd echo everything others here have said about the dichotomy between life and death, the futile desire to expel all of death's semblances, and how one pole folds itself back upon its counterpart once it's become too suppressed or imbalanced. Life invites death, and death, life. Etc. Pretty. Also, the childish and sociopathic projects of Kings, not so divorced from reality actually.
Things - Really a highlight here, simply because it ties together to detailedness of Saramago with his quirkiness, but this time with a clarity that I think will tickle the brains of even the most passive readers. Something about alienation, and the dead labor embedded in all of our objects, all of our possessions, and the controlled/controlling paranoia of those things, and of humans/citizens/workers, in the economy. How such systems fall apart, how they resist themselves in order to fall apart. Revolutionary impulse felt by the unsuspecting citizen as his ideological conditioning gets withered away bit-by-bit with every "I'm sure everything is fine" and "surely everything is under control" sentiment.
The Centaur - Never before have I considered the internal tension that something half human/half horse might feel; that perhaps a centaur wouldn't feel a singular subjectivity but rather two varying ones that both agitate and compromise for each other. This is fun and beautiful, up to the end when the supposedly more-thinking human half reacts with the automaticity often prescribed to nonhuman animals. The tension between village and wilderness, man and gods, man and mystical beasts, dreams and fate and reconciliation and resolution and the tragic impossibility of happy endings all come together with the peacefulness of dreams.
Revenge - As most people have said here, this one is elusive. Short. Disturbing, though there's something so libidinal about the seemingly disparate parts being held together. I haven't seen any reviews that try to say anything about it at all, so I'll try. There's something here, maybe about boyhood, but also also the pubescent experience of young adults in general. The imaginative and charged narratives that minds spin while in the throes of hormonal development. This is what I'm ascribing something libidinal. The boy and girl witness each other at opposite sides of a river, swimming, un/dressing. The witnessing of the pig's castration. That forming a tension, wound up, perhaps uncomfortable like a hurt/wounded ego that inversely spurs on a sort of confidence to 'do something, anything' when you don't know what it is that you're supposed to do, and so that thing you do is to lean inward toward the tension and to see it through... all of that relieved in the motivation to undress yet again at the river as the girl mirrors the same. To cross the river, to lean in, to find out, that is the revenge for the pig, who will not be directed at all anymore by its hormonal life. And of course, the girl runs off - no one said they were supposed to meet. Another lesson.
memita's review against another edition
3.0
3,5*
Gostei bastante de quase todos os contos. Em muitas das suas histórias, Saramago pega num aspecto da vida ou do nosso dia a dia, a princípio muito simples, e extrapula-o, tornando-o maior e o centro da nossa atenção. Neste livro ele faz o mesmo, só que de uma forma muito mais breve e sucinta. Mas não deixa de ser extremamente inteligente e interessante. O conto de que não gostei, e que estragou o livro para mim, é o mais pequeno e último, pois não achei qualquer nexo ou relevância nas personagens e no acontecimento principal. O livro tem apenas 136 páginas, por isso terminei o livro com uma sensação de vazio, coisa que nunca aconteceu antes com este autor. O meu conto preferido, e que ficou na minha cabeça durante vários dias, é o segundo. Este conto prendeu a minha atenção desde o início da leitura e me deixou num desespero crescente, até à última frase.
Um facto curioso é que, e isto excluindo o primeiro conto, Saramago tem aqui um livro de fantasia ou de ficção científica, porque ele escreve a partir de coisas impossíveis de acontecer no mundo real. E só a partir deste livro é que comecei a pensar em todos os outros elementos de fantasia e/ou ficção científica que estão presentes nos outros livros que li dele. É curioso porque nunca tinha parado para "rotular" desta forma a sua imaginação, e este livro abriu-me as portas da percepção para tal.
Gostei bastante de quase todos os contos. Em muitas das suas histórias, Saramago pega num aspecto da vida ou do nosso dia a dia, a princípio muito simples, e extrapula-o, tornando-o maior e o centro da nossa atenção. Neste livro ele faz o mesmo, só que de uma forma muito mais breve e sucinta. Mas não deixa de ser extremamente inteligente e interessante. O conto de que não gostei, e que estragou o livro para mim, é o mais pequeno e último, pois não achei qualquer nexo ou relevância nas personagens e no acontecimento principal. O livro tem apenas 136 páginas, por isso terminei o livro com uma sensação de vazio, coisa que nunca aconteceu antes com este autor. O meu conto preferido, e que ficou na minha cabeça durante vários dias, é o segundo. Este conto prendeu a minha atenção desde o início da leitura e me deixou num desespero crescente, até à última frase.
Um facto curioso é que, e isto excluindo o primeiro conto, Saramago tem aqui um livro de fantasia ou de ficção científica, porque ele escreve a partir de coisas impossíveis de acontecer no mundo real. E só a partir deste livro é que comecei a pensar em todos os outros elementos de fantasia e/ou ficção científica que estão presentes nos outros livros que li dele. É curioso porque nunca tinha parado para "rotular" desta forma a sua imaginação, e este livro abriu-me as portas da percepção para tal.
nisanatreads's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ is a collection of three short stories that all depict things that come to life in some way or other.
What rattled me the most was definitely the last of those three stories, ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ, because it takes a much darker approach than the others and is a dystopian turn on the way things rule our lives and how we let them by establishing labels for ourselves. We put each other and ourselves in jeopardy by becoming fully dependent on items.
ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀɪʀ was definitely a bold choice to open up the collection with because it's so complex and hard to read. I had to look up the background story of this one after reading because I was sure that there was some meaning that I had overlooked. As it turns out it's a story about the death of the Portuguese president Oliveira Salazar. It reads much like a scene out of a crime novel and I thought that it was a very clever take.
ᴇᴍʙᴀʀɢᴏ is a humorous tale of a man who can't get out of his car during a severe petroleum shortage. He's physically unable to move from his seat, he needs to keep driving and sometimes it's not even him that's driving. Saramago describes the feeling of total loss of control and embarrassment so realistically, it felt like I was there in the car with him.
Overall, I think that this collection of short stories was a good way to get into Saramago's style of writing. You might say that he's got a strong fantastical approach to his stories but then they're also disturbingly realistic. It's a juxtaposition which I enjoyed very much. Another highlight for me is the way that he elongates small moments into whole narratives without making it too fastidious. It makes me very excited for future reads of his. 📚
Find me on Instagram @nisanatreads
What rattled me the most was definitely the last of those three stories, ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ, because it takes a much darker approach than the others and is a dystopian turn on the way things rule our lives and how we let them by establishing labels for ourselves. We put each other and ourselves in jeopardy by becoming fully dependent on items.
ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀɪʀ was definitely a bold choice to open up the collection with because it's so complex and hard to read. I had to look up the background story of this one after reading because I was sure that there was some meaning that I had overlooked. As it turns out it's a story about the death of the Portuguese president Oliveira Salazar. It reads much like a scene out of a crime novel and I thought that it was a very clever take.
ᴇᴍʙᴀʀɢᴏ is a humorous tale of a man who can't get out of his car during a severe petroleum shortage. He's physically unable to move from his seat, he needs to keep driving and sometimes it's not even him that's driving. Saramago describes the feeling of total loss of control and embarrassment so realistically, it felt like I was there in the car with him.
Overall, I think that this collection of short stories was a good way to get into Saramago's style of writing. You might say that he's got a strong fantastical approach to his stories but then they're also disturbingly realistic. It's a juxtaposition which I enjoyed very much. Another highlight for me is the way that he elongates small moments into whole narratives without making it too fastidious. It makes me very excited for future reads of his. 📚
Find me on Instagram @nisanatreads
knotanxious's review against another edition
Several of the stories are explorations of Salazar's rule, which I know terribly little about. "Things" is the clear standout.
bookwomble's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
reasie's review against another edition
4.0
I forget who recommended this author to me but I'm so glad I've found him. He is clearly writing speculative fiction whether it is labelled as such or not, and is a master at elongating small moments into full stories. For example "The Chair" which is a full-length short story about the moment a man sits on a chair and a chair-leg breaks, complete with imaginings about the fantastical lives and personalities of the wood-worms in said leg.
The titular story, "Things" is a dense allegory where a bureaucratic state suffers sudden vanishings of things - mail boxes and coffee mugs at first and then whole walls and buildings until the people are left bereft of objects. The meaning in the text is never outright there, but signified in things like how the narrator constantly references acronyms for things. "The Government (G) was concerned about the disappearing objects, utensils, machines and installations (OUMIs)"
Another story I really liked in the collection is "The Centaur" which describes a centaur, referring always to this duality of his nature, as though man-part and horse-part are separate entities with their own thoughts on events.
The titular story, "Things" is a dense allegory where a bureaucratic state suffers sudden vanishings of things - mail boxes and coffee mugs at first and then whole walls and buildings until the people are left bereft of objects. The meaning in the text is never outright there, but signified in things like how the narrator constantly references acronyms for things. "The Government (G) was concerned about the disappearing objects, utensils, machines and installations (OUMIs)"
Another story I really liked in the collection is "The Centaur" which describes a centaur, referring always to this duality of his nature, as though man-part and horse-part are separate entities with their own thoughts on events.
gav_ferreira's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
consti_26's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75