The Double

I was so looking forward to reading José Saramago’s The Double.  It’s one of those books that my local library insists is available but is never actually on the shelves.  I’m not sure if this means all of Norwich loves Portuguese literature or if everything you read on the internet might not be true.  Eventually I just gave up and popped it on my Christmas list.  Yes, I’m 25 and still have a Christmas list; but that’s how I get cool books and nice pyjamas instead of junk I don’t want.  Anyway, I’ve been waiting to read it for a while is what I’m trying to say.  This means I had some pretty clear expectations from the book and, as recent experience has shown, this isn’t always a good thing.  The Double, however, is a good thing.  Mostly.  Okay, the novel’s a bit of a mixed bag.  I loved the story, but couldn’t stand the style. 

First off, the negatives.  The entire story is about loss of identity and Saramago’s style reflects this.  There are huge chunks of texts, free flowing run on sentences chock-a-block with commas and shifting subject matters.   There’s also a complete lack of speech marks.  At times, as characters find it difficult between to distinguish between each other, the style makes it difficult at times to tell who is speaking.  Try and read it in a hurry and it is bloody confusing.  I’m such a stickler for punctuation and I don’t understand why people mis-use it deliberately.  I was reading and getting flashbacks of Ulysses and I think I’ve mentioned before just how much I loved Ulysses.  It’s so frustrating because Saramago clearly achieves what he’s going for so I don’t feel like I can insult it in a way more clever than by whining that I just don’t like it but, in the end, that’s what it boils down to.  It also makes me feel really hypocritical when I say that because I know about my personal penchant for commas and twisting sentences.  But there you have it; it’s not to my taste and it didn’t ruin the excellent story.

The tale itself is pretty simple.  A man, Tertuiano Máximo Afonso, watches a film only to find that one of the extras is his exact double.  He becomes obsessed with the man.  After tracking down his name and persuading the movie studio to hand out his home address (which takes alarmingly little persuasion) he meets with Daniel Santa-Clara (real name António Claro).  It’s around this point that their identities start to overlap in a fairly confusing way.  I want to write a hell of more about the plot but I also don’t want to spoiler all over the place.  It’ll suffice to say that I was sold on the book and then the epilogue happened and things somehow got better.  In a non-spoilery way; there is a wonderful little aside when Tertuiano Máximo Afonso is freaking out about how the sensation of doubles is not unique (naturally) and that there were two identical woman born two hundred years apart, but as no-one took any notice of the first she was forgotten by the time the second born.  It’s much better when Saramago tells it- that’s probably why he has a Nobel Prize and I don’t. 

Another thing that I really love about the book is a bit of a niche thing.  There are theories about cinema in there.  And, yes, they’re mostly from when Tertuiano Máximo Afonso is bullshitting excuses and reasons for his erratic behaviour, but they’re interesting theories.  The idea that film promotes and demonstrates ideological signals or concepts from the time and culture in which it is made is, I’m pretty sure, a basic assumption that went into at least half of the essays I ever wrote about film.  I love it when things like that show up in books.  Things that get you thinking or remind you of why it is you love the things you love.  I had it all the way through Blonde and that’s why I enjoyed it so much and there were glimmers of it again in this book.  Basically, any time anyone writes well about film I’m sold.

So, to conclude: the book was good.  It’s nice to have positive things to say in the blog.  I’ve been feeling terribly negative about things after my last two posts and I feel like I might be back on track a bit.  There’s just no point in my doing this if I’m going to miss what’s good about the books on the list and just make myself miserable.  Especially in January- the most depressing of months, it’s been a pain hating what I’ve read.  Yes, it’s still January at the time of writing.  I feel like I’ve gotten back on target and the fact that this is book 300 is sort of just the icing on the cake.

Book number 301 is The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells.  It’s my second attempt to read it and it’s going much better than before.