“Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters.”-- Jose Saramago –
Have a great Tuesday!
A coworker and I were discussing this issue in the most basic & simplistic of manners today. We were discussing a book both of us had read which contained very unusual character names. He asked how I pronounced them and I had to reply I didn't really bother with how the name was pronounced. When I read, that grouping of letters represented a person-whenever I came across it my mind simply created the mental picture of the character in place/time in the story. He looked at me as if I were an alien. Granted, this does not qualify as "the other side" as the quote intends, but how else would one read if not losing oneself and becoming one in the world the author creates?
ReplyDeleteGood point cleo.
ReplyDeleteI have done this very thing that you are describing, with the names. And in some books [like Saramago's Blindness] the character's are not ever named AT ALL.
Probably the book where I had to be most vigilant in keeping names straight was in Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude... keeping all of the [repeated] Arcadios and Buendias and Aurelianos distinct, in my mind.
And in a lot of Russian novels, where the patronymic is used.
Holy moly!
OR... [correction]...
Holy Molyavich!
One does have to severely attach a face to a jumble of letters, even if the jumble of letters is nearly incoherent, sometimes.
Else one does not get to the "other side" but drowns somewhere midstream.
Managing all the names of characters in any Russian novel could be a chore. The only book with a comparable situation is One Hundred Years of Solitude - I drew up my own geneaology chart!
ReplyDeleteAdvice please Cip...you always speak so highly of Saramango..I am a diehard NF woman to my very core and I rarely ever pick up a novel. But wandering Barnes and Noble this evening, I was struck with an intense fiction purchasing fit. I picked up Marquez's "Hundred Years of Solitude," "Love in the Time of Cholera," and "My Melancholy Whores," and 5 by Saramago:"Blindess," "Baltasar and Blimunda," "All the Names," "Double," and "The Cave". "Blindess" is the one I'd like to start with and picques my interest the most(especially since I liked the plot of "Seeing," but I have this "thing" about reading stuff in order...) but is there a better one with which to start my Saramago education? And perchance did you choose "Cipriano" as your name because of "The Cave"?
ReplyDeleteMatt, I thought I was the only person nutty enough to do this genealogical chart thing! Like, I did with War and Peace, and many other books. The Russian ones are hard to follow at times.
ReplyDeleteAnd cleo!
Very astute of you!
YES, I did take my nom de plume from Saramago's The Cave.
It may be perhaps my favorite of his books. But then there is Blindness. And All The Names. And........ arrrrggghh!
This is the problem. The guy is just too good. [I hope he lives and writes till the age of 176!]
I am going to have to go with Blindness or The Cave, for the best books to launch one into the world of Saramagian unconventionality.
The Double is so good, too. See..... it is difficult, it really is.
The only ones I have not read are the new one (Seeing), The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, and The History of the Siege of Lisbon. And also, the massive non-fictional book about Portugal.
I'm afraid I am not much help.... except I would say [just personal opinion] do not begin with either Baltasar & Blimunda or The Stone Raft.
The Gospel According To Jesus Christ is also among my favori...... you know what?
I'm gonna quit while you are still sane!
That's QUITE the haul of great books you reeled in today!
Thanks for the assist...It actually was helpful. I do believe I'll start with "Blindness" tonight. That's a pretty typical haul from B&N, Borders or Amazon for me. When I updated my spreadsheet tonight I was up to 147 for the year. Books are my one vice and true love. Okay, one of two vices-massive quantities of overpriced coffee would be my other one. I have more coming from Amazon tomorrow-I'm taking an intersession philosophy class-Mystical Literature-We're doing Vol I & II of St. Teresa, "The Unveiling of Secrets:Diary of a Sufi Master," "Shir Hashirim: A Modern Commentary on the Song of Songs," and Dogen's "Moon in a Dewdrop" over the next 4 1/2 weeks. It would be right up your alley!
ReplyDelete