A review by mschlat
The Double by José Saramago
5.0
I picked this up as a suggested read-alike to [a:China Miéville|33918|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1243988363p2/33918.jpg], and I was immediately concerned when I saw a solid block of text on the first page, and the page after that, and the page after that... I am normally pretty leery of books that don't provide regular breaks (and thus abhor stream of consciousness tales). However, I have gained some appreciation of long sentences thanks to the book [b:First You Write a Sentence.|38470061|First You Write a Sentence. The Elements of Reading, Writing … and Life|Joe Moran|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1528708582l/38470061._SY75_.jpg|60098936], and Saramago writes great sentences. They're long, often meandering, and sometimes include full dialogues (with no quotation marks), but they are also illuminating and quite funny. Indeed, in this book you regularly get the (mostly) omniscient narrator's take on the situation (often at odds with the characters) and a running debate between the main character and his common sense.
In terms of prose style, this might be close to Miéville, but it is much more subdued than his weird fiction. Our protagonist (the curiously named Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, a history teacher) discovers by watching a videotape of a movie the existence of an actor who is his exact duplicate. The rest of the book follows the consequences of that discovery, often at a slow, densely detailed pace (I regularly thought of this work as [a:Nicholson Baker|15882|Nicholson Baker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1580973983p2/15882.jpg]'s [b:The Mezzanine|247000|The Mezzanine|Nicholson Baker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1307064718l/247000._SY75_.jpg|2340174] with a plot.) Still, when the climax of the work hit, I almost threw my iPad across the room. It is a Twilight Zone story elevated to literary fiction almost solely through the strength of Saramago's sentences. Highly recommended.
In terms of prose style, this might be close to Miéville, but it is much more subdued than his weird fiction. Our protagonist (the curiously named Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, a history teacher) discovers by watching a videotape of a movie the existence of an actor who is his exact duplicate. The rest of the book follows the consequences of that discovery, often at a slow, densely detailed pace (I regularly thought of this work as [a:Nicholson Baker|15882|Nicholson Baker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1580973983p2/15882.jpg]'s [b:The Mezzanine|247000|The Mezzanine|Nicholson Baker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1307064718l/247000._SY75_.jpg|2340174] with a plot.) Still, when the climax of the work hit, I almost threw my iPad across the room. It is a Twilight Zone story elevated to literary fiction almost solely through the strength of Saramago's sentences. Highly recommended.