Jose Saramago

Short version: Jose Saramago will blow your mind. Get All the Names and The Cave and you will be stoked.

Long version:

Some more literary ball washing. The latest read to be carried around by yours truly is The Cave by Jose Saramago. I first read this book in highschool; it was assigned reading (sorry for the semi-colon). A little later as I worked at a bookstore and got a decent discount I would go on book buying spending sprees. One of the books I picked up on these sprees was All the Names by, you guessed it, Jose Saramago.

I recently finished reading All the Names (see post below about Senhor Jose) and am now getting into re-reading The Cave. These two books are insane when it comes to the metaphysical exploration they both delve into. Jose will have you questioning so much as you read and re-read his work. His greatest accomplishment though I think is how effortlessly he accomplishes this. One time I heard a comment about a certain musician (J#ck J#hnson) that said he was too shallow to fully explore the irony and contradictions of our lives, and this has rung so true for me in any area of art.

Jose is a great writer because through his fictional stories he is simply able to start the gears of our minds spinning. The most unfortunate problem with Jose's ability to fully explore and exhibit life's many ironies and contradictions is that I am always so swept up in my own that I am never able to fully enjoy his.

Special note: His futuristic third-world cities that he bases these stories in are rad.