All the Names

Jun 19, 2010 Greg rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: chosen-by-the-air, fiction

Forward: I'm sorry José! You didn't need to give up the will to live just because I didn't like your writing style. Lots of people did like you. More people liked you than like me. Really! You shouldn't have cared so much about what I thought. Now I feel like an asshole for killing you. Fine. I guess I can live with that, but it was a real douche bag move, dying the week I write a bad review about you just to add to my excessive guilt complexes. You know what, I'm sorry that your dead and all, b...more Forward: I'm sorry José! You didn't need to give up the will to live just because I didn't like your writing style. Lots of people did like you. More people liked you than like me. Really! You shouldn't have cared so much about what I thought. Now I feel like an asshole for killing you. Fine. I guess I can live with that, but it was a real douche bag move, dying the week I write a bad review about you just to add to my excessive guilt complexes. You know what, I'm sorry that your dead and all, but fuck you, this was a low shot Saramago. Jeez.

Review

When you've won the Nobel Prize for Literature you are above the criticisms of some schmuck who works for a corporate bookstore and writes reviews for books on the internet. You also get a validation of sorts for any and all of your earlier little pretensions that, Do you really think you are the type of person who can call someone else's writing style pretentious, Well yes I do, But how can you, Well one can say that writing dialog in this style is pretty fucking pretentious, One could, but one can also be a philistine, do you not realize that this is decentering the text, making, Yes I get it, it's making me pay attention to the text in a manner that I'm not used to doing, thus making me realize that I am reading a book and am in fact engaged in a text, as opposed to getting lost in the text and possibly thinking that the text is a surrogate for reality, I wasn't going to say that, No I'm sure you weren't, there are probably a slew of other reasons why one can write this way, but seriously it's so reeking of High Modernism silly gobbledygook that in 1998 it might work as a parody, but there is never the sign that this is supposed to be a parody, instead it just feels forced, contrived, like, Yawn, where is your Nobel Prize for Literature, Good question, since Nobel Prizes are given out for good intentions without action these days I'm making it my intention to write the greatest fucking body of work that anyone has ever fucking seen, smelled, or read and it will be so awesome, and appeal to the dumbest dumbass and the most head up their ass snob and everyone in between.

So now send me my check.

Please.

Saramago should be smacked around with the pretentious stick. His prose style is so heavy handed and derivative in it's originality that it turned me off of the book after only a handful of pages.

The book could have been pretty fucking awesome. It's Borgesian in it's paradoxical portrait of archives (read "Library of Babel"-esque without hexagons); and the atmosphere and setting of the novel is Kafkaian (as opposed to Kafkaesque, which is a nonsensical and overused phrase that has lost all meaning, just rest assured that Kafkaian is legitimate, in the same manner that Orwell-esque is now the only acceptable manner for one to speak of doublespeak type situations, but only in an appropriate manner and may not be used for any kind of paranoid conspiracy Big Brother bullshit, if you want to say something about that the proper phrase is "the government is watching me", there is no Big Brother, until such time that a cult of personality figure is in fact watching you, then it will be fine to use the term Orwell-esque to talk about the situation you find yourself in). One (I) would think that a book that mixes the two great tastes of Borges and Kafka could do no wrong, but how wrong I (one) would be. Maybe if the writing style hadn't been so heavy handed and Kafka-like (aka, German) in it's dense paragraphs. Maybe once one enters into the Borges realm one needs to have a lighter hand on the old pen. Maybe this is the kind of story that should have been a story and not a novel and that there are reasons why Borges never wrote a novel. Or maybe there is something about the philosophical whimsy of Borges that meshes with the short story / parables of Kafka but not with the stifling and asphyxiating world of his novels.

If you like clunky prose and interesting ideas this book might just tickle you in that special spot. If not, then there are probably many finer books to read in the short time we have to spend reading on this mortal coil. (less)

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Sep 10, 2007 Amari rated it 5 of 5 stars

simply gorgeous. a story of timidity and how a tiny seed of imagination and curiosity can transform a person and his life.

i adore this one because there's no "love interest" and because of saramago's unbelievable ability to effortlessly pop breathtaking statements about humanity at the ends of long paragraphs. they seem like afterthoughts because of the way they're placed and articulated, but if everyone had a single thought like these in his or her lifetime, the world would be just fine.

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May 17, 2013 Dina Nabil rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pdf

زمانة ماشي بخطوة يضم
زمنها كبرت وبات ام
زمان جواب جيلها بيجري علي العنوان
الفجر بيلاقى المغرب وبيجى ويروح
والليل يرد على الشارع شباك مفتوح
هنا الرصيف وهنا السلم وهناك يا سطوح
متعلقه اكمام النونو فى ديل الفستان

هكذا تشدو الاذاعة فى كلمات فؤاد حداد..بصوت المجموعة الرائع
******************************
و كعادتى اتساءل عن مدى ارتباط كلمات فؤاد حداد برواية سارامجو ...العلاقة هى ان كلاهما و يالعجب تقريبا بيرسموا للمتلقى نفس المشهد...لعله اثبات جديد على ان لا جديد تحت الشمس

لعل الفرق الوحيد ان فى حالة فؤاد...more

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Nov 14, 2007 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

All The Names is the third book I have read by Jose Saramago. Blindness and Seeing left strong lasting impressions on me, and I expected this novel to do the same.

Except I found myself having to take numerous breaks from this one. While Saramago starts out with an interesting subject on which to base his book,(A clerk at the Central Registry comes across a card for an unknown woman, and becomes obsessed with hunting her down and collecting as much information as he can about her), It would have...more

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Nov 22, 2007 jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: translation, fiction

"You know the name you were given, you do not know the name that you have," reads the epigraph of All the Names, a gorgeously written and captivating allegorical tale of identity penned by the illustrious José Saramago, which concerns the seemingly mundane life of Senhor José, a lowly registry clerk in an unidentified metropolis, whose tedious and impersonal existence suddenly becomes full of intrigue and zeal when he finds himself compelled to, contrary to both bureaucratic regulation and esta...more

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Jan 21, 2013 El Avestruz Liado rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was the first book by Saramago that I read but it certainly won't be the last as it is almost impossible not to realize from the first pages that one is in the hands of one of the foremost writers of recent times.

A bred of Kafka meets Borges but written in a deeply personal style this books presents a character who might had come out from a Melville novel: Don José, a Bartleby-esque clerk working in a municipal registry straight from Kafka's world. Don José has an innocent hobby: collecting...more This was the first book by Saramago that I read but it certainly won't be the last as it is almost impossible not to realize from the first pages that one is in the hands of one of the foremost writers of recent times.

A bred of Kafka meets Borges but written in a deeply personal style this books presents a character who might had come out from a Melville novel: Don José, a Bartleby-esque clerk working in a municipal registry straight from Kafka's world. Don José has an innocent hobby: collecting cuts from newspapers about celebrities, eventually he decides to complement his collection with the information available from the registry. This will lead him straight into a blind chase of someone he knows nothing about.

What sets Saramago apart from the crowd is not only his unique prose -consisting in large blocks of text with spare punctuation in which a deep sense of prosody can be felt in each sentence- nor the sheer elegance of the writing (which can only be surpased by Borges and few others) but the amount and eloquence of his observations. These could be thrown just in the middle of a paragraph or as a self-dialogue in a quite unique stream of consciousness style that includes no dashes, only comas and uppercase letters that create a very fluid and intense dialogue. This even extends to conversations with the ceiling which are actually amongst the stand-outs of the book.

It is quite hard to find a single theme to the book. The continuous of life and death melting into each other is certainly one of them but one can also find the range of human action and its importance (or lack thereof) through many passages of the book. This story could also be seen as a very peculiar love story with threads that never manage to braid into each other.

At the end of the day this is a plain gorgeous book: supremely well written, deeply thought out and with an interesting story of which I hope I had just scratched its surface in this review as to not spoil anything. This is not a casual lecture, it requires a serious reader and more time that its small size might suggest. Doing otherwise would be disregarding the opportunity that this book offers.(less)

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Jun 10, 2011 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

Sorry, Stewart, but I did not love this book! In fact, I skimmed the final 40 pages or so. The book describes the life of a clerk at a Central Registry in an unnamed town and country. Although it seems to be modern times, there is no machinery or modern technology used at the registry. The clerks spend their days recording the names of the living (birth, marriage, divorce) onto cards, and then moving the cards into another area of the registry when it is time to record someone's death on the car...more

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Aug 09, 2010 Allen B. Lloyd rated it 5 of 5 stars

The cadence and rhythm of Saramago's prose supplants traditional punctuation, and easily sweeps the reader into his Kafkaesque fado of institutionalized loneliness and isolation. This complex, at times darkly humorous novel, follows forlorn everyman Senhor Jose as he journeys through a series of labyrinths--crumbling bureaucracies, necropolises, psychic desolation-- searching for human contact, compassion, and love. By the novel's end Senhor Jose, tethered by a tenuous, metaphorical algorithm (t...more

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Jul 12, 2008 Maria rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 16, 2008 Danika rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is every bit as tough to read as his other book, Blindness. Saramago uses punctuation "creatively", if at all. There are whole pages with no paragraph breaks. And yet, I really enjoyed it on many levels. Senhor Jose is an incredibly endearing man with a job as a clerk and no family. He spends his free time collecting articles about famous people. Until one day, when he comes across the registry card of an anonymous woman and spends countless hours trying to track her down. Very compelling s...more

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Jul 20, 2007 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book is just beautiful, lyrical and beautiful. I had to read this book for a class. I'm not so sure I would have picked it up on my own, but it was one of those all time amazing reads. The kind of read that I want with every book, but so rarely get. It had resonance.

The prose was soft and inviting, even though the story itself revolved so heavily around a bleak, despairing center. You just got wrapped up in the story and the imagery was so spatial that it basically felt like I had walked i...more

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Jul 30, 2008 Laila rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Persistent people

This was kind of a hard read but very worth it. The author wrote in a dense kind of way that's tough enough but coupled with the fact that he eschewed punctuation and paragraph breaks, it was all the more difficult. Besides that though, I rarely read books like this, I think the last time I read a book like this (in which I was on the edge of the seat "No Senhor Jose, WHY did you leave out the photographs, DON'T go back to the Central Registry tonight!") was Crime and Punishment. You sort of fee...more

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Dec 27, 2008 Libbie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller

The anxiety, confusion, and madness the reader experiences on behalf of the main character Senhor Jose is reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe.
This is truly one of the most interesting and unique storylines that I have read to date. As a result, I did not want the story to end, and when it did, I had to reread the last page several times and ask myself: "did that really just happen?"

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Jan 27, 2008 Brenda Holder rated it 5 of 5 stars

How to begin? This book is written in stream-of-conciousness. Many people don't like that style because it is hard to decipher the dialogue. I loved it because it was an allegory about a man looking for someone else's past, but in the end, it made me think about my mom, her name and legacy. It hit me at the end. I am so glad I did because I cried so hard at the end and I know I would not have finished reading the book if it affected me like that DURING the reading of it. Go figure: my sister, sa...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Bonnie Jeanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my favorite read. There are two conversations with the ceiling I'd like to memorize. And perhaps on a fifth or sixth reading, I will.

This story is about a man who works in a city registry who does his job day in and day out, following routines and regulations. Until the one day something breaks his routine, a stray card with the name of a woman. Something drives him to find out more about this woman and as he does so, routine and regulation become the enemy of discovery, as they always a...more

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Mar 13, 2008 Asif B. rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Mature readers

Although I felt this book was not better than "Blindness," All The Names has its own uniqueness that is inherently Saramago. Its the way Saramago unravels his storylines like epiphanies which you can always draw parallels to life.

It is just me, or did anyone else find the ending quite intriguing? And that Shepard, truly a memorable character. This is only my second Saramago book but the more you read his work the more you come to see the art form embedded in his style. Yes, some parts were very...more

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Nov 25, 2011 Sergei_kalinin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Книга по своему хороша. Это очень вязкая и неспешная по стилю вещь, где повествование засасывает как трясина :)

По ощущениям, по атмосфере - это нечто среднее между кафкианским "Замком" и эпизодами монастырской жизни в "Имени розы". Т.е. мрачно, абсурдно, готично, тяжело, сумрачно... Всё произведение - это некий концентрат из страхов лабиринта, темноты, одиночества.

Фабула проста: некто Жозе - работник Архива (вот Архив - это и есть то самое сюрреалистическое место, роднящее текст с монастырём и з...more Книга по своему хороша. Это очень вязкая и неспешная по стилю вещь, где повествование засасывает как трясина :)

По ощущениям, по атмосфере - это нечто среднее между кафкианским "Замком" и эпизодами монастырской жизни в "Имени розы". Т.е. мрачно, абсурдно, готично, тяжело, сумрачно... Всё произведение - это некий концентрат из страхов лабиринта, темноты, одиночества.

Фабула проста: некто Жозе - работник Архива (вот Архив - это и есть то самое сюрреалистическое место, роднящее текст с монастырём и замком ;)))), который, случайно наткнувшись на учетную карточку некой безымянной женщины (её имя в книге так и не появляется), решает - просто так - её разыскать.
Далее следует также совершенно сюрреальный квест с немыслимыми (для архивного работника) рисками и приключениями.

Безымянную женщину он, в конце концов, находит, но... узнает, что та буквально несколько дней назад умерла. Казалось бы, поиски окончены, он остался ни с чем. Но не тут-то было! Сюр продолжается - автор начинает в ряде эпизодов и размышлений размывать грань между миром живых и миром мертвых. Вроде бы никакой особой мистики, но заканчивается текст жутковатой неопределенностью...

Разумеется, Сарамаго - классик, и книга написано сильно. Но уж больно мрачная и тяжелая - не люблю я такого! Потому - "троечка".

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Apr 01, 2009 Efrem Sigel rated it 2 of 5 stars

All the Names by Jose Saramago

This is a difficult book to like, let alone understand. It’s told from the viewpoint of Senhor Jose (no family name given), who labors as a lowly clerk recording births and deaths in a monstrously named bureaucracy called The Central Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in an unnamed city in an unnamed country. It’s a place where the essentials of every soul are noted on index cards that are then filed away, sometimes never to be found when searching for them. I...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Powells.com rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 han...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Karen Charlton rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. I loved it for its deceptive simplicity and its main character Senor Jose, a very brave man about whom I began to care deeply.

'All the names' is a clever book that draws you into the monotonous and mundane world of a middle-aged civil servant and then gives you an extraordinary story within the framework of a well thought-out philosophy about life, love and death. This novel explores the consequences of sustained loneliness, personal development and how how the living of our m...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Erin rated it 2 of 5 stars

A friend recommended All the Names to me after a conversation we’d had about archives and libraries. The conversation started with me telling my friend about Carlos Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind and the wonderfully imaginative “cemetery of forgotten books” (a repository of endangered books, preserved by a ‘last reader’). My friend suggested All the Names because it engaged with some of the questions evoked by the idea of a ‘last reader’: what role do readers play in keeping information/people/ideas...more A friend recommended All the Names to me after a conversation we’d had about archives and libraries. The conversation started with me telling my friend about Carlos Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind and the wonderfully imaginative “cemetery of forgotten books” (a repository of endangered books, preserved by a ‘last reader’). My friend suggested All the Names because it engaged with some of the questions evoked by the idea of a ‘last reader’: what role do readers play in keeping information/people/ideas alive? what is a story without a reader? Never one to turn down a recommendation, I dutifully set out reading All the Names, not noticing the author - Jose Saramago. About 1/3 of the way into the book, when I was quite sure I recognized the style of writing, the frustrating pace of the narrative, and the preoccupation with symbolism, I realized the Saramago of All the Names was quite certainly the same Saramago of Blindness - a book I (strongly) disliked. Rather than pushing myself to finish a book I wasn’t engaged by and felt quite sure that I would not finish with any feeling of satisfaction, I stopped reading it. And so All the Names registers here as a miss. Certainly interesting for ideas of the archive, nevertheless a narrative style that lends itself well to torture by boredom.

After the same conversation I followed up on Zafon to find out if he had written anything else since Shadow of the Wind. Much to my surprise and delight I found he had published The Angel’s Game this year. I eagerly went to the library and picked up the book. What a shame to find myself in the throws of another miss. The Angel’s Game, while engaging (in the sort of way a CSI episode is engaging on a Monday afternoon when you’re home sick and have to choose between CSI and a cooking show), merely replicated (sometimes explicitly, sometimes accidentally) the plot of Shadow of the Wind. Far too many chapters began and ended with “a dark and stormy night” (sometimes literally replicating this phrase) and indeed Zafon seemed to run the list of synonyms for dark, wet, dreary and cold. I did sympathize with the author, it must be difficult to try to replicate or surpass the imagination (and popular success) of a first novel like Shadow, but all the same, I run out of sympathy rather quickly when phrases are directly repeated within several pages of one another - not a terribly sincere attempt at creativity, and not much respect for the attentive reader.

After the second miss (and beginning to feel desperate for another good book) I consulted my mum - often my best source for recommendations. She didn’t let me down - she suggested Chris Cleave’s Little Bee. I ended up downloading the book from my local library (an amazing new service from the library: free audio and e-books!) and listening to it while waiting for buses and washing dishes. I suspect that had I read anything half-way decent before Little Bee I would not have enjoyed it as much as I did, but given the string of wretched narratives that preceded my listening, I did find myself enjoying (as much as one can enjoy a book about refugees and suicide) Little Bee. Far and away the best character is Charlie - the young son of Sarah O’Rooke - who dresses as batman and attempts to rid the world of “baddies.” The clear distinction Charlie draws between “good” and “evil” carries throughout the novel. While the narrative seems interested in raising questions about how one comes to be “good” or “bad” or whether there are degrees of “goodness” or “badness”, it does not, in the end, trouble whether these categories are permanent or how they come to be constructed, which is, I think, too bad given the opportunities the plot offers to consider such questions. Nevertheless, a good read (particularly for the summer, as the narrative catches you right away and offers few dull moments).(less)

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Sep 18, 2012 Sandra rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Molteplici sono le chiavi di lettura e i significati simbolici che si ritrovano nel libro. Molteplici gli echi e i richiami che ho ritrovato nel corso della lettura ad altri autori, a partire dalla Biblioteca di Babele di Borges -assimilabile alla labirintica Conservatoria Generale dell’Anagrafe- , fino alla figura di “Bartleby lo scrivano” di Melville precursore delle tematiche kafkiane, e al tema della curiosità “morbosa” nei confronti della vita dell’altro che ho letto, ad esempio, in “domani...more Molteplici sono le chiavi di lettura e i significati simbolici che si ritrovano nel libro. Molteplici gli echi e i richiami che ho ritrovato nel corso della lettura ad altri autori, a partire dalla Biblioteca di Babele di Borges -assimilabile alla labirintica Conservatoria Generale dell’Anagrafe- , fino alla figura di “Bartleby lo scrivano” di Melville precursore delle tematiche kafkiane, e al tema della curiosità “morbosa” nei confronti della vita dell’altro che ho letto, ad esempio, in “domani nella battaglia pensa a me” di Javier Marias. E’ questa molteplicità di livelli interpretativi e di messaggi che Saramago lancia in ogni pagina del libro la grande ricchezza dell’opera.
Tanti sono gli enigmi e i simboli, tante sono le interpretazioni possibili per questo libro bello e difficile che, come pochi altri, è simile a un fiume che si dirama in mille rivoli, in mille pensieri e mille riflessioni.
Una vita trascorsa nel rispetto delle regole, nell’osservanza della più pedante burocrazia, una vita da anonimo impiegato della Conservatoria Generale dell’Anagrafe, ufficio che contiene tutti i nomi dei vivi e dei morti, viene rivoluzionata da una casualità -perché “ noi non prendiamo decisioni, sono le decisioni che prendono noi”- e si trasforma in una ricerca ossessiva, apparentemente senza scopo, di una donna sconosciuta perché un nome scritto in un modulo si incarni in una persona. Ma il primo a cambiare è il signor Josè, che porta avanti la sua ricerca in un angosciante crescendo di trasgressioni nel tentativo di dare un senso all’esistenza oltre a quanto risulta dalle carte e dai documenti di nascita e di morte. Fino a quando egli non arriverà a capire che “il filo di Arianna” , il filo conduttore nel labirinto della vita è che la vita e la morte, la menzogna e la verità sono indissolubilmente legate.
Questa è la lettura che ne ho fatto: la burocrazia inghiotte le persone e le stritola nei suoi ingranaggi, tanto che l’esistenza umana è spersonalizzata, i vivi (e i morti) sono solo nomi e una semplice serie di dati anagrafici; ma dagli ingranaggi si può sfuggire, incamminandosi, come il signor Josè, alla ricerca dell’ignoto; magari sarà un viaggio senza senso e senza esito concreto, ciò che conta è intraprenderlo.

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May 23, 2012 Sonia Gomes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel-laureates, portuguese, very-good, what-category-does-this-book-fit-in

Senhor Jose is a simple man, he has the job of a lower division clerk at Central Registry of Births and Deaths. As the salary is small he leads a simple frugal life with hardly any luxuries. But Sr. Jose has a hobby, he collects pictures and details of famous people; actors, actresses, even bishops. Here he was updating his collection one fine day, when he gets an idea.'Why don't I add all those details which are so often hidden from the press, to my collection, after all, all it took was some m...more Senhor Jose is a simple man, he has the job of a lower division clerk at Central Registry of Births and Deaths. As the salary is small he leads a simple frugal life with hardly any luxuries. But Sr. Jose has a hobby, he collects pictures and details of famous people; actors, actresses, even bishops. Here he was updating his collection one fine day, when he gets an idea.'Why don't I add all those details which are so often hidden from the press, to my collection, after all, all it took was some midnight excursions to the bowels of the Registry, deep in the night!' Sr. Jose lived next door to the massive Registry and had the connecting key. So he got into the habit of these midnight excursions, gave him the sense of an adventurer, climbing that tall ladder (he is afraid of heights) cobwebs brushing, stickily clinging to his face. Sr. Jose lives for his midnight adventures, for once after 26 years of impeccable service, Sr. Jose is distracted and shoddy in appearance, gets pulled up. Things move on well, until he picks up the file of the Unknown Woman. Is it destiny ? Sr. Jose then embarks on a quest to find the Unknown Woman's life with gusto. Forges credentials, visits her apartment, meets the Lady of the Ground Floor to the Right, who tells him that she was the Godmother of the Unknown Woman and in her youth was involved in an affair with the Unknown Woman's father. Visits the Unknown Woman's school, robs her photographs and her file. Spends the night in the School, robs food, breaks a window. We see Sr. Jose transformed into a Midnight Adventurer on his quest. And then he stumbles upon Unknown Woman's Death Certificate. Does he give up? Not at all, he looks for her grave, turns out the Unknown Woman had committed suicide. Why ? Sr. Jose not very concerned, by now he is more concerned with the quest. This is Sr. Jose's quest of his own life, in the search for the Unknown Woman, he uncovers facets of himself that he never knew existed. He does things that makes him wonder at himself, he meets people that become his friends. Now he has a life, forgotten is the collection of the famous people. He has his life full of adventure, why be a voyeur of others lives!
He gets out of his staid life of 26 years and rediscovers another Sr. Jose hidden deep down within himself.(less)

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Jan 06, 2012 ميّ أحمد rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: روايات

في هذه الرواية يواصل الكاتب رحلة البحث عن الذات كان هناك شبيها في الآخر مثلي وهنا رحلة البحث تأتي من خلال إمرأة مجهولة سقطت بطاقتها بين يدي موظف المحفوظات العامة في سجل الإحصاءات ليبدأ بذلك البحث عن المرأة التي أطلق عليها في الرواية بالمجهولة إمرأة لا يعرف عنها شيئا ولا هي تعرفه , دون جوزيه موظف ذو سمعة ممتازة لم يرتكب خلال الأعوام الطويلة التي قضاها في عمله أي مخالفة غير أن ذلك يتغير حين بدأ رحلته في البحث عن المرأة فيرتكب العديد من الحماقات
التي تثير الضحك ، الشخصية في غاية الطرافة لغرابة التصر...more في هذه الرواية يواصل الكاتب رحلة البحث عن الذات كان هناك شبيها في الآخر مثلي وهنا رحلة البحث تأتي من خلال إمرأة مجهولة سقطت بطاقتها بين يدي موظف المحفوظات العامة في سجل الإحصاءات ليبدأ بذلك البحث عن المرأة التي أطلق عليها في الرواية بالمجهولة إمرأة لا يعرف عنها شيئا ولا هي تعرفه , دون جوزيه موظف ذو سمعة ممتازة لم يرتكب خلال الأعوام الطويلة التي قضاها في عمله أي مخالفة غير أن ذلك يتغير حين بدأ رحلته في البحث عن المرأة فيرتكب العديد من الحماقات
التي تثير الضحك ، الشخصية في غاية الطرافة لغرابة التصرفات التي قام بها من أجل أن يخصل على أي معلومة تشي بهوية هذه المرأة !
كعادة ساراماغو تغيب الأسماء في رواياته ماعدا شخصيته الأساسية في الرواية فهي الوحيدة التي حظيت باسم
المرأة المجهولة كانت حاضرة في الرواية وهي الشخصية الرئيسية الثانية على الرغم من أنها لم تظهر أبدا استطاع ساراماغو أن يضع رؤيته للحياة والموت وقيمة الإنسان بعد أن يصبح مجرد ورقة في سجلات حكومية
أبدع ساراماغو كعادته في الحوارات الداخلية تلك التي يهمس بها الشخص لنفسه , وتلك التي كان يحدث بها السقف
وكأنه صديق قديم وتلك الخيالات التي كانت تراوده أحلامه وهذيان حماه

يقول ساراماغو في حوار أجرته معه جمانة حداد:

الأموات "الحقيقيون" لا يمكن أن يموتوا إذا ظللنا نفكّر بهم. فذاكرتنا متصلة بهم، وأعمالهم بقيت لدينا، مثل كل ما فعلوه وتركوه وراءهم. فإذا توقفنا عن الهجس بفكرة أنهم ماتوا، سوف نستطيع ان نهزم الكثير من العوائق التي نبنيها بين الاحياء والأموات، وسنتمكن من العيش معهم من خلال الذاكرة. ولست أعني فقط ذكريات الماضي، اي كل ما كان قيد الوجود يوما ورحل، بل أيضا ذكريات المستقبل، اي الأمور التي نقوم بها أو لا نقوم بها وتترك أثرا لا يمحى في غدنا. هكذا كان بيسوا في رأيي: يعرف أن ليس ثمة خط فاصل بين الأمس والغد، بين ما نخترعه وما نلمسه.
كل ما نصدّقه يصبح حيّ

لعله بذلك يلخص ما أراد أن يقول في كل الأسماء
رائعة
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Aug 21, 2011 Patty rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: readin11

I am a big fan of Saramago even though I've only read 3 of his novels. This particular story has a great plot....a chain of events that keep the narrative going but does not move very quickly. This give you time to digest Saramago's brilliant view of man and of life. But sometimes I felt like skipping to the next paragraph. (Unfortunately Saramago does not use the usually excepted structure of the written word! So the next paragraph could be pages away.) My little brain could not comprehend all...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Jeruen Dery rated it 4 of 5 stars

After reading a non-fiction book and not liking it, I decided to go back to fiction, and not only that, I decided to go back to fiction that is in my comfort zone. So with that in mind, I picked up this book, entitled All The Names (Portuguese title: Todos os nomes), by José Saramago.

This is about the story of a lowly clerk who works in the Central Registry, by the name of Senhor Jose. That is the only character in the book that actually has a name. The rest are just referred to by their titles...more After reading a non-fiction book and not liking it, I decided to go back to fiction, and not only that, I decided to go back to fiction that is in my comfort zone. So with that in mind, I picked up this book, entitled All The Names (Portuguese title: Todos os nomes), by José Saramago.

This is about the story of a lowly clerk who works in the Central Registry, by the name of Senhor Jose. That is the only character in the book that actually has a name. The rest are just referred to by their titles or descriptions. His boss is the Registrar, there's also the deputy registrar, senior clerk, woman who lives in the first floor, school master, and so on.

So this Senhor Jose is a clerk, and he is bored. So he decides to do something extra: he decides to start collecting a list of people and check out their records. He does this at night, so his daytime performance in the office goes down. And in the process, he obsesses with the records of a woman, and he starts investigating the life of this unnamed woman, by visiting her old house, her family, and so on. He eventually knows that the unnamed woman is already dead, and that she committed suicide.

There's more to it than that, but I don't just give a summary of books here. I figured if there's someone who would want to read the book, it would be rather cruel to give the whole ending away. Anyway, so did I like this book? Absolutely.

Saramago is one of my most favorite authors, and there is a reason for that. Reading his novels actually requires heavy effort: his prose is not that easy to read. He dispenses away with typical conventions, and so narratives and dialogue get mixed up with each other. Most of his paragraphs are longer than one page. Another one quirk of Saramago is that inanimate creatures come to life. In this novel, the ceiling gets into a dialogue with Senhor Jose, and acts as the voice of his conscience.

Perhaps the thing I got from this novel is that humans can be bizarre. After all, this is a story about human folly: how one human's curiosity can lead to extraordinary circumstances. Senhor Jose was like that. I was tuning out of the novel in the beginning, as typically, Saramago's novels start out slow, and yet the pace picks up really fast later on. This is like that as well. However, I guess the impact of this novel on me is a little low, compared to the other novels that I have read, such as Death with Interruptions, Blindness, and Seeing. Those books were about issues that I had strong opinions on, while for this current book, I am a little ambivalent. It's not a novel that I would recommend a Saramago novice to pick up as a first novel, but I would still recommend it to others. I am giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars.(less)

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May 01, 2011 Sonia Gomes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Saramago Fans

Shelves: portuguese, very-good, what-category-does-this-book-fit-in, nobel-laureates

Senhor Jose is a simple man, he has the job of a lower division clerk at Central Registry of Births and Deaths. As the salary is small he leads a simple frugal life with hardly any luxuries. But Sr. Jose has a hobby, he collects pictures and details of famous people; actors, actresses, even bishops. Here he was updating his collection one fine day, when he gets an idea.'Why don't I add all those details which are so often hidden from the press, to my collection, after all, all it took was some m...more Senhor Jose is a simple man, he has the job of a lower division clerk at Central Registry of Births and Deaths. As the salary is small he leads a simple frugal life with hardly any luxuries. But Sr. Jose has a hobby, he collects pictures and details of famous people; actors, actresses, even bishops. Here he was updating his collection one fine day, when he gets an idea.'Why don't I add all those details which are so often hidden from the press, to my collection, after all, all it took was some midnight excursions to the bowels of the Registry, deep in the night!' Sr. Jose lived next door to the massive Registry and had the connecting key. So he got into the habit of these midnight excursions, gave him the sense of an adventurer, climbing that tall ladder (he is afraid of heights) cobwebs brushing, stickily clinging to his face. Sr. Jose lives for his midnight adventures, for once after 26 years of impeccable service, Sr. Jose is distracted and shoddy in appearance, gets pulled up. Things move on well, until he picks up the file of the Unknown Woman. Is it destiny ? Sr. Jose then embarks on a quest to find the Unknown Woman's life with gusto. Forges credentials, visits her apartment, meets the Lady of the Ground Floor to the Right, who tells him that she was the Godmother of the Unknown Woman and in her youth was involved in an affair with the Unknown Woman's father. Visits the Unknown Woman's school, robs her photographs and her file. Spends the night in the School, robs food, breaks a window. We see Sr. Jose transformed into a Midnight Adventurer on his quest. And then he stumbles upon Unknown Woman's Death Certificate. Does he give up? Not at all, he looks for her grave, turns out the Unknown Woman had committed suicide. Why ? Sr. Jose not very concerned, by now he is more concerned with the quest. This is Sr. Jose's quest of his own life, in the search for the Unknown Woman, he uncovers facets of himself that he never knew existed. He does things that makes him wonder at himself, he meets people that become his friends. Now he has a life, forgotten is the collection of the famous people. He has his life full of adventure, why be a voyeur of others lives!
He gets out of his staid life of 26 years and rediscovers another Sr. Jose hidden deep down within himself. (less)

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Aug 29, 2010 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

While I enjoyed Mr. Saramagos elliptical writing style, the plot line here is a real snoozer, and as a result I took several extended breaks while reading this before finally polishing it off this weekend.

The main character is a timid, lowly clerk at a government office in a Latin American country that records the births and deaths of all its citizens. While cataloging his own personal version of People magazine, he stumbles across the name of an anonymous citizen and goes on a surreptitious det...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People interested in bureaocracy in Portugal, those interested in fate and missed opportunities

I was a fan of José Saramago before his passing but his death has actually reminded me to read some of his novels that I hadn't previously read and the man has certainly left a legacy.

At it's surface, All the Names is the story of the way bureaucracy deals with the dead and the living (at least in the 90s in Portugal) and how even the most antiquated systems are capable of some change.

To me, however, it was the story of what happens when you get so wrapped up in uncovering what you've created...more I was a fan of José Saramago before his passing but his death has actually reminded me to read some of his novels that I hadn't previously read and the man has certainly left a legacy.

At it's surface, All the Names is the story of the way bureaucracy deals with the dead and the living (at least in the 90s in Portugal) and how even the most antiquated systems are capable of some change.

To me, however, it was the story of what happens when you get so wrapped up in uncovering what you've created as your life's sole mystery that you lose the whole point and meaning of it to disastrous ends. I'm not sure if José was trying to really make that statement and I can't say any more without giving away any spoilers but that is what the book was really about to me.

The novel's major downfall is the tediousness of the details of the Central Registry in Portugal which is in charge of filing all the life and death cards year after year. Some of these details needed to be in there to make the story more plausible. However, it felt intensely boring in some chapters, especially the first ones, to read about it. It seems unfathomable that the entire system wouldn't be entirely computerized by now so, in some senses, this book can serve as a testament to the old relics if anyone doubts they once existed.

By far, for anyone, what this book is saying is that you have to go beyond a name and be curious about the person as a whole to justify a sense of existence, for him/her and yourself.

The internal dialogue of the main protagonist is also quite interesting, not to mention the conversations he has with his ceiling. Yes, you read that right.

p.29 "Strictly speaking, we do not make decisions. Decisions make us."

p. 153 "...old photographs are very deceiving, they give us the allusion that we are alive in them, and it's not true, the person we are looking at no longer exists, and if that person could see us, he or she would not recognize him or herself in us."

p.206 "It was precisely because I didn't know her that I came looking for her, You see I was right when I said that one can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger, Goodbye."

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Jun 21, 2010 Grady rated it 5 of 5 stars

A brilliant, addicting read

José Saramago is a genius wordsmith. To the novice opening a first book by this Nobel Prize winning Portuguese novelist, Saramago may seem a bit mad, if not just frustratingly bizarre. Pages without paragraph indentations, with conversations unpunctuated or without speaker identified, no use of quotation maeks, abrupt changes of time and place within one ongoing endless sentence. These impediments to reading a novel often tend to make the reader begin to simply scan th...more A brilliant, addicting read

José Saramago is a genius wordsmith. To the novice opening a first book by this Nobel Prize winning Portuguese novelist, Saramago may seem a bit mad, if not just frustratingly bizarre. Pages without paragraph indentations, with conversations unpunctuated or without speaker identified, no use of quotation maeks, abrupt changes of time and place within one ongoing endless sentence. These impediments to reading a novel often tend to make the reader begin to simply scan the way through the book, hoping to find the end to this strange means. BUT! It is precisely the "means" that places Saramago in the category of Greatest Living Writers. (More than a little praise is due his able translator!!) "All the Names" is a journey of obsession by a Kafaesque little nobody who works in a metaphorical General Registry that houses all the names of those born, married, and died in an unknown land/place. Saramago pulls us like a powerful magnet into this meticulously ordered conundrum and we are walking beside (and sharing the inner side of the skull of) a little clerk determined to place an identity of one unknown woman. This is at once a journey through Existentialism, through the anonymity of living in the world today, a study of the depersonalization of society. Yet out of this microscopic examination of details we come to understand the significance of maintaining individualism, of finding connection, of fighting against a meaningless passage on this earth. Though no one is named in this novel, save the main character, Saramago paints the peripheral characters with such clarity that names are the least important designators. This is not an easy read: many great books are not easy reads. But the work required to stay with the author to the end is compensated by luxuriating in a wordbath that is found only in strolling through the process. I think this is a brilliant book by a unique writer who has descovered a style of writing that only enhances his uncommonly interesting tales. Spend time here. You'll be rewared in countless ways.(less)

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Goodreads Librari...: Incorrect original publishing date	6	63	25 mar. 06:16
What's The Name o...: whats the name of this novel?a guy who works at a post office he handles the letters and he just starts reading the letters like out of boredom .... [s]	14	173	07 déc. 06:20
Todos os nomes	3	40	18 mai 07:37

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