The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago

It is disconcerting when I finish a book and realize I don't have a clue as to the author's message or purpose. If the book is poorly written otherwise, I attribute the fault to the author's lack of skill and/or talent. If the book is well written, I must then attribute the fault to my own lack of understanding and/or sufficient intellect.

This leads me to an admission--I did not understand this book at all. It is extremely well-written and Saramago is a Nobel Prize winner. The three books by him I have previously read (Blindness, The Cave, All the Names) are among my favorites. So I know the fault here was my own.

Saramago is not featuring the plot here, because nothing much happens. Ricardo Ruis, a physician and poet, returns to Lisbon, Portugal, after 16 years in Brazil. He comes partly to visit the grave of a recently deceased friend, Fernando Pessoa, another poet. During his year in Lisbon he takes long walks, reads the newspapers obsessively, engages in an emotionless affair with a chambermaid, finds himself fascinated by a much younger woman with a crippled hand, and entertains visits from his dead friend from time to time. The ending is somewhat startling, allowing the plot to be interpreted in an entirely different light.

Perhaps part of the goal of the novel is to highlight the turmoil of the world in the years just prior to World War II, as many of the newspaper articles Reis reads concern the rise of nationalism in Germany, Spain, and Portugal. Perhaps Saramago is commenting about the failure-to-connect in romantic love, as neither of the character's entanglements turn out well. Certainly Saramago is commenting extensively about the actual literature of Portugal, as Fernando Pessoa was an actual poet who also sometimes used the pseudonym of Ricardo Reis. (Yes, I read Wikipedia).

Whatever. This was not a good reading experience for me, even though the writing is very good. I would not recommend it except to people smarter than I am.