Josц? Saramago

Saramago, Jose (Saramago, Jose) (p. 1922) - Portuguese writer, poet, playwright, essayist, Nobel laureate 1998.

His work is characteristic warm tone of irony in combination with the position of the benevolent, detached narrator.

Born November 16, 1922 in the village of Azinhaga province of Alentejo in the family of landless peasants. In his memory preserved stories and tales of illiterate grandfather, 'which could only a few words to bring the universe in motion'. In 1924 the family moved to Lisbon. Saramago did not finish high school - had to go to college to study car mechanician. I have many jobs, mostly physical. Then about 10 years worked with newspapers, was the assistant editor of Diario de Noticias - 'daily news'. In 1969 to join the Communist Party of Portugal, banned by the military dictatorship.

In 1947 published his first novel "sinful earth". In 1955 engaged in literary translation - Pцєr Lagerkvist, Guy de Maupassant, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Baudelaire, Hegel, etc.. In 1966 his poetical collection, "Possible Verses. In mid-1970 (after the November 1974 revolution), he had to withdraw from the Diario de Noticias. In 1978 was published a collection of short stories "Quasi object" in 1979 - the play "Night" and others.

In the novel "rose from the ground" (1980) first appeared's own original style of Saramago - temperamental, figurative, intellectual. The writing tells of the lives of three generations of a peasant family Mau tempo from the beginning of the century before the April 1974 revolution. Majestic dignity 'people of the earth', their serious, almost stern attitude to life - traits that are deeply respected author. In the novel "Journey to Portugal" (1981) Saramago tries to comprehend the possible ways of development of their native country after the end of the dictatorship.

International fame and the Nobel Prize brought him a love story "Memoirs of a Monastery (1982). Against the backdrop of medieval Portugal, unfolds an epic story of love Balthazar and Blimundy Seven Suns Seven Moons, . 'For a long time said: where is the sun, . be the moon, . because only a harmonious combination of both, . called love, . makes our land suitable for habitation ',
. In real life, Balthazar - one-handed disabled veteran (instead of the left hand - an iron hook), Blimunda - the daughter of a witch was executed by the Inquisition, like her mother, having nothing to see 'through the skin and the earth'. As her gift is manifested only on an empty stomach, Blimunda fear to see her lover Balthazar bad traits in the morning, without opening his eyes, trying to eat something.

Another character - an eccentric - a Jesuit scientist, inventor and philosopher, Bartolomeu Lourenцїo de Guzman, nicknamed Letatel, made the machine on which you can climb into the sky and flying, and it is driven by only one human will. All three live in Portugal in the early 18. - The land embraced warmly prejudice and Inquisition. Possessed by vanity and gigantomania king erects a building which should astonish the whole world - a Franciscan monastery, a palace and a temple at the same time. Another protagonist of the novel - the people, a crowd of many thousands of people with dirty, calloused hands and worn out by this construction. The action takes place to the sounds of harpsichord Scarlatti, who 'and does not know, he laughs or cries'.

In 20 of. Writers often turn to images of the Middle Ages (Eco, etc.). They are attracted by the wholeness of character, the uniqueness of a moral compass, bold ideas, romantic enthusiasm for the world - something denied 'skeptical' neurotic - a person 20 in. Humorous and blasphemous novel, Saramago has been translated into over 30 languages. Corgi Italian composer wrote his opera based on "Balthasar and Blimunda".

Saramago - the author of numerous essays, prose, dramatic and poetic works. He was awarded many literary prizes - prizes Portuguese PEN Center in 1983 and 1984, Camoes Prize in 1995 and others. The Nobel Prize was awarded to him like that, 'who by their parables convey imagination, compassion and irony, gives us the opportunity to again and again to comprehend the reality eludes us'.

The novel "The Year of the death of Ricardo Reis" (1984) consists of the dialogues of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa de (1888-1935) and the fictional author of the poetry collection "Ode Ricardo Reis" (1946). Saramago invent life Ricardo Reis. He has placed this poet of tranquility and graceful skepticism in 1936 - the time of formation of Nazism in Europe, was created when the Portuguese Legion and the war begins in Spain

. Collection of everyday anecdotes, homilies "The Stone Raft" (1986) in allegorical form tells of the relationship of Europe and Portugal, 'which no longer will make more great discoveries and doomed only to an infinite expectation of the unknown future'
. This fantasy - 'result' collective unconscious-Portuguese 'resentment at the neglect on the part of Europe'. Describe a fantastic situation - the Iberian Peninsula was separated from the continent, turned into a huge floating island, and moves itself to the other side of the Atlantic. This utopia - a metaphor whose meaning is, 'that Europe - the whole of Europe! - Should move towards the South, to restore balance in the world, and thereby atone for its past and present colonial atrocities'. Characters in "Stone Flesh" - two women, three men and a dog - traveled by swimming in the ocean peninsula, 'heroes know they have to find the features of the new people that will ever'.

The main character of the novel "The history of the siege of Lisbon - proofreader Raimundo Silva - ruled historical work of the same name. He believes that everything in the world is the visible side, and there are invisible, and until we learn to distinguish between the two, the essence of things we do not grasp the. Having received from his hero this lesson doubt Saramago began writing his most controversial novel "The Gospel of Jesus". He carefully immersed in the pages of the New Testament 'in the search for contradictions and inconsistencies, traces and shadows zamalevok spiritual confusion'.

Version, developed in The Gospel of Jesus "(1991), differs from the canonical. Some events are omitted or they received less attention, while others, conversely, of the passing scene are central. In an alarming atmosphere of evangelical times Saramago tries to find the real causes of the suffering that Jesus suffered and his father, a carpenter, Joseph. 'The author seems to read the first scene of beating infant, . reading, . I could not understand, . why the martyrs in religion only appeared in thirty years - who were these boys Bethlehem? Why Joseph, . returning with his family from Egypt, . not felt the burden of responsibility, . not experience any pangs of conscience, . no feelings of guilt: ',
. In the Gospel written Saramago Joseph tormented conscience due to his fault killed baby. Jesus, having received a legacy of tragic consciousness of guilt, voluntarily goes to flour, to redeem conferred on him the burden of responsibility.

Saramago The Gospel - 'the story of how several people have fallen under the sway of powerful forces', and, as may resist, but she manages. Exclamation of Jesus on the cross: 'People, forgive him, because he does not know what he was doing! " - Refers to this force - God, who sent him to death, and to Joseph, 'earthly father', doomed him to suffer.

The novel is permeated with intense search for truth in the face of his own conscience. In fact, it continued the theme 'tears of the child', claimed by Dostoevsky in 19. 20 in. questioned the value, the achievement of which was paid for by the suffering and death of innocents - fascism, totalitarianism became painful, but effective vaccines against such attempts. In contrast to the abstract ideas of humanity preceding centuries, humanism in the late 20. stressed attentive to the concrete and practical embodiment of the claimed public values - there is too much substitution and speculation, discrediting the original plan.

The principles of a new humanism, developed by Saramago, inevitably come into conflict with the Catholic clericalism, as, indeed, all forms of religious fanaticism. Authorities found a book Saramago insulting to Catholics, it was excluded from the list of works involved in the literary contest of the European Union. Despite the fact that as a result of the novel has been restored in the list, Saramago in protest left Portugal, and now 10 years living in Spain, the Canary Islands.

Among recent novels - "Blindness" (1995), "All Names" (1997), "Cave" (2000). In "Blindness" continued reflection on, . that 'humiliating life, . we pervert mind, . that human dignity is trampled daily by the powerful, . that the multiplicity of truths replaced by a single universal falsehood, and that man has ceased to respect himself, . when he lost to other representatives of the human race the respect, . they deserve ',
.

In the play "In Nomine Dei" (In the Name of God) on the 1200 anniversary of the monastery in Munster, Saramago continues to analyze the 'dark labyrinth of religious beliefs that so easily make people kill and die'. The ugly face of intolerance, which has come down in Munster to attack of madness in a collision between Catholics and Anabaptists, irreparably tarnished the case, which upheld the purity of the warring parties. Intra-war - the most absurd of all wars, because were not in the name of the warring gods, but in the name of one and the same God. And God, 'if his actions somehow conform to human logic, can not - even if he wants - to declare war on himself'.

Creativity Josц? Saramago is permeated with a mood, a characteristic of Portuguese fado songs - is the cry of the endless tragedy of mankind is Broken smile of forgiveness, bearing unspeakable, inexhaustible, and the usual grief. His books have been translated into over 20 languages, including Russian.

Josц? Saramago leftist militants, known as an opponent of globalism. In the article "Why I support the anti-globalization" for the magazine Russia in Global Affairs' (? 1, . 2003), he explains his position by, . that the 'anti-globalists at least put those questions, . reply to which civilization must, . if it wants to survive and thrive ',
. "You can not seriously talk about democracy, where the real power lies in the hands of governments elected by the citizens, while the transnational monopolies that no one elected '. Economic globalization, he believes, is becoming a new form of totalitarianism, and the national government finally become 'commonplace Commissioners real economic power'.

Saramago does not see the new policy ideas that can change the lives of mankind for the better - like a weed germination fundamentalism and religious fanaticism. And people who receive entertainment and bread as compensation, so as not to rebel, too late to realize that as a result of losing all their fundamental freedoms. Left ideology, in the opinion of the writer, is currently undergoing the most profound crisis. Saramago note that we are inevitably ''re back to the question of the general aspects of global development, the validity of the existing world order'. Despite these dismal findings, . principles of a new humanism, . which stands in his work Saramago, . give hope to find new ways, . even if I have to deal with specific rational economic interests of, . monopolies and state systems,
.

According to Saramago, a new humanism is opposed to the so-called abstract humanism - when the lofty goals set forth in practice justify the genocide of real people, turned into 'debris of history'. 'Beautiful words' are no longer the decisive criterion of true humanity to the fore the practice of the claimed principles. Josц? Saramago, for all the skepticism and irony, believes in the mind of the human will, 'able to say to make anything, but still incapable, unwilling, not knowing how to be sun and moon simple kindness or even simple respect '.