By: Jose Saramago Publisher: Harvest Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Harvest Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 264 Publication Date: October 05, 2001
Senhor José is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, and death that are his daily routine. But one day, when he comes across the records of an anonymous young woman, something happens to him. Obsessed, Senhor José sets off to follow the thread that may lead him to the woman-but as he gets closer, he discovers more about her, and about himself, than he would ever have wished.
The loneliness of people's lives, the effects of chance, the discovery of love-all coalesce in this extraordinary novel that displays the power and art of José Saramago in brilliant form.
Amazon.com Review: "As soon as you cross the threshold, you notice the smell of old paper." The Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths is the setting for All the Names, Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago's seventh novel to be translated into English. The names in question are those of every man, woman, and child ever born, married, or buried in the unnamed city where the Registry is located, and are the special province of Senhor José who is employed there as a clerk. Over the centuries, the paper trail in this hopelessly arcane bureaucracy has grown so monumental, so disorganized that
one poor researcher became lost in the labyrinthine catacombs of the archive of the dead, having come to the Central Registry in order to carry out some genealogical research he had been commissioned to undertake. He was discovered, almost miraculously, after a week, starving, thirsty, exhausted, delirious, having survived thanks to the desperate measure of ingesting enormous quantities of old documents that neither lingered in the stomach nor nourished, since they melted in the mouth without requiring any chewing.
The nondescript Senhor José labors long and thanklessly among the archives; his is a tepid, lonely life with only one small hobby to leaven his leisure hours: he collects "news items about those people in his country who, for good reasons and bad, had become famous." One night, it occurs to him that "something fundamental was missing from his collection, that is, the origin, the root, the source, in other words, the actual birth certificate of these famous people"--and that the information is within easy reach on the other side of a connecting door that separates his meager lodgings from the Registry itself. And so begins Senhor José's midnight raids on the stacks as he shuttles between the Registry and his own room bearing precious records that he carefully copies before returning them to their rightful places. Still, this minor aberration might have remained the clerk's only transgression if not for a simple act of fate: one night, along with his celebrity records, he accidentally picks up a birth certificate belonging to an ordinary, unknown woman--a woman who becomes suddenly more important than all the others precisely because she is unknown. Celebrity is cast aside as Senhor José begins a search for this mysterious quarry--a quest that will lead him into conflict with his superior, the Registrar, and ensnare him in the kind of messy personal histories and tangled relationships he has thus far avoided in his own life.
A recurring theme in many of Saramago's novels is the very human struggle between withdrawal and connection. Whether it is the Iberian peninsula literally breaking off from the rest of Europe in The Stone Raft or an entire country afflicted by a devastating malady in Blindness, he is fascinated by the effects of isolation on the human soul and, correspondingly, the redemptive power of compassion. All the Names continues to mine this rich vein as the repressed clerk follows his unknown Ariadne's thread out of the labyrinth of his own strangled psyche and into life. Readers will find here Saramago's trademark love of the absurd, his brilliant imagery and idiosyncratic punctuation, as well as the unflinching yet tender honesty with which he chronicles the human condition. --Alix Wilber
Minor problem with translation Saragamo does not use quotation marks. In the dialogues between two persons, he indicates a switch between speakers by a comma, followed by a word that begins with a capital letter. This is a problem in English when the word is "I", because "I" is always capitalized. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to determine when the speaker switches. The translator could have eliminated this problem by using the non-capitalized form of "i" when it was not the first word following a switch of speakers. Although not gramatically correct, it would have made it easier for the reader.
Good, but I'm a bit confused. This is the first book I read by this author. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. However, the ending left me a bit confused. Oddly, I get the feeling as I get older it will make more and more sense. I have to ask though. If he hadn't started his search, with all the effects it had on the other characters. Would things have turned out different for her? I think you know what I'm talking about.
Pointless I normally enjoy reading Saramago's material, but I had a difficult time getting through "All The Names." Maybe I'm a little too dense to understand the underlying meaning to this novel, but, as a previous review mentioned, it took a long time to develop and when it finally reached a point of interest, some 100 pages later, it seemed to just drag even more. On a positive note, the writing was superb.
what's in a name? 'All the Names' is a decidedly odd novel by Jose Saramago. In it he chronicles the rather lonely life of a middle-aged bachelor who works at a government ministry responsible for recording births, marriages, divorces and deaths of the populace. This bachelor clearly has issues, and he takes on an unwholesome obsession with his work. When he stumbles across the name of a complete stranger he feels compelled, as if dictated by divine intervention, to learn everything about her.
Unfortunately after the author does a satisfactory job of pulling the reader into the madness of this civil servant he doesn't really finish the story in a satisfactory way (..no spoilers here). If there is a profound message embedded in 'All the Names' I'm afraid I couldn't find it.
Bottom line: the sort of novel that defines its premise very nicely but then proceeds sideways, never moving forward to a satisfactory conclusion. Not recommended.
kafka lite If Kafka were older and a little more optimistic (magical) what would you get? This author. Typical for his novels, the protagonist is a lonely older man trapped in a bureaucracy, who discovers and creates a bit of mystery. Well worth it, but be prepared. This author does not like punctuation, which can slow you down a little. In this case it makes you savor the novel more.
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