Anticipating Saramago.

Jose Saramago... "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality."
<-- Saramago, receiving the Nobel.
When the Nobel Prize committee selects their annual recipient of the Literature award they compose a one-sentence blurb that summarizes what they consider to be that author’s unique contribution to the field. The opening quote is what they said of Portugal’s Jose Saramago when he was awarded the Nobel in 1998. His most recently published novel at that time was entitled All The Names, and prior to this, Blindness. How fitting the committee’s words are, when one contemplates the “elusory reality” in which both those amazing novels are set.

Saramago is my favorite living author.
If I was on some sort of committee whose challenge it was to shrink the above Nobel blurb down to one word, I know which word I would choose.
The word would be:
Venerable.
As in “accorded great respect because of age, wisdom, or character.” (Concise Oxford Dictionary).
Only I would want to change the word “or” to “and”.
Because Jose Saramago has all three of these attributes. He is a mere 83 years young, exudes more wisdom than any other contemporary novelist I am aware of, and he is definitely a character!
I believe that the soul of Jose Saramago lives and breathes through certain characters of his novels. In his All The Names, the protagonist is called Senhor Jose. But beyond such non-coincidences, one needs only to read the speech that he presented at the Nobel ceremony to see that the author himself identifies closely with his creations.
You can find it in full, at: http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1998/
He ended his speech with these (to me) profoundly moving, and memorable, words:
“I conclude. The voice that read these pages wished to be the echo of the conjoined voices of my characters. I don't have, as it were, more voice than the voices they had. Forgive me if what has seemed little to you, to me is all.”

His style is inimitable.
By that, I mean that there is literally no one like him. Just take one of his novels, open it up anywhere, and you immediately see that it does not look like the last thing you read. No prose writer I am aware of breaks so many grammatical rules. His paragraphs can run on for pages, for chapters, even. And punctuation? It is... not conventional. Quotation marks? He doesn’t use them. The amazing thing is that he is so good at what he does that you soon forget that the world is supposed to need proper punctuation!

I have not read all of his works, but I will. Thus far, I have only read The Gospel According To Jesus Christ, Blindness, All The Names, The Tale of the Unknown Island, The Cave, and his latest, The Double.
Of these, I think that The Cave remains my favorite, however, if someone had never read Saramago at all, I would suggest they read Blindness first of all. Then dig yourself in and read everything else.

I have been thinking about Saramago all day today because I am so excited about the fact that this weekend I will hear him speak, and possibly, possibly.... (“I’m all verklempt”.... [sips some water].... “OK, tawpik! Alphabetically speaking, Saramago is superior to Tolstoy... discuss!”)..... possibly.... I may possibly meet him. Shake his hand. Get him to sign my book. Faint. Pee my pants. Perhaps a combination of these things.
He will be doing a reading and discussion session within walking distance from Pigeon Central and I got tickets to this event the very day I heard of it.
I will be sure to give you an update on every unpunctuated, venerable word he says!
I am anticipating Saramago.
Sunday, June 12th... 7 p.m. He speaketh.......!