About as exhausting as a questing tale should be, this 15-year-old novel is extremely relevant to our current economical crisis. Saramago wrote "The Stone Raft" before Portugal and Spain experienced the '90s boom, long before they joined the Euro currency, and long long before they became two of the four European countries, along with Ireland and Greece, most recently cited for their complete financial collapse. In Saramago's telling, the Iberian peninsula pulls away from mainland Europe which becomes the book-long metaphor for how these two countries never really felt connected to "the Continent." In light of our recent financial crisis, it's interesting that Ireland and Greece, like Portugal and Spain, are at the geographical limits of Europe. Geography comes to symbolize so much more in this book than mere space and alignment.

Though not completely necessary, it is therefore helpful to understand both the geography of these countries and their long history of being European outsiders. There are little jabs throughout the book at the behaviors of these countries in regard to each other: the French decide that it has nothing to do with them and relinquish all interest; the USA declares its solidarity and sends emergency supplies while Canada resents the USA's involvement; the Iberians themselves become frustrated with each other when Madrid decides it should take complete power.

But metaphor and political history do not a compelling narrative make. Saramago joins together five characters--Portuguese Joana Carda, Jose Inaçio, Joaquim Sassa and Spaniards Pedro Orce and Maria Guivaira--who all believe themselves to be the cause of the peninsular rift through fantastical means. There quest is one of finding each other, and, until that last member, Maria, is found, the quest seems to have a purpose. It is only after Maria has joined the group that the quest--and the novel--lose focus. The peninsula changes course whenever Saramago has a change of heart: it goes west, it goes north, it goes south, it spins in a circle. All of that movement become tedious, as does the meaningless movement of the characters.

I enjoyed the first two thirds of the book enormously and was interested by how relevant this book felt; I got exhausted, however, by the final third and was ready long before the peninsula stopped moving for this book to end.