Death with Interruptions

By José Saramago

     I picked up this novel by suggestion from my good friend and fellow blogger, Deputy Dawg. He was reading it a while ago and had told me about the premise of the book. I started this novel knowing only that it deals with some ideas about death and what would happen one day if everyone suddenly stopped dying.
    While the idea of the book was clear to me, the story was far from what can be anticipated. I’m not sure that after reading my review here a reader will be prepared for what this book offers, but I am ready to do my best to make it so. The book begins in an unknown Country; at the stroke of midnight death has been suspended. After a few days, people begin to take notice that no one has died. The infirm and weak persist in a vegetative state, unable to cross over into whatever lays beyond this life. From omniscient third person perspective, we eavesdrop into the dialogue among those affected by the absence of death. Insurance companies, hospice care facilities, hospitals, and morticians all struggle as their livelihood has been fundamentally changed. We see how society changes to deal with this new condition, and how their morals are challenged. For example: people residing in the present Country cannot die, is it permissible to take the infirm beyond the borders to allow them to die? While death is a topic most people see as an unfortunate consequence of life, putting the perspective on the living shows what a necessity it really is for normal life. Additional ideas are discussed in the novel, such as the idea that death could perhaps provide a 1 week warning to those whose life will soon end. How will people choose to use this extra time? Will they elect to make amends to those they have wronged, say goodbye to family members, or indulge as they have nothing to lose?
      The book really reminded me of a book that might be assigned for a college class. One which can facilitate a great deal of discussion, reflection, and change of perspective. This would also probably make for a good book for a book club. Before I continue, let me temper my praise of this book with the following: I enjoyed reading this book, but it was very different from any pleasure reading I would typically undertake. The dialogue takes quite a while to get used to. The writing style is unique, being narrated from the third person omniscient through a flow of consciousness type of style. The book reads a bit funny, which may be attributed to the fact it was translated from Portuguese. Punctuation also stood out to me in this book. Some typical elements, like capitalization and quotation marks, were omitted from the text. Perhaps related to the flow of consciousness style, commas were also ubiquitous, which sometimes made comprehension a bit more of a challenge. It is not structured to have a flowing story or the typical progression of a work of fiction (think dramatic structure). What it does well, however, is make the reader think about things. This book will certainly not change your life and it won’t give you a new perspective about mortality and life as we know it. But I don’t believe that was the author’s intention in the first place. If you like to think and keep an open mind, this book would be an interesting read for you. And I would recommend this book to readers out there who are engaged in a book club, as the collaborative discourse might provide further significance to this book which I was unable to gain reading it on my own.
     Rating: 4 out of 5 Bunsen Burners Up Next: TBA (I am currently reading the Hunger Games trilogy, but will not be reviewing them as they have already been reviewed by Kady. Where appropriate, I will include my thoughts about the books in the comments section of the previous reviews).