Death with Interruptions | 
 enlarge | Author: Jose Saramago
Creator: Margaret Jull Costa
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 3156
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0151012741
Dewey Decimal Number: 869.342
EAN: 9780151012749
ASIN: 0151012741
Publication Date: October 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.
Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, became human and were to fall in love?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 A good read... December 31, 2008
I'm usually one who leans more towards fiction with a specific, central story about a particular character(s). This was my first time reading Saramago and after about 50 pages into the book, I discovered that this wasn't that kind of fiction. Although at times, the book had a tendency to become rather dense in vocabulary, its principle and purpose was delivered; a study of the human condition in a hypothetical situation. Saramago outdid himself in considering important elements about our society (that I myself wouldn't have) and created a very real world, too much like our own. Death With Interruptions is a dark novel for the most part. However, at its end, you could say, there's a glimmer of hope. **READER BEWARE**SPOILERS AHEAD** I'm a junkie for symbolism, poetry and a moral interwoven in a story. I like figurative language in general and ironic, quirky dialogue/writing. Saramago accomplishes this. One of my favorites, was death's personification at times. At the novel's end, death becomes that which she once (seemingly) destroyed; she learns about love and sacrifice. My favorite scene has to be when death awakens at night and lights a match. The narrator mentions that death could have ignited it with her mind instead of lighting it manually like a human would. On the surface, the act seems redundant and unimportant but it was more than that. And it deeply touched me. Because death no longer felt un-dead/alive, rather in love like a human being, it was only proper that she continue acting like one. The message I got? If death, an abstract concept without humanity yet nonexistant without it, a concept usually thought of as negative, could be more human than principally thought, why can't we? Because if anything, this book stripped the world of its humanity; from the way insurance companies tried to cash in on mass hysteria/turmoil to the way people were not allowed to cross the border to die, because of the government's concern of how it would affect the economy/society. All in all, the world depicted in the novel eerily mirrors our own. Thoughtful and real, the book made me take a look at the world, here and now, and realize that despite all the cynicism out there(usually not undeserved), change is still possible.
 A novel of ideas that also has at its heart a compelling storyline November 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in literature, recently (and infamously) remarked that American readers and writers are "too isolated, too insular" for an American author to win the Nobel in the foreseeable future. Proponents of American literature have rightly been outraged, sending Engdahl recommended reading lists of some of the best the United States literary community has to offer.
One thing few Americans can quibble with, however, is Engdahl's observation that too little international literature is available in translation in the United States, a point that was borne out when Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the Nobel earlier this month. Almost none of Le Clezio's works are available in the U.S. In addition, only about three percent of books published in the U.S. each year are works in translation. Is it possible that American readers are isolated after all?
Fortunately, one of the benefits when a non-English-speaking author does win the Nobel is that his or her subsequent works are likely to be among that three percent of publications that are available to U.S. audiences in translation. One of these authors is Jose Saramago, a Portuguese novelist and playwright who won the Nobel in 1998 and whose 1995 novel BLINDNESS has experienced great popularity in the United States, to the point of being turned into a feature film. Now, with DEATH WITH INTERRUPTIONS (originally published in the Portuguese in 2005), he offers Americans looking to read beyond their borders an opportunity to discover what the European literary scene is all about. Oh, and it's a great story to boot.
Saramago's novel is set in an unnamed country where, on the first day of the new year, people cease to die. Those who were, so to speak, at death's door are permanently stuck in the doorway. Those who are declared "lost causes" by doctors following car crashes and other accidents somehow pull through. At first, people rejoice at the prospect of living, so it seems, forever. Soon, however, the philosophical implications and practical realities of the situation set in. "It's hard to understand," Saramago writes, "why no one saw at once that the disappearance of death, apparently the peak, the pinnacle, the supreme happiness, was not, after all, a good thing."
Not only are there practical matters: What will happen to the funeral industry and the life insurance market? How will nursing homes cope with the constant influx of new residents when the oldest ones fail to...move on? How can families practically and emotionally continue to care for terminally ill family members indefinitely? There are also philosophical considerations: What are the implications for religion, which forms its entire belief system on the concept of death and rebirth? What are the national implications when a single country's inhabitants fail to die, even though their neighboring nations continue to live and die as they have for millennia?
Saramago eloquently and cleverly explores these provocative notions in a combination of philosophical discussions among religious, governmental and business leaders, as well as vignettes that illustrate the impact of the absence of death on individuals and families. After introducing these big ideas in ways both playful and profound, Saramago introduces the central character of his novel: death herself. After witnessing the chaos that has ensued, she settles on a different policy (which, in truly modern fashion, she conveys in the form of a manifesto to be shared with the media). But she didn't bargain on what proves to be a very personal connection with a cellist, one of her intended targets.
Reading DEATH WITH INTERRUPTIONS will require a few adjustments for many American readers. Translator Margaret Jull Costa has impressively translated Saramago's dense prose, which is notable for its long, often convoluted sentences and paragraphs that can stretch for dozens of pages. Mastering this prose style, however, and engaging fully in the complex philosophical questions presented here requires readers to be fully intellectually engaged with the book, and the result is a challenging but exhilarating reading experience. Perhaps American publishers have lulled American readers into not only isolation but also intellectual complacency.
DEATH WITH INTERRUPTIONS is a novel of ideas that also has at its heart a compelling storyline. This is the kind of literature in translation that might finally cure Americans of their insularity.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
Excellent explanation of how people react to the absurd November 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is so so interesting. I've always been interested in how people think in various situations and this one was a doozy. Whoever could imagine that the church would be upset because they might cease to exist if there's no death? This book makes it all seem so real, you almost want death to resume and you appreciate the need for the flow of life/death. I give it 4 stars because I like to follow a "story" about people, as in Blindness, but this was more of a giant essay. Also the author kept going off subject and flying into other side thoughts, then another and another, which was annoying. Not to mention - no paragraphs, no punctuation, long sentences. But just for the theme and making it seem so real, it was a great read. Another reviewer said a "great read" is one you'll remember for years, and yes, this one was a GREAT read.
Death with Interruptions November 11, 2008
Death with Interruptions is a fascinating book - but you have to get through several pages of what some may consider "dense" reading. I have read only one other book by Jose Saramago "Blindness", which I thoroughly enjoyed, but this book was initially a difficult read. At times, I found myself reading what seemed like pages without a period, much less a new paragraph. I was determined to get through it, and there it was, about half way through the book, it grabbed me. The concept of "death" (we must use a small "d") as written by Saramago is catchy and deep. The words will force you to think of your immortality and the meaning of life. What would you do if you were told exactly when you would die? Would you try to do all things good or would you feel compelled to do that one bad thing that you have always wanted to do. Saramago's words grasps your soul!
 Two great ideas in one below average book. November 4, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have to admit that I am a Saramago fan. I devoured Blindness. However, I got the feeling that Saramago had two great ideas and threw them together to make one book instead of fully developing either of them. Or perhaps he finished the first half of the book and had no clue where to go from there. If he had full explored the story in the last 40 pages this would've been an amazing story.
The disregard for punctuation and correct grammar, which was enjoyable in Blindness, became tiresome in this book. The conversations were unclear and the random metaphors distracted from more than aiding the storytelling.
What I enjoyed most about this book was the possibility of a great story. Though I didn't feel Saramago adequately delivered on the promise, the story it inspired in my head was worth the tired, difficult reading of this book.
In a market where editors and readers are inundated with bad writing, this book should've taken another stroll down "re-write" avenue before hitting the shelves.
On the merits of the ideas, I have to say that I would recommend this book, but only to those who can wade through a difficult or dry read without losing interest and tossing it on the shelves.
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