“In Death with Interruptions (also translated as Death at Intervals), Saramago once again sparks the flames for another philosophical discourse with the question: What if death withdrew her scythe and people stopped dying? And what a discourse it is!
Saramago utilizes the endless possibilities of that simple “What if?” to satirize different sectors of society in a way that is at once comic and profoundly disturbing. There is initially celebration among the masses, yet the reality of a deathless society sets in: the need for a church is brought into question, the funeral industry is left to prepare burials for animals, insurance is rendered worthless, and, because the dying would forever be in a state of suspended life, the hospitals would gain an influx of patients, the eventide homes an indeterminate supply of residents (with no hope of any of them leaving).
Here we have death as a highly impersonal event. The latter part of the novel, however, reveals death as an existing (I dare not say living!) entity, whose humdrum affairs are disturbed when, for the first time, something goes awry. The biting wit of the novel is then replaced by a tenderness that permeates its final chapter.
The central question of the novel—death or no death?—is like a choice between scylla and charybdis (as is so often mentioned). One sees here how “eternity” is a dreadful prospect, how death is a necessary end to life. Yet, through the eyes of death with a small d, one also gets a sense of how beautiful it is to live.
It is unfortunate that many readers find Saramago’s idiosyncratic prose style a deterrent to enjoying his work. That is a shame, because I think it is precisely his way of using language that helps make his novels transcend. If I highlighted the book for all the memorable passages, the pages would be bathed in a sea of neon colors!”
moonlitdawn wrote this review Friday, December 31, 2010.
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