Death with Interruptions (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2005; vuoden 2009 painos)

"The following day no one died ... New Year's Eve has failed to leave behind the usual trail of calamities"

Sometimes I enjoy this author, sometimes not but he's always original. I haven't read him for a long time. This novel I couldn't put down from the very first sentence once I got used to the layout and the manner of writing; it felt breathless as though he was trying to say everything in a rush. This story concerns death [with a small d] who one year has no one die. She lives in a small room with only filing cabinets and a scythe for company. Different businesses are thrown into a tizzy and people who are lingering on and not dying are taken to an adjoining country where people still die. death realizes this was just an experiment and resumes having people die after 7 months. She now sends them a handwritten note beforehand giving them a week's notice to wind up their affairs and say goodbye to family. One letter to a cellist keeps coming back to her so she changes into a woman's form, goes to his apartment and wants to give him the letter in person. She notices in a book on entomology the death's head moth [pictured on the cover] which she wonders if she should have used instead of the note. The ending was perhaps a little predictable, but did fit into the story.

Highly recommended. ( )

Really hated this book and could not even finish it.
I guess the writing style appeals to some people, bur I just found it needlessly verbose and couldn't even enjoy the humor because of it. ( )

Saramago is a master of writing. Here, he has chosen death as his protagonist. And she has chosen to stop. The first half of the book concerns a country without death, and what political, social and moral upheaval the end of death would cause. The second half concerns death and love, and the human, as opposed to the socio-political, aspect of this.

This is a beautiful and funny satire, that brings up Saramago's common criticisms of 20th Century western culture, but with a wry delivery, and a hopeful air, buoyed by his incredible imagination.

The translation, but Margaret Jull Costa, is terrific: although I cannot read the original, I believe that her delivery must be faithful to Saramago's original offbeat tempo. ( )

Surprisingly, I liked the massively long paragraphs - once I got used to it, I think it gave the narration a great, almost bouncy, rhythm. The ideas behind and in this book are intriguing and humorous, but the story itself is so impersonal and rushed feeling that it overwhelms the positives, making this book a boring slog that I would dread picking up each time I put it down. ( )

Questa volta Saramago intinge la penna in un calamaio scuro, molto denso; il risultato è un testo gotico, che impegna il lettore. Poche virgole, praticamente nessun capoverso. Un libro difficile che sottende alla complessità della protagonista. Morte, senza articolo come vuole lui, o meglio lei. Libro, o meglio racconto, che si può scindere, idealmente, in due parti. Nel primo la morte decide di sospendere l’attività per un periodo. Nessun muoia, il sogno dell’umanità. Esplodono, però, i problemi sociali, i calcoli contributivi per le pensioni, il sovraffollamento degli ospedali, i vecchi da accudire, i consumi alimentari. E la malavita si organizza per trovare, nell’ambito della nuova realtà, nuove modalità di business. Se lo sapesse Saviano si fonderebbe come sa fare, come un avvoltoio, che attende la morte degli altri. Poi morte decide di tornare al suo lavoro, ma con un sistema diverso. Preavvisa, con una lettera viola. Non riesce, però, ad inviare una lettera, una sola, ad un violinista. Morte non può fare il proprio mestiere. E conosce l’uomo, arrivando al punto da innamorarsene. Ci dormirà insieme; ma non è un problema di trama. Ma di modalità. Saramago ha avuto il massimo riconoscimento per uno scrittore, il Nobel. E a mio avviso è uno dei maggiori interpreti della letteratura contemporanea. ( )