The Double

[Gail]

José Saramago is a Portuguese author with an incredible talent for spinning allegorical tales in a semi stream of consciousness format that manages to grasp the essence of human struggles. In The Double the core theme is that of self identity and what it means to be unique in a world that does not care if you are unique or not.
Our main character is Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, a high school history teacher with little going on in his life. He has a caring loving girlfriend who lives with her mother and who he doesn't actually care for and a math teacher friend. This friend recommends a video that Tertuliano should see and in the viewing of this second rate comedic video Tertuliano sees an extra, a character actor doing a bit part, who is identical to him in all physical aspects. The rest of the plot is Tertulian's search for and upon finding, his interactions with this Double, who threatens his sense of self, and his sense of being a unique being in this world. The inevitable consequence of their meeting is fear and friction and ultimately a resolution of their dual nature.
The tone is very different from the other Saramago I have read: Blindness which has a dark tone with brief humorous and empathetic moments. In The Double the tone is mocking and playful at the surface level and is underscored by a serious feeing of anxiety throughout. Also, the author takes the time to introduce you to the character Common Sense, and also plays with references to many of the literary foundations of the books. He refers to other writers obliquely and also talks about words, writing and reading frequently.
The characters are not particularly interesting in and of themselves. Tertuliano is neither complex nor solid, but he does come alive when his identity is threatened. Overall the book has a dry feeling and took me quite awhile to begin to appreciate but ultimately I found that it stimulated my thinking about identity in a unique way.


"Reading is probably another way of being in a place"

“…what tends to happen is that people gather together under an opinion as if it were an umbrella.”

[Amanda]

I gave this one 3 stars. I am usually a huge fan of Saramago's work- Cain and a History of the Siege of Lisbon have had a big impact on me. However, while this one was fine, I found it to be missing the imagination and depth of his other work.

The way Tertuliano is fascinated by and later has conflict with his double (to great cost to both of them) does successfully touch on themes of resentment of the self in others, and the fear of being stripped of uniqueness and identity. But, since the characterization and prose is surprisingly flat, it seems much less remarkable that these characters match each other, when they aren't much to match to begin with.