Guests
by Fidel, July 15, 2005 1:38 PM
A stunning novel by Nobel prize-winner José Saramago. At first, the style may be off-putting, but once you get into it, the story flows as delicately as melted butter. With the preternatural perception of Kafka, and the gentle reflection of Steinbeck, All the Names is a mostly allegorical tale of a petty bureaucrat who seeks to understand the lives of the forgotten. His quest ends in a remote corner of a cemetary where he, and the reader, are graced with a nearly celestial visitation. In the hands of a lesser writer, the set-up would have been pure schmalz, but in the hands of Saramago, it's nothing short of poetry.
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