I hesitated for a few hours before starting to write about José Saramago, who passed away so recently. There was no lack of advice against my “heresy” and lack of “timing” - “Don’t be so bold, my friend, as to criticize such a universally acclaimed Nobel Prize winner! With so many people praising him, it is just not possible that they are all wrong! It’s even cowardice to criticize someone who cannot defend himself. If you didn’t like him, why didn’t you attack him when he was still alive? At least wait until his body is cold!” - I was told by some of my acquaintances.
One of them, more frank in his approach, warned me: - “They are going to say that you, an unknown petty author, ignored by publishers - excuse my sincerity, you provoked it... -, feel slighted by the success of such a great man of letters! Don’t forget that he was the only writer of the Portuguese language to receive the greatest literary honor, breaking with the prejudice shown by the Nobel Foundation (certainly political in nature) against our mother tongue! Besides this, you once told me that you couldn’t manage to read his work. So, how do you have the courage to criticize a writer who, by your own confession, you cannot manage to read? “I haven’t read it and didn’t like it”, is this the superficial catchphrase you use when judging the talent of others?”
Despite facing this moral firing squad - censuring recently deceased individuals really isn’t good manners, especially if they are famous and well-loved -, I would like to be so bold as to put forward a reservation, perhaps only “graphical”, against the only Nobel received by a writer of our language. Why am I doing this?
First, because I am an unconditional admirer of clarity, truth and, its twin sister, sincerity. Even when painful to the ears - of course, respecting courteous social conventions. Perhaps this fondness for truth is a sign of innate ingenuity - or even mental laziness - , considering that a lie requires mental effort that is exempt from the mere presentation of facts as they are, a characteristic of “dullards’. And don’t forget that imaginative work requires a good memory. Maxim Gorki, the great Russian writer who lived for a while among vagabonds and petty criminals, on describing a particularly unfortunate character in one of his stories, said that he was not sufficiently clever to be a thief. Thieves are usually astute. The professional exercise of evil requires much more gray matter than the easy utterance of sincere opinions. On the other hand, sticking to the truth - as an option rather than a defect - is the golden seal of moral greatness.
As far as this, strictly ethical, aspect is concerned, I am part of the group of admirers of Saramago, as the Portuguese writer was always a frank, intellectually courageous man and, I suppose, even physically dauntless. When he was around fifty years old and unemployed, he took an extremely bold decision: he dedicated himself exclusively to literature, full-time, risking his future. Instead of starting up some kind of small business capable of guaranteeing a living, he gambled on “all or nothing” and ended up winning, writing extensively, even at an advanced age.
In favor of the Nobel prize-winning writer, it is also necessary to recognize that he was always an intellectual sensitive to the suffering of those less fortunate in life. In addition, those who were intimate with him affirm that he was a pleasant sociable man, even if he did not desist from his opinions, which were sometimes harsh and uncompromising. Summing up, a “forceful personality” was something not lacking in this outstanding winner of the cerebral marathon race known as the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Incidentally, I ought to mention here that, in the first will of Alfred Nobel - the chemist and industrialist who invented dynamite - Literature was not established as an award category. There were doubts regarding its inclusion. Alfred Nobel only initially considered chemistry, physics, medicine and other more “objective” fields. However, as he had to distance himself from business activities for two years, he resolved to occupy his time writing plays for the theater. He thus found how something that appeared to be easy was in fact difficult, namely: writing well. And in this I include punctuation. Hence a new will and the explicit obligatory inclusion of Literature - “of idealistic content” - in the annual list of coveted Prizes. Prizes that would not be so earnestly desired if the financial reward were only symbolic: a gold medal and a diploma. It should be remembered that this does not diminish the merit of those receiving such an honor - to the contrary, it increases it, due to the fierce competition - but it does provide a clue regarding the underlying motivation of human beings. Including that of “spiritualized men of letters”, which was not the case of Saramago, a committed materialist. Alfred Nobel, an extremely intelligent businessman, knew what he was dealing with - the human race - when he created the Nobel Foundation, with its coveted cash award.
Now that these considerations have been made, I will explain why I have not managed - and still cannot manage - to read Saramago’s books: in the first place, due to his aversion, apparently uncontrollable, to beginning new paragraphs, transforming pages into “walls of text” that are far from attractive for voluntary reading. Something like the proclamations of state governors, which commence with “In witness thereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the Executive Department to be affixed this 1st day of December in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, etc.”
Following this discouraging finding, I only purchased two volumes by the author in question and practically forgot the matter, always promising myself to read, one day, a book by the Portuguese writer. I considered myself culturally guilty for not managing to feel comfortable with such a highly acclaimed author.
With the news of his death and reading, in newspapers, the extremely complementary declarations of well-known people in intellectual circles, I was impressed by my “evident” cultural backwardness, failing to appreciate such an important thinker. So I went back to his two volumes and once again tried to read them. To no avail. I discovered that Saramago not only detested starting new paragraphs, but also challenged normal standards of punctuation. He also did not like full stops. His text is a torrent of associations of ideas, with scant concern for order, coherence and punctuation. He typed or wrote whatever came into his head. It seems that he thought: -“It’s up to the reader to organize what I’ve written; I’m not going to waste my time with such trifles”.
In the case of any author, this method of working has the advantage of allowing for very much more extensive output, given that it saves time. A good portion of the job of writing - as any responsible author or journalist knows - is dedicated to the task of punctuating the text, thus facilitating the understanding of ideas on the part of the reader. Writing an immense and graphically dense “draft”, registering unconnected ideas without self-censorship, as they come to mind, does not seem to me to be a recommendable practice. Not even Nobel prize-winners should afford themselves the luxury of showing such discourtesy to their readers. And the great danger of this practice lies in the appearance of others imitating this style. With an involuntary incentive for expositive indiscipline, our language, currently little known internationally, will likely be less admired.
I was a judge for just over twenty-two years and, as such, accustomed - as in the case of attorneys and prosecutors - to living with a certain degree of objectivity and order in the narration of facts and law. Attempting to read books written by the author in question, I thought to myself: “An initial suit written in this manner would be summarily rejected as “inept”, according to procedural law nomenclature. Much too confused, although it may perhaps contain interesting ideas. Any kind of text in the fields of medicine, geography, economics, philosophy or politics - it does not matter which -, requires a degree of mental and graphic discipline. Thoughts, spoken or written, require order. Punctuation rules do not exist by mere chance. They are even requirements of civilization. Why cast aside the cultural conquests of humanity?
It seems to me that, in the long term, awarding the Nobel Prize to Saramago will not be conducive to promoting literature in the Portuguese language. I will explain: when a writer receives such an award, there is an automatic demand for his work, translated, throughout the whole world. And, in the case of Saramago, what is likely to occur? The foreign reader, perusing a text that has almost no paragraphs or full stops, with no great concern for the strict arrangement of ideas, will think that all writers in the language of the new Nobel prize-winner are somewhat “disorganized”. As a result, the overall image of authors of the country in question is prejudiced. In this case, Portuguese and Brazilian writers and those of former Portuguese colonies in Africa.
The great danger of acclaiming “graphically disorganized” writers lies in the involuntary encouragement of imitation. Aspiring writers who wish to “shine” in this area will no longer feel a need to re-write texts in which there is a total lack of concern for order in their train of thought. Even in the case of school compositions, students who write in any manner whatsoever, if reprimanded by the teacher for their lack of order and punctuation, will be able to defend themselves by saying that the teacher is “out of date” and that their school work adopts the “Saramago style”, already sanctioned by the Nobel Prize.
With the best intentions, perhaps the Nobel Foundation did a disservice to the Portuguese language when it awarded the prize to a writer who, although morally irreproachable - according to what people say who knew him - did not treat the language with the usual reverence. Foreign publishers will seek to translate the works of the author in question into their respective languages, although it is certain that they will only do this due to the fact that the author received a great honor, a guarantee of good sales on the publishing market.
There are times when I ask myself whether Saramago - a man of unparalleled intelligence and a committed communist -, was not unconsciously “cocking a snook” at the most “respected” institutions when he wrote his books after the award. He took pleasure in “demolishing the false idols” of capitalism. And the Nobel Prize is seen by some as rather “impregnated” with capitalist values, including emphasis on the high value of the financial award. Awarding the Nobel Prize for not very comprehensible texts would not bring prestige to the famous institution.
With respect to “understanding the works of prizewinners”, it is worth remembering that which occurred when the Nobel Foundation concerned itself with the “need” to award the Physics prize to Albert Einstein. The great German Jew - one of the greatest moral and intellectual geniuses of mankind - had just witnessed the scientific approval, through direct observation of a certain cosmic phenomenon, of his famous Theory of Relativity. In a way, international public opinion “demanded” that Einstein be awarded the prize. Once the commission of judging scientists gathered, its members immediately agreed - with one exception, whose name I cannot remember - to award the Nobel Prize in Physics to the young scientist and mathematician. However, the person who disagreed was firm in his opposition to awarding the honor to Einstein, saying that he could not manage to understand his famous Theory of Relativity, the same occurring in the case of the remaining commission members. He queried: - “How are we going to award a prize for a study that even we physicists do not understand?” The commission got around this problem, awarding the prize to Einstein, by means of another discovery related to photoelectric effects. In this way, public opinion was satisfied and the Nobel Prize in Physics commission could not be accused of granting the prize for something that its members did not understand.
If Alfred Nobel were alive, I do not know whether he would approve of awarding the Nobel prize to an author who, although intelligent and mentally courageous, left the extremely important task of putting his thoughts in order to the reader. Only Spiritism would be able to resolve this question. My humble opinion is that Alfred would be more cautious. At least he would tell the candidate: “Please include all the necessary punctuation and come back, if you wish, for a further assessment. The ways things are at present, you would only be being judged on your good character and occasional opinions expressed in newspapers, not on that which is written in your books. My foundation only examines works, not reputations.”
I am imagining, hypothetically, what Alfred Nobel would think, given that I consider him to be a highly interesting personality who deserves to have his biography more widely known. Unmarried, timid in the presence of women, he was once given up for dead in the explosion of one of his factories. In fact, it was his brother who died. Reading comments in the press regarding his supposed death, he was rather unpleasantly surprised at what people thought about him. This had a positive effect, as it served for his self-improvement. A remote analogy can be made between this fact - the false death of Alfred - and this partial criticism of the works of Saramago after receiving the Nobel Prize.
If the publishers of José Saramago had taken the trouble of re-editing his books, with normal punctuation, the valiant writer would really be read by a much larger number of readers. Not solely admired for his reputation. I could even become a great fan of his works. For the time being, my hands are immobile, suspended in the air, awaiting permission to applaud - but sincerely...
Of course, there is no doubt that the works of Saramago will not be re-edited, with normal punctuation. Neither the author’s publishers nor his family would agree to such a step. To the international prejudice of the Portuguese language. Incidentally, it is a pity that the Nobel Foundation has not adopted the practice of also awarding the prize to deceased writers. Machado de Assis, Eça de Queiroz and dozens of other authors would promote the riches of our language to an extraordinary extent.
Finally, I beg the pardon of admirers - when sincere - of the courageous writer who, if he were alive, would perhaps appreciate my frankness, although he was certainly more forthright than me in expressing his opinions. He would understand that if I respected a good-mannered period of “quarantine” with respect to his death, prior to making my opinions known, I would end up forgetting the matter. Reading my criticism, he would give me a clip on the ear and say, even laughing: “Read what I wrote again, you ass!”
(21-6-10)
