Customer Reviews

All the Names

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

José Saramago is a genius wordsmith. To the novice opening a first book by this Nobel Prize winning Portuguese novelist, Saramago may seem a bit mad, if not just frustratingly bizarre. Pages without paragraph indentations, with conversations unpunctuated or without speaker identified, no use of quotation maeks, abrupt changes of time and place within one ongoing endless sentence. These impediments to reading a novel often tend to make the reader begin to simply scan the way through the book, hoping to find the end to this strange means. BUT! It is precisely the "means" that places Saramago in the category of Greatest Living Writers. (More than a little praise is due his able translator!!) "All the Names" is a journey of obsession by a Kafaesque little nobody who works in a metaphorical General Registry that houses all the names of those born, married, and died in an unknown land/place. Saramago pulls us like a powerful magnet into this meticulously ordered conundrum and we are walking beside (and sharing the inner side of the skull of) a little clerk determined to place an identity of one unknown woman. This is at once a journey through Existentialism, through the anonymity of living in the world today, a study of the depersonalization of society. Yet out of this microscopic examination of details we come to understand the significance of maintaining individualism, of finding connection, of fighting against a meaningless passage on this earth. Though no one is named in this novel, save the main character, Saramago paints the peripheral characters with such clarity that names are the least important designators. This is not an easy read: many great books are not easy reads. But the work required to stay with the author to the end is compensated by luxuriating in a wordbath that is found only in strolling through the process. I think this is a brilliant book by a unique writer who has descovered a style of writing that only enhances his uncommonly interesting tales. Spend time here. You'll be rewared in countless ways.

This book is a wonder. Saramago once again takes us into an incredible world. This time the life of Sr. Jose, a low level employee at the National Registry. We should assume that the location is Lisbon, however, it is not clear. Nevertheless, his descriptions of the city are wonderful, and reminds us of the same descriptions from "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis." At times you feel that one is walking the streets of the city with Sr. Jose.

The most fascinating aspect of this book is the in-depth psychological descriptions of Sr. Jose's thinking. It felt like I actually could read is mind. It is exquisite writing, which makes for incredible reading.

The book can also be read as an incredible and fanstastic mystery. Additionally, and like most of Saramago's books, the political criticism is also present. One could read the book as a criticism to oppressive governments. Sr. Jose, representing the oppressed people and the Chief of the National Registry representing the dictator.

This book makes for a salivating and delicious reading. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

If he had never won the Nobel Prize, I would never have heard of Jose Saramago. I have read all of his novels and am captivated by his elegant and beautiful writing. It was with a mixture of hopeful anticipation and dread that I read this book: could it possibly measure up to my favorites Blindness and Baltisar and Blimunda. Well I need not have worried, Saramago drew me into his labyrinth from the first sentence. I was reminded of Kafka and Dante's Inferno when reading this story of a lonely public official Senhor Jose who is isolated by istitutions and his work. He represents all of modern humanity in it's struggle to survive emotionally. The book tells of Senhor Jose's attempt to find connections to other human beings, of having to fight all of the barriers erected by modern life. He is the "everyman" of the Twentieth Century. The glimpses of love that he finds during his obsessive quest is enough to transform him into another person. Read the book very slowly to savor the taste of Saramago's prose. He will be remembered as a great writer in distant times.

Saramago's in depth, tender and frequently humorous exploration of the life of a simple, timid clerk (Senhor Jose) unfolds into a story of a man's quest to overcome the fears that have all but smothered him. "Senhor Jose both wants and doesn't want, he both desires and fears what he desires, that is what his whole life has been like," Saramago tells us. Other than his "hobby," collecting information about famous people, Senhor Jose's life is mostly about being as uninvolved as possible.

In contrast to the main character in Saramago's earlier "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis," who is dead but doesn't know it, Senhor Jose is alive but doesn't know it. And unlike his earlier works in which fate seems to hold all the cards, in "All the Names" Saramago lets chance (serendipity) guide the story. It begins, almost as a reward for a tiny bit of daring, when Senhor Jose sneaks into his work place to get some more information about famous people for his collection and discovers, stuck to one of the records he was looking for, a misfiled record for a woman (another un-famous, unknown). Unbeknownst to him at the time, it will be the question posed by this simple piece of paper (Who is she?) that brings Senhor Jose "back from the dead." Skillfully, Saramago uses the same question to draw in his readers, and it is some time before he begins to let on that maybe this "unknown woman" is more important as a metaphor for what has become of Senhor Jose's spirit - his willingness to engage in life - than as some real woman he will eventually find. In the end, it is the search itself that eventually leads Senhor Jose to discover that what makes life worth living is never so dead that it can't be resurrected.

There is a shift in "quality" (character) between this book and Saramago's earlier ones. "All the Names" is not about politics, history or culture; it is focused on the psychology and spirit of the human experience. Saramago is such a brilliant observer of the inner life. His ability to write from within his characters (as opposed to about them), while clear in his earlier works, is taken to a new level in "All the Names." The many occasions in which Saramago lets us know what Senhor Jose is thinking (be it silly or sublime, ridiculous or profound) are written so well that it is hard not to feel that you know this character as well as you know yourself.

It is significant that Saramago never says where the story takes place and he gives no one but the main character a name -- and it could be Mr. Smith or John Doe for all it matters. Although Saramago has written this book as if it were about "someone in some place," what he has created is in fact a story for anyone in any place, even you in your place. There is a more than a little Senhor Jose in all of us.

(A note for those who are new to Saramago's writing): Saramago's writing style is, I think, an acquired taste. He has little regard for punctuation and slips easily into "stream of conscious" wanderings (more accurately, what appear to be wanderings but eventually add to the whole experience -- like unexpected dashes of some spice that no on one in their right mind would think of using but everyone would miss come dinner time had they been omitted). If I could claim to know a universally fool proof method for reading Saramago it would be this: sometimes you have to listen to the reading voice in your head as if it were someone reading the story to you aloud. As Saramago was blessed with a grandfather who would stay up at night telling him about life (and all the stories that entails), I think that his writing voice can be attributed to (and is a tribute to) his grandfather's speaking voice.

This was my first encounter with Jose Saramago, and what a meeting this proved to be ! The book is fascinating, from first to last page. It leads you in the direction you absolutely don't expect and therefore you can't guess what is going to happen next - one of the reasons this book is so captivating. I could not help to imagine that Senhor Jose is Saramago himself, realizing on pages of this book his hidden longings and desires. The strange longings and desires many of us hide deep in our minds, another reason the plot was believable, even thought it seems absurd. Saramago's style is not difficult to read at all, you get used to it after several pages and then you just flow with the book. I could not put this one down. The translation is very good, and I am already recommending this book to my friends

I am completely taken by this book. I can die now. With all the schlock and slime coming out of the publishing houses, this book challenged me and delighted me and made me laugh a lot. Its like life in that everthing that happens is at once magical and mundane at the same time.

And Saramago isn't taking himself too seriously here--he names his Akaki Akakivich (sp?) like protagonist after himself!

"All The Names" is a lovely and masterly meditation on life and living everyday (1994). It questions whether one life is more valuable than another, or whether one person can truly know another, in our disconnected modern world of the Information Age.

Jose Saramago writes in a lovely poetic style (b 1922, Portugal). His phrases wash over the mind like waves caressing a sandy beach. His prose is elegant and confident, his sentences sinuous, and his paragraphs lengthy. It will take a few pages for an unaccustomed reader to become familiar with his style, but enjoyment sets in soon enough, and the effort pays off as you nestle comfortably into Saramago's literary approach.

Senhor Jose is a menial clerk at the "Central Registry of Births, Marriages, and Deaths." All important events are recorded here country-wide, upon a small card for each citizen, stored in a cavernous facility of shelves, ladders, and boxes, with Orwellian proficiency. Jose is so connected to the Registry, he lives in a small attached apartment, with a communicating door to the main building. He is a dreamer, clipping magazines in his spare time for stories about his hundred most famous countrymen. One day he decides to copy these celebrities' data cards, to enhance his collection. He sneaks into the Registry at night with a flashlight, withdrawing to his apartment to copy them, then replaces them afterward. The project terrifies him, not for fear of committing a crime, but of conducting an activity without the direct permission of his supervisors.

One night Jose retrieves five "famous" cards, but notices a sixth stuck in his pile: that of an unknown 36-year-old woman. Who is she? Isn't her card just like all the famous ones? Isn't it unfair to think differently of her than of them? Jose becomes obsessed, and decides to investigate her life. He locates her parents, her neighbors, even her primary school, breaking into it ineptly, in order to discover even more records in the paper trail of her life. What does he learn? Do a person's legal records match their human reality? And what will happen to his job?

The conclusion of the story is powerful and lovely, devastating but satisfying. Saramago explores skillfully the mystery of life in our modern world, and the meaning of one person to another, relative to the traces of information we leave behind. The writing is masterful and the resolution emotional, but the book is never melodramatic or artificial. The reader can expect a deeply meaningful and affecting work, which is highly recommendable. Having read four of Saramago's more popular works as well, I can say I find "All The Names" arguably the finest gem of his body of work.

As with most of Saramago's work, "All the Names" resolves itself in a rather disconcerting way. With simple language that often disguises the true depth of his meaning, the author builds up the story with great skill, leading the reader to believe that some calamitous event is inevitable. That the narrative goes down unexpected paths without disappointing is a testament to the author's brilliance.

It also speaks to the nature of the universal themes that Saramago tackles with unmatched skill. As we ponder the fate of the protagonist we wonder about ourselves. About our own temerity or bravery, as it were. About our willingness to take that step past the door that divides the safety zone of the known self to the tortuous path of self discovery. How would I proceed in situation identical to Senhor Jose's, the reader is compelled to ask.

Senhor Jose, the protagonist, embodies the thing within each of us, be it a flicker or weighty desire, which propels us to decide whether we want to know more about ourselves. Even if that trigger comes disguised as a quest for a different purpose. At the start of his quest, Senhor Jose is seeking answers about someone else, but his ultimate discoveries are about himself. The protagonist gets himself deeper and deeper, and like an addict he keeps telling himself he can abandon his quest at any point, but both he and the reader know that the deeper he gets the more powerless he becomes to do anything but to see his mission through. There is an undercurrent of inevitability, of being part of a machinery over which an individual has little, if any, control.

With economy, elegance and simplicity, Saramago takes through the winding paths of the human psyche. Other books worthy of mention by this author are his masterpiece "Blindness" and "The Stone Raft."

It's been awhile since I came across a book that so totally captivated me and involved me in its very core as did All The Names...I resist sort of supernatural type books wihich is why I had passed up Saramago's other most recent book --Blindness but somehow the controlled absurdity and intensity of this book left me almost breathless as I read it.....the situations he presents...the depth of obsession was, to be totally cliched, almost Kafkaesque in its delivery ....this is a wonderful read and I can't wait to investigate his earliewr works...read it ! it's wonderful!

The Kafkaesque hero of "All the Names" works mindlessly for the mindless bureaucracy known as the Central Registry, the office of records for the population of an unnamed country that is presumably Portugal. "The Central Registry only wants to know when we're born and when we die . . . whether we marry, get divorced, widowed or remarried, the Central Registry has absolutely no interest in finding out if we were happy or unhappy. . . . For them we're just a few pieces of paper with a few names on it."

Yet Senhor Jose (ironically the only person with a name in "All the Names") tries to instill life into the routine inhumanity of his profession. When we initially meet him, he is keeping a scrapbook of the 100 most famous people in his country, and he supplements his hobby by illicitly (and in violation of official policy) sneaking into the Registry at night to collect the records for these celebrities.

Then, one day, he accidentally picks up a card of an anonymous, random woman--someone whose life and happiness are foreign to tabloids and magazines. His inexorable obsession (who is she? where does she live? what is she like?) snaps him out of his meaningless existence and propels him, like a modern-day Don Quixote, on a bizarre, increasingly absurd journey to find out what he can about her. His regulation-breaking pursuit motivates him to fabricate credentials, to burglarize a school, to sleep in a cemetery that mirrors the Registry (except that it houses only the dead), and eventually to invite the attention of his superiors.

Dense and ponderous, Saramago's unpunctuated prose is, remarkably, seldom dull; what's extraordinary about this book is the suspense, the tension, the humor, and the sarcasm that keeps his narrative moving. There is almost a noir atmosphere behind this story, as the reader nervously follows a man who, drowning in a sea of daily tedium, can't resist the impulse to find the humanity behind "all the names" he files away in the registry. In the end, his rebellion restores integrity to his own life as well.