This was one of the books highlighted in the New York Times roundup of best books of 2012, and I picked it up at the library on that basis even though I had missed the original review. One of the best decisions I have made in the new books section of Loutit Library.
This was the last book Saramago wrote before his death, but it will not be the last one I read. The translation from the Portuguese no doubt involves some compromises, but after the first paragraph a reader is so utterly captivated by the mode of narration that you no longer even think about what might have been lost in translation. Cain recounts the Genesis story of fratricide, exile, and rejection by God in language that is not directly Biblical (which is to say, of course, "like the oldest Bible translations"), nor distinctively contemporary, but direct and personal, yet unlike any other narrative voice I have encountered. The narrator uses the third person throughout and yet conveys Cain's inner thoughts as well as the events he experiences. The book contains rich and intriguing dialogues -- between Cain and Abel, between Cain and God, with the traveling merchants who pick him up when he is famished and desperate for water and bring him to a nearby city, with the workers and the tyrannical queen of that city -- without using any paragraph breaks or quotation marks.
The story becomes more fantastic as it proceeds, with Cain mysteriously walking or riding his donkey from one key Biblical story to another. He becomes part of the encounter between Abraham and his three mysterious visitors, the tower of Babel, and, finally, the building and launching of Noah's ark. Cain's role in that story is a startling departure from the Biblical narrative, in ways that are disturbing, if not entirely satisfying. I felt (as did Susan) that the story began on a higher plane than it finished. Yet it's a book I would love to discuss with friends and colleagues, and one that I recommend without hesitation.
This was the last book Saramago wrote before his death, but it will not be the last one I read. The translation from the Portuguese no doubt involves some compromises, but after the first paragraph a reader is so utterly captivated by the mode of narration that you no longer even think about what might have been lost in translation. Cain recounts the Genesis story of fratricide, exile, and rejection by God in language that is not directly Biblical (which is to say, of course, "like the oldest Bible translations"), nor distinctively contemporary, but direct and personal, yet unlike any other narrative voice I have encountered. The narrator uses the third person throughout and yet conveys Cain's inner thoughts as well as the events he experiences. The book contains rich and intriguing dialogues -- between Cain and Abel, between Cain and God, with the traveling merchants who pick him up when he is famished and desperate for water and bring him to a nearby city, with the workers and the tyrannical queen of that city -- without using any paragraph breaks or quotation marks.
The story becomes more fantastic as it proceeds, with Cain mysteriously walking or riding his donkey from one key Biblical story to another. He becomes part of the encounter between Abraham and his three mysterious visitors, the tower of Babel, and, finally, the building and launching of Noah's ark. Cain's role in that story is a startling departure from the Biblical narrative, in ways that are disturbing, if not entirely satisfying. I felt (as did Susan) that the story began on a higher plane than it finished. Yet it's a book I would love to discuss with friends and colleagues, and one that I recommend without hesitation.
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