Jules’s Reviews > Baltasar and Blimunda > Status Update

...perhaps it is not even him she sees but simply this dirty, white-haired, one-handed man, nicknamed Sete-Sois, coming down the mud track, who, despite his haggard look, is a constant sun in this woman's life, not because he always shines, but because he is so forcefully alive, hidden by clouds and screened by eclipses, but alive, dear God...

I think part of the reason I love Saramago so much is the conversational quality of his writing. He's not just telling a story, he's engaging the reader in a philosophical debate while doing it as well.

That moment when the passarola flies, and you have this perfect storm of ironic metaphors colliding. The heretic priest proclaiming himself as the father, Baltasar as the son, and Blimunda as the holy ghost, rising on a machine powered by literal sheer willpower to meet a God that might not exist, who has only a left hand and no right.