Scan barcode
al_sharnaqi's review against another edition
3.0
حسنٌ إذن. لم أكن على علمٍ بأن كاتب هذه الرواية هو ذاته كاتب رواية العمى، حينما كنت أقرأ. ولو كنت على علمٍ بذلك قبل قراءة الرواية، لربما كنت قد أجلتُ قراءتها كما وفعلت مع رواية العمى، أو على الأقل لم أكن لأتحمس لقراءتها بهذا النحو الَّذِي كنتُ عليه. بالرغم من أَنِّي لم أقرأ بعدُ رواية العمى، لذات الكاتب، إذ أَنِّي شاهدتُ الفيلم المقتبس من الرواية ودون علمي بأنها مقتبسة من رواية؛ فقد وجدتُ العيب عينهُ الَّذِي وجدتهُ في الفيلم في هذه الرواية أيضًا 'انقطاعات الموت'.
إنّ الأمر لا يتعلقُ بمجرد فكرةٍ ولا ببراعة صنع فكرة وحسب. إنَّما لا بد من دراسة الفكرة التي ننوي تبنيها وإرضاعها بشكل سليم لتكبر. ونفكر بكل احتمالاتها وثغراتها لنعالجها على النحو الَّذِي يجب. والأهمّ من كلّ هذا، أن نعلم جيدًا ما الطريقة الأنسب لعرض الفكرة على الآخرين. والأفضل أن نعلم قبل ذلك ما الطريقة الأفضل في عرض الفكرة دون التقليل من قيمتها والإساءة إلى شخصِها قبل مظهرها.
لا أجد أبدًا أن الكاتب يتمكن من فعل ذلك ولو بقدر ضئيل، وكأنه شرع بكتابة الرواية حالما أتته الفكرة دون أن يفكر بها حتى بالقدر الكافي. ووجدت الشيء عينه في الفيلم المقتبس من روايته 'العمى'. فمن قلة فطانة أيّ كاتب، أن يستمر في كتابة فكرة أو مشكلة ما كرواية وهو لم يصنع للمشكلة التي خلقها، حلًا بعدُ.
على أية حال، كان من الممكن إظهار هذه الفكرة التي في الرواية بشكل أفضل مما هي عليه الآن. وكان من الممكن أن يكون العمل أجمل وأفضل مما هو عليه الآن بقليل من التأني والدراسة. فبطبيعة الحال، كتابة أيّ رواية، بمثابة إنشاء مشروع خاص. ولا بد فيه من التأني والدراسة برويّة.
مهما يكن من الأمر، وددتُ لو أن أقيّمها بأربع نجومٍ عوضًا عن ثلاث، فقط لفكرة فيها أذهلتني. بيّد أن الركائِز التي كانت الرواية تفتقدها في أن تستقيم، والضجر الهائل الَّذِي انتابني أثناء ما القراءة، يجبرني على انتقاص نجمتانِ من التقيّيم لها من خمس.
إنّ الأمر لا يتعلقُ بمجرد فكرةٍ ولا ببراعة صنع فكرة وحسب. إنَّما لا بد من دراسة الفكرة التي ننوي تبنيها وإرضاعها بشكل سليم لتكبر. ونفكر بكل احتمالاتها وثغراتها لنعالجها على النحو الَّذِي يجب. والأهمّ من كلّ هذا، أن نعلم جيدًا ما الطريقة الأنسب لعرض الفكرة على الآخرين. والأفضل أن نعلم قبل ذلك ما الطريقة الأفضل في عرض الفكرة دون التقليل من قيمتها والإساءة إلى شخصِها قبل مظهرها.
لا أجد أبدًا أن الكاتب يتمكن من فعل ذلك ولو بقدر ضئيل، وكأنه شرع بكتابة الرواية حالما أتته الفكرة دون أن يفكر بها حتى بالقدر الكافي. ووجدت الشيء عينه في الفيلم المقتبس من روايته 'العمى'. فمن قلة فطانة أيّ كاتب، أن يستمر في كتابة فكرة أو مشكلة ما كرواية وهو لم يصنع للمشكلة التي خلقها، حلًا بعدُ.
على أية حال، كان من الممكن إظهار هذه الفكرة التي في الرواية بشكل أفضل مما هي عليه الآن. وكان من الممكن أن يكون العمل أجمل وأفضل مما هو عليه الآن بقليل من التأني والدراسة. فبطبيعة الحال، كتابة أيّ رواية، بمثابة إنشاء مشروع خاص. ولا بد فيه من التأني والدراسة برويّة.
مهما يكن من الأمر، وددتُ لو أن أقيّمها بأربع نجومٍ عوضًا عن ثلاث، فقط لفكرة فيها أذهلتني. بيّد أن الركائِز التي كانت الرواية تفتقدها في أن تستقيم، والضجر الهائل الَّذِي انتابني أثناء ما القراءة، يجبرني على انتقاص نجمتانِ من التقيّيم لها من خمس.
nazarin's review against another edition
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
ilblasco's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
diogobulhosa's review against another edition
5.0
Se alguma pessoa fizesse deste livro um traço da sua personalidade esta seria, sem dúvida, a minha pessoa favorita neste “universo em que somos um fiozinho de merda a ponto de se dissolver”.
marylopez's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
ritanogueira's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
4.0
Doubting
At one point, Saramago talks about 'Another curious-minded soul, of the kind who is always interrupting the narrator'. I think he was kind of talking about me.
What is death? Dvoid it of all metaphors, and it is event when a-function-vital-to-life stops. we don't know first thing about what happens to consciousness - whether it takes form of soul or not; but we do know that a dead body shall soon start deteorating and has no further use. To me death is same for humans as well as animals. The body is a complex machine and if one of its vital function stops for once, we can not start it again. Thus it becomes useless and we call it death.
So when someone of stature of Saramago is telling you that no one died for seven months you are bound to ask a lot of questions. What if I was to take out somebody's heart out of his/her body? Get someone eaten by a wild animal and so on (Saramago notes a somewhat similar doubt but won't answer it.)
Then there are some problems with Saramago's division of labour among deaths based on speices and national divisions. I mean how is it there are different deaths for different countries? What about disputed areas? What if a new country was created? And than death also seems to have a special love for roman calendars. There is moreover, a Death with capital 'D'.
In later part death has a poblem killing someone because his birthday has come and now he is over the age(number of years) when he should have died. I mean isn't one's age nmber of times we have went around the sun? or why take medical care if you believe time of death is prefixed?
Even if we are to believe all these things, how come none of those people whose death suspanded for entire seven months didn't have their birthdays during the period (probabilty says more than half of them should, since it last seven of twelve months)?
Saramago knows that he is serving a dish difficult to diggest and is frequently answering your doubts, not the ones I 've mentioned though. Still we throw in the catchphrase 'artistic freedom' - and let him build his world as he would. We often do it with sci-fi, children stories and fanasy books. Did anyone asked how come little Dorothy come to slap the Lion that was scaring her dog? or how come the Lion and even sacre-crow spoke English but the dog didn't?
No we need not go into raising logical absurdities. We won't be bad-ass who keeps interrupting the narrator. Fiction should be allowed to be stupid as long as it can be beautiful (Saramago ffect; even I don't know what I'm saying). And this one has content enough for three 'Twilight Zone' episodes.
Liking
He spends first few chapters satrising isnurance companies, furnance companies, religous authorities and philosphers which is okay. The first really good part is when because immortal sick ones become seem to become a permanent burden on their family memebrs. It is one thing to carry burden of sick family members with almost no chance to revive for a time, even for a long uncertain time; may be we are hoping they would either get better or die. But what if that burden was to stay with you till end of ages? Moreover what if sick person is suffering too? would we kill such a family person if the only way of releasing her/him from pain was delibratly killing the person. A thought experiment about Euthnasia?
However death resumes her job after seven months - decent enough to give reasons for break and qucikly meeting the suspensions and this time chosing to send a letter giving her would-be victims seven days advance notice about their final destination.
Of course Saramago again satarizes human stupidity by making them search for lady called death (small 'd'), now that they know she esists based on her old paintings.
What will happen if no one dies? what if we only know in advance when we are going to die? Is it really worthwhile to increase the pain of a person in sever pain with no chance of recovery by letting her/him live? These are old questions, which most people who have seen death of a dear one must have pondered over them one time or other. So it was becoming a three starer, had narrator not started out on a third part.
Saramago finally introduces us to ever-increasingly personified Death. And a beautiful fantasy love story with a lot of dramatic tension is in store. Death is death because it doesn't know what life looks and feels like, because she (it is a she) never has had a dog sleeping in her lap.
"Even death, faced with option of death or life, she could choose life."
Saramgo's lead character becomes increasingly becomes more and more beautiful as she fall in love and moves away from her killer stride. Death isn't cruel, just ignorant of what means to be live. And it takes very little of life to correct her. Just how vulnerable are lonely hearts to love! All it took her to fall in love was an old man who has never been with a woman all his life, lives by playing for orchotestra and talks to his dog. Oh yeah! the dog and a a little music helped. She definatly lifted the book by a star.
Narration
The book ends with same sentence it begans with - completing the whole circle. Samramago's narrative is awesome, assuming you are blind to punctuation marks. There is some little humor, even self referentional. However lack of punctuation marks and big paragraphs won't affect your reading. It was in fact a pretty fast read.
A personalletter
A personall communication with Saramago is in spoiler that follows. Don't open if you are not Saramago.
Big fan!
Please do not be prejudiced by what I said above. I was just trying to sound a hard critic.
Now do me a favor. Start your computer and a word document in it.
Done? Now try pressing quotation marks key.
Oh no! they won't bite. You can have my word for that. Authors who are nothing when compared to you have used them, sometimes excessively. They haven't, at least in living memory, hurt anyone.
Oh come on, try them. yes... yes... yes!
See it was nothing and they do not at all look bad.
Use them once every time a character starts talking and once in the end for benifit of your readers. You shall soon get used to them.
And, yes, one more thing, you may want to check on your author's rule book again. It is not once every three pages that you must press 'Enter' button but thrice every page.
Your biggest fan.
At one point, Saramago talks about 'Another curious-minded soul, of the kind who is always interrupting the narrator'. I think he was kind of talking about me.
What is death? Dvoid it of all metaphors, and it is event when a-function-vital-to-life stops. we don't know first thing about what happens to consciousness - whether it takes form of soul or not; but we do know that a dead body shall soon start deteorating and has no further use. To me death is same for humans as well as animals. The body is a complex machine and if one of its vital function stops for once, we can not start it again. Thus it becomes useless and we call it death.
So when someone of stature of Saramago is telling you that no one died for seven months you are bound to ask a lot of questions. What if I was to take out somebody's heart out of his/her body? Get someone eaten by a wild animal and so on (Saramago notes a somewhat similar doubt but won't answer it.)
Then there are some problems with Saramago's division of labour among deaths based on speices and national divisions. I mean how is it there are different deaths for different countries? What about disputed areas? What if a new country was created? And than death also seems to have a special love for roman calendars. There is moreover, a Death with capital 'D'.
In later part death has a poblem killing someone because his birthday has come and now he is over the age(number of years) when he should have died. I mean isn't one's age nmber of times we have went around the sun? or why take medical care if you believe time of death is prefixed?
Even if we are to believe all these things, how come none of those people whose death suspanded for entire seven months didn't have their birthdays during the period (probabilty says more than half of them should, since it last seven of twelve months)?
Saramago knows that he is serving a dish difficult to diggest and is frequently answering your doubts, not the ones I 've mentioned though. Still we throw in the catchphrase 'artistic freedom' - and let him build his world as he would. We often do it with sci-fi, children stories and fanasy books. Did anyone asked how come little Dorothy come to slap the Lion that was scaring her dog? or how come the Lion and even sacre-crow spoke English but the dog didn't?
No we need not go into raising logical absurdities. We won't be bad-ass who keeps interrupting the narrator. Fiction should be allowed to be stupid as long as it can be beautiful (Saramago ffect; even I don't know what I'm saying). And this one has content enough for three 'Twilight Zone' episodes.
Liking
He spends first few chapters satrising isnurance companies, furnance companies, religous authorities and philosphers which is okay. The first really good part is when because immortal sick ones become seem to become a permanent burden on their family memebrs. It is one thing to carry burden of sick family members with almost no chance to revive for a time, even for a long uncertain time; may be we are hoping they would either get better or die. But what if that burden was to stay with you till end of ages? Moreover what if sick person is suffering too? would we kill such a family person if the only way of releasing her/him from pain was delibratly killing the person. A thought experiment about Euthnasia?
However death resumes her job after seven months - decent enough to give reasons for break and qucikly meeting the suspensions and this time chosing to send a letter giving her would-be victims seven days advance notice about their final destination.
Of course Saramago again satarizes human stupidity by making them search for lady called death (small 'd'), now that they know she esists based on her old paintings.
What will happen if no one dies? what if we only know in advance when we are going to die? Is it really worthwhile to increase the pain of a person in sever pain with no chance of recovery by letting her/him live? These are old questions, which most people who have seen death of a dear one must have pondered over them one time or other. So it was becoming a three starer, had narrator not started out on a third part.
Saramago finally introduces us to ever-increasingly personified Death. And a beautiful fantasy love story with a lot of dramatic tension is in store. Death is death because it doesn't know what life looks and feels like, because she (it is a she) never has had a dog sleeping in her lap.
"Even death, faced with option of death or life, she could choose life."
Saramgo's lead character becomes increasingly becomes more and more beautiful as she fall in love and moves away from her killer stride. Death isn't cruel, just ignorant of what means to be live. And it takes very little of life to correct her. Just how vulnerable are lonely hearts to love! All it took her to fall in love was an old man who has never been with a woman all his life, lives by playing for orchotestra and talks to his dog. Oh yeah! the dog and a a little music helped. She definatly lifted the book by a star.
Narration
The book ends with same sentence it begans with - completing the whole circle. Samramago's narrative is awesome, assuming you are blind to punctuation marks. There is some little humor, even self referentional. However lack of punctuation marks and big paragraphs won't affect your reading. It was in fact a pretty fast read.
A personalletter
A personall communication with Saramago is in spoiler that follows. Don't open if you are not Saramago.
Spoiler
Dear Saramago,Big fan!
Please do not be prejudiced by what I said above. I was just trying to sound a hard critic.
Now do me a favor. Start your computer and a word document in it.
Done? Now try pressing quotation marks key.
Oh no! they won't bite. You can have my word for that. Authors who are nothing when compared to you have used them, sometimes excessively. They haven't, at least in living memory, hurt anyone.
Oh come on, try them. yes... yes... yes!
See it was nothing and they do not at all look bad.
Use them once every time a character starts talking and once in the end for benifit of your readers. You shall soon get used to them.
And, yes, one more thing, you may want to check on your author's rule book again. It is not once every three pages that you must press 'Enter' button but thrice every page.
Your biggest fan.
jojodoug55's review against another edition
3.0
El lenguaje es absolutamente bello, de forma proustiano, a veces balzaciano, de los siglos pasados. Sin embargo, el tono cambia de manera no natural. Además, no hay personajes verdaderos hasta el final. No hay desarrollo de personajes, solamente diálogos entre personas sobre qué pasa con la muerte. Es muy filosófico, que está bien, pero así es por demasiado tiempo, que te deja pensando cuándo comienza el trama? Es un libro de ficción o de filosofía? Pero, de repente a los capítulos finales, la historia cambia de un debate filosófico disfrazado como una obra de "ficción" a una narrativa bien ficticia y la muerte aparece como una personaje y el tono del libro cambia, pero casi es demasiado tarde. No hay tiempo suficiente para que el lector se identifique con la muerte y su desarrollo personal. Es una lástima porque las ideas de esta novela son muy buenas y el final es bonito. El potencial es grande, pero para mí, no se alcanza.
pipawb's review against another edition
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
2.75
rpradier's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0