Challenge to read
From Amazon
The style of writing is very different - almost no paragraphs. Content is interesting, but style detracted from ease of reading.
Well what if it did happen
From Amazon
In short, this book turned out to be a what if. Most every aspect of what could happen in a large nameless city/country if death just suddenly stopped taking people. Who is really impacted, some folks deservedly so, others not so much, then a novel way for all of this turnaround to be processed. The idea of a mailed invitation as the giuse for the warning of the impending event. To what lengths are people traveling in order to force everything to occur naturally. In one hand, death is humanized, with the same failings and indiosyncrasies as the rest of us. It will remind us that there is a delicate order to life as we know it and when it is severely disrupted, the entire world is thrown off the rails, presumably when it will occur in one jurisdiction and not in another. More could have come from this story line, however as usual, Mr Saramago has compelled us to look at something that we take for granted, by throwing the single occurence that would absolutely upset the apple cart and cause everything to roll about violently and compell the reader to consider what thier own reaction would be to this or that.
Who wants to live forever ???
Rigor mortis mortified
From Amazon
For those who love life, or fear death, there is nothing more soothing than to imagine how mortals mock death. Saramago not only does that, but when the smile fade from our faces we will feel the chill of what it might be like were we to live forever. The essence of the book is crafted into the six words of the last line of the book. Do not peep - the magical effect of those words come alive only if you read through the story. For this alone, it is a work of genius; not to be missed.
Such potential but falls short
From Amazon
Reading the synopsis, this book immediately grabbed my attention. What if death took a break? What would happen? A great premise. Unfortunately the story didn't deliver.
The way the story is written is VERY hard to follow. Dialogue is lost in never ending run-on sentances. Half the time I couldn't figure out who was speaking. The narrator goes on and on about nothing.
The main character, death, was a fascinating as watching paint dry. She's death! Give her some personality! Have some fun with it. And the cellist at the end - I found his dog more interesting.
Hugely disappointing!
Saramago suspends death
From Amazon
"Death with Interruptions" is the third book by the Portuguese writer Jose Saramago that I've read. Like his other books "Seeing" where citizens begin casting blank ballots in the local election to show their disapproval of the local government and the extremely popular "Blindness" in which people suffer from blindness for no apparent reason; "Death with Interruptions" asks the reader what would happen if citizens of a country stopped dying? Mr. Saramago describes how different people and institutions in society might justify the absence of death. We get humorous explanations from politicians, religious officials, philosophers and newspaper editors all attempting to explain this unimaginable phenomena. We also see how some people benefit from the absence of death and why some people pray that death comes back. The only shortcoming of the book is its ending. The last one-third of the book fails to follow coherently the premise of the book and does not convince the reader what would happen to the odd person who fails to die. Since I'm biased in favor of Mr. Saramgo's work, it's easier for me to overlook this flaw than would have been possible otherwise. If the reader is prepared to suspend some of his beliefs about laws of nature, he should find Mr. Saramago's book very satisfying.