Death at intervals

Or Death with interruptions (I prefer this translation)
by Jose Saramago

The following day no one died. This is how the Nobel laureate opened this novel, a short shocking sentence that you would expect to be cheered, but there is a subtle message that makes you want to know more. This opening reminded me of Albert Camus' "The Stranger," which he opened with: Mother died today, or maybe yesterday. (There is a lot of debate on the right translation of this). Both novels are philosophical, death is the centre of events in the books, but unlike Camus' novel, Death is the main character in Saramago's. Announcing the death of someone is a sad act, announcing the death of nobody is weird—is this the end of death? Your feelings are perplexed and your mind is discombobulated. How should I feel and what should I think about that? I read the first page because someone I follow on Twitter posted it. I saw the opening line and immediately wanted to read more.

First it was a day without any deaths, then a week. Most people are happy and there is a sense of national pride growing (death stopped only in this imaginary country). Few are wary of the absence of death, mainly the Church and funeral directors. The weeks turned into months and still no one had died! People realised that adding days to their lives does not mean adding life to their days—life does not fill the gap vacated by death! Then death (Saramago presents death as a woman signing letters with "death" as a name but writing in lowercase!) started to try other things, including collecting all the lives of those who should have died over the past few months, all at once.

"Death created time so it could grow the things it wants to kill," said detective Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) in True Detective (series 2017). Here, death is not that evil. She is not enjoying "killing"; she is only doing her job. It is not an easy read. I won't be recommending such a book to anyone even if they are a keen reader. If you are not interested in philosophy, politics and writing, you will not pass the first chapter. To add to the complexity, the dialogue is not well-defined or spaced out—I mean in typing on the page—but rather sentences following each other. Each chapter is one paragraph extending over 20-30 pages, so even aesthetically it is not pleasing. The reasons I persevered and carried on reading are: I was intrigued to know how the abolition of death impacts society, how people lived through immortality and why this happened. I was also impressed by the way Saramago presented every tragic decision made by Death as a challenge and as an opportunity for the political system, the Church, the market and even the maphia (so called to distance themselves from the "mafia"), all while people are suffering. The last reason is simply because I read many books at the same time. I always read extracts of books or full books of poetry—it is easy to jump around. I have a book about history/economics/politics/philosophy going on, often an audiobook to accompany me on my walks and driving. And lastly I have a heavy slow book that challenges me. This time it was José Saramago and it was a good challenge. It is about 240 pages only, and it took me a few weeks to get through it. The book is a dark satire, trying to be funny but it is not (intentionally), because death is not a laughing matter. The thing that will stick with me is how unwanted immortality is, even for Ms Death herself. But the lesson that I took from this hard read is the idea that even when faced by the strangest and harshest acts of nature, some will always make a profit.

Ahmad Baker