REVIEW: Death with Interruptions - Jose Saramago

• Year first released:  2005 (Portuguese), 2008 (English)
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780151012749
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• My rating (out of 5):  3.5

I included Jose Saramago in my list of favorite authors. Though that’s certainly still true – and, I suspect, always will be – Death with Interruptions was more hit-and-miss than usual for him. Actually, to be more specific, it’s hit then miss.

Interruptions carries a tone much like all of Saramago’s other books. As usual, he takes a highly serious subject matter, sprinkles in a healthy dose of humor, and provides innumerable observations about what humanity really is when stripped to its core – the good, the bad, and all the sincerity and hilarity in between. This formula is present all throughout, and works just as well as it always does for Saramago.

His style is consistent here as well: The book is long-winded, with sentences that can go on for pages and a complete disregard for the proper use of punctuation. (In particular, he doesn’t use quotation marks for dialogue, and those multi-page long sentences are, unsurprisingly, terrible run-ons.) Other authors can’t always pull off these items as well, but Saramago is able to make this form work surprisingly – and consistently – well.

But now I must explore why Interruptions is hit-then-miss.

The premise is rather simple: one day, nobody dies. For reasons which no one can identify, death simply stops performing her millennia-long duty. For better or worse, this trend carries on for months.

The first half of the book comes together exceedingly well. Using a highly unique approach, Saramago shows us the sorts of consequences this sudden deathlessness has for the people of the unnamed country in which the book takes place. (It is certainly European, but likely not meant to be a real country.) Specifically, the first half of the book shows us all of these scenes and ideas without presenting us with any characters to speak of. Yes, there are plenty of people in the book – the prime minister, the king, a reporter, a Catholic cardinal, a group of philosophers, a funeral director, etc. But these people aren’t characters so much as they are examples. None of them have names. We don’t follow any of their individual stories or personalities as such; rather, they merely enter the page in order to highlight the unfolding of the story, and are usually forgotten once their time is done. (Much like most humans throughout history, you might notice – an absolutely brilliant move on Saramago’s part.)

For readers who enjoy books with deep characters, this description may sound off-putting. It is certainly unorthodox, but actually works fantastically. This is a what-if novel, a story about the types of things that might happen in this given scenario. And, as Saramago masterfully shows us, including individual personalities might actually gum up the works a bit. Who specifically is involved doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things; the story is what matters here.

Now then. Everything I’ve just described is the “hit” of the book. It is also, unfortunately, only the first half of it.

Almost exactly halfway through the text, death herself (yes, her, and yes, with a lowercase ‘d’) appears. Her first appearance is actually a highlight of the book; I rather enjoyed the way Saramago first introduces her into the folds of the story.

But then she stays. And then she comes across one human who, for some reason, seems untouchable by her. We still don’t have a name for this mysterious person (he is only known as “the cellist”), but he, too, becomes a focus throughout the remainder of the book.

I fear that this sudden introduction of two particular characters who take up the entirety of the second half of the book strips away what made the first half work so well. 

Granted, the story of death and the cellist is interesting. We wonder who this man is, why he seems to be untouchable to death, and what sort of revelations we’ll be privy to as the plot evolves. In fact, in another book, I’d have been happy to read this story.

And yet, in Interruptions, after first experiencing half of the book in a particular way with a particular focus, the story of the cellist feels out of place. Why should we have a what-if novel profoundly devoid of individual personalities, then suddenly have the narration laser-focus in on one person? What happened to the idea that personalities aren't what matter in this hypothetical scenario? 

Interruptions, then, comes across as two novels which share a premise and a chronology, but which ultimately have different things to say. Each works on its own, but together, they just don’t jive.