The History of the Siege of Lisbon |
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The History of the Siege of Lisbon
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by Jose Saramago and Giovanni Pontiero
Sales Rank: 108671
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$7.00
At Amazon
on 6-20-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 315 pages
Published by: Harcourt; 1st U.S. Ed edition May 1997
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 015100238X
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0151002382
Book Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 15.4 ounces
Product Review
"If proofreaders were given their freedom and did not have their hands and feet tied by a mass of prohibitions more binding than the penal code, they would soon transform the face of the world, establish the kingdom of universal happiness, giving drink to the thirsty, food to the famished, peace to those who live in turmoil, joy to the sorrowful for they would be able to do all these things simply by changing the words " The power of the word is evident in Portuguese author José Saramago's novel, The History of the Siege of Lisbon. His protagonist, a proofreader named Raimundo Silva, adds a key word to a history of Portugal and thus rewrites not only the past, but also his own life.
Brilliantly translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero, The History of the Siege of Lisbon is a meditation on the differences between historiography, historical fiction, and "stories inserted into history." The novel is really two stories in one: the reimagined history of the 1147 siege of Lisbon that Raimundo feels compelled to write and the story of Raimundo's life, including his unexpected love affair with the editor, Maria Sara. In Saramago's masterful hands, the strands of this complex tale weave together to create a satisfying whole.
From Library Journal
Portuguese novelist Saramago (The Stone Raft, LJ 2/15/95) is fascinated by how history, often constructed from the slightest shreds, fails to acknowledge the reality of unavailable evidence. When proofreader Raimundo Silva dares to falsify a statement in a history text?namely, that Galician warriors conquered Lisbon from the Moors in 1147 without the help of returning Crusaders?instead of losing his job, he gains the respect of his supervisor and begins an affair with her. She encourages him to recast the event as a novel. Soon he is rooting for a Moor over the Archbishop of Braga and suspecting that there is more Moorish than Aryan Christian blood in the modern Portuguese nation. With its paragraph-long sentences and page-long paragraphs, this panoramic tale of daring and timidity challenges readers to consider the sprawling no man's land where fiction and history merge.?Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The History of the Siege of Lisbon (Paperback)
When I started reading this book, all I knew about Saramago was that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature; so I did not know what to expect. Although the publisher compares him to Borges, Rushdie, and Garcia Marquez, what we have in the man from Portugal is a true native original. We are introduced to the dusty world of a professional proofreader -- a fussy type who regrets having two gerunds in his name. I felt as if I were propelled into MOLLOY or some other of Beckett's novels as the beginning spiralled around this seemingly unlikely character. Suddenly, everything changes. At a critical juncture in a history of the siege of Lisbon he is proofreading, Silva suddenly introduces a caret and adds the word "not" -- thus completely changing the history. His new boss, a Dr Maria Sara is enchanted by this Bartleby-like act of negation. She challenges Silva to write a "what if" novel on the supposition that the history occurred as modified by the "not": that the Crusaders, instead of helping the King of Portugal defeat the Moors, actually sailed on to the Holy Land directly. Meanwhile, Silva is clearly becoming enchanted with Maria Sara. What ensues is both the strangest and most convincing of love stories. Silva writes his book, brings us into the thick of the history as he imagines the various characters from the blind muezzin to the German knight to the king himself. All along, he and Maria are romancing each other through the events of the siege. What an incredible ride! Saramago is a master at easing from one world into another and taking us with him. He is both a master story-teller and an authentic modern in his handling of a character's state of mind -- a writer who easily could hold his own in the company of the great writers of our time.
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The History of the Siege of Lisbon
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