So just to expand on the plot a little bit, Tertuliano is a depressed History teacher, who has been a lifelong coward, and decided to take the easy option from day one. We are told once his marriage with his first wife fell apart, and all feeling in the relationship had gone, he would still be with her out of fear of having the difficult conversation. At the start of the book he is stringing along his girlfriend, Maria De Paz for the same reason - he doesn't have the courage to break things off. His friend, known only as "The Mathematics Teacher" recommends him a film to watch - to take his mind off his depression and apathy, if only for a few hours. Tertuliano takes him up on his advice, and watches the film The Race is to the Swift only to notice one of the extras is his exact double. The idea of another man living in his city, looking identical to him in every way, sends Tertuliano into a tailspin - he grows obsessed, and he seeks out the double, with many unforeseen consequences.
This is a later work from the Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, and has had mixed reviews. Many critics have said it isn't his best, and we should expect better from a Nobel laureate. But I think we should approach this differently. Let's ignore the rest of his work, let's ignore the prize, and lets look at this book in it's own light. Also, I want to add - the Nobel prize isn't what it was, and this year has been heavily criticised and suffered huge damage to its reputation - perhaps irreparably so. A lot of people think the prize has become almost meaningless - which is maybe highlighted by Bob Dylan winning the prize in literature a few years ago. I've read a few books by Nobel laureates, (and listened to some Dylan) and haven't so far been disappointed (although I'm not huge on Dylan). Anyway, let's move on from the the prize, and look at the book on it's own.
The story here is nothing new at all. We have doubles all over the place, from ancient myths, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, to classic literature, such as Dostoevsky's The Double and Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. There are countless more examples, but let's not turn this into a long list. The idea of a double has been done time and time again and is nothing new or original. Saramago has put a nice twist at the end of this book, and the final 50 or so pages do really get gripping, so I think he has put a nice little twist on what is well trodden ground. Also, worth noting, the main character throughout the book reads a book on Mesopotamia, which is surely a nod to the story of Gilgamesh.
So the plot is not especially original. But it is entertaining. At times predictable, and at times very slow, the story is a good one - it's fun and interesting and realistic yet also completely absurd. But, as we all know, the plot is not the be and end of all of a book, and reviews shouldn't just focus on the merits of the story alone.
What makes this book better than average is our self aware, meandering narrator. We are told the story by a third person omniscient narrator, who knows full well they are narrating a story in a book. (On page 41, the narrator makes reference to the "forty or so difficult pages", for example). This is a nice touch, it's a refreshing view point, to read a book that knows it is a book, and knows it only serves to be read and if it isn't read it serves no purpose. Our narrator knows what happens in the story that will be relevant or interesting to the reader, and what wouldn't be. At one point our hero wonders to himself what would a novel based on this part of his life be like, then dismisses the idea thinking nobody would read it. The narrator tells us this because they know it would be interesting to someone reading this novel. At another point, the narrator tells us Tertuliano was thinking hard while driving his car, but what he was thinking is irrelevant and uninteresting and so we aren't told the details. This makes the book what it is, and gives it a unique style which is pulled off excellently. The narrator also is not afraid to take off on some almighty tangents, delving into psychology and sociology as well as many other subjects, which in some novels is can be a real bore, but The Double manages to hold the readers interest. There is a real style to the writing, with the rhythm of the prose taking a front seat. We have sentences the run on forever, and sections of the book with short sharp staccato sentences - the writing here is really beautiful, and it shines through that Saramago is a master of his craft.
This book is also extremely quotable. "(Tertuliano) drove home, where patient and confident of its power, loneliness was waiting for him" - this is one of my favourites. Another is "You'd created in your head what people usually call a storm in a teacup, fortunately these shipwrecks nearly always happen in sight of the beach and no one drowns". This is packed with really great lines, and the translation is flowing - in fact if I didn't know beforehand that this was originally written in Portuguese I would assume it was written in English.
The other point I think worth mentioning, is the depth of the conversations the characters have in this book. Within minutes of meeting each other, they start musing on abstract concepts, or speaking in metaphors. Everyone in the book is apparently very clever, so the conversations are much deeper than most day to day ones. Also, for whatever reason, Saramago has decided to do without speech marks and new paragraphs, so a new speaker is distinguished by only a comma, which can make the conversations a bit tricky to keep track of, but mostly they flow naturally and it is very easy to keep the thread of who is saying what. It makes an odd atmosphere, as if everything that happens is through the filter of that narrator. It reads like someone is going over the story in their head from memory, rather than a direct report.
It is a bit hard going at times, and a bit slow at times, but after reading this book I was really satisfied. If this is a far from his best, then I will be checking out his greatest works in the future for definite. It's not a heady high brow affair that you might expect from a Nobel winner, such as Saul Bellow - this is an easy going read, but it is not without it's merit.
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