READIN

🦋 A memória do escritor

Valter Jacinto

Saramago is the Portuguese name of the wild radish Raphanus raphanistrum. José Saramago's family name was de Sousa, but when he was born his birth certificate was mistakenly inscribed with his father's nickname. His parents were illiterate and did not discover the error until José enrolled in school.

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Life is like a candle burning; when it comes to the end it blazes brightly before it goes out. I believe that I'm now in the period of blazing before I go out. I can see very clearly that I will not go on living much longer. Now I'm in a phase where if I believe that I can carry out some task and that I can do it well, I want to do it. After it all stops and my books remain, I think they will continue to be read.

(Take a look at the slide show included in the El País obituary; it features some extravagantly beautiful pictures.)

posted afternoon of Friday, June 18th, 2010
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Thinking further about this... I just wanted to emphasize how happy I am that I found out about Saramago's books while he was still alive, still writing -- I felt like I connected with him in a way that I would not have been able to do if I started reading his works after he had died. Not really sure how coherent this is. (Since after all there are many writers whom I did not start reading until they were ex-writers, whose work I love dearly -- the majority I should think.)

posted evening of June 18th, 2010 by Jeremy

Jeremy, I can relate to your addendum on reading him while he was still at it. I've read my first book by him (The Gospel) some ten years ago and read three more since. I think, for me, it's the joy of discovering a living contemporary writer who at any given moment will put out another beautiful piece of writing that will be published and translated and that you know will also soon find its way in your shelf. Maybe there's an immediacy and freshness to the appreciation of the living words of a living writer, that we are somehow privileged in a way different from that of posthumous discovery of living words of ex-writers.

posted morning of June 19th, 2010 by Rise

an immediacy and freshness to the appreciation of the living words

Very nicely put! This is just what I was trying to get at. And perhaps even moreso in the case of Saramago because some of his "living words" -- his blog entries, his speeches, his columns -- were directed at current events. Truly an inspirational figure.

posted morning of June 19th, 2010 by Jeremy

At his age his departure surely didn't come as a big surprise, not for him, nor for us. What's surprising is how lucid he remained until the end.

Do you know if the Bach violin piece performed at his funeral service was the one from Death with Interruptions?

I haven't found much information about it in english, but here's an article from a chilean news portal:
http://www.emol.com/noticias/magazine/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=420014

posted afternoon of June 20th, 2010 by Jorge López

Hi Jorge, that does seem very likely -- none of the news stories I have found about the funeral mention what song was played other than that it was a cello piece by Bach. (The piece from Death With Interruptions is Suite #6 in D.)

posted evening of June 20th, 2010 by Jeremy

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