Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago
José Saramago has made quite a career for himself with fanciful parables involving a sudden irregularity in the normal workings of life. Saramago uses these occurrences as a foil by which to study some facet of cultural or political norms, often seeking to expose the flaws, weaknesses, and hypocrisies of modern society. Blindness involved an epidemic of countrywide sightlessness. Seeing (reviewed here) featured an election in which the vast majority of ballets cast are blank. His most recently translated novel, Death With Interruptions, is premised on the cessation of one of life's two supposed guarantees, and I don't mean taxes:
The following day, no one died. This fact, being absolutely contrary to life's rules, provoked enormous and, in the circumstances, perfectly justifiable anxiety in people's minds, for we have only to consider that in the entire forty volumes of universal history there is no mention, not even one exemplary case, of such a phenomenon ever having occurred, for a whole day to go by, with its generous allowance of twenty-four hours, diurnal and nocturnal, matutinal and vespertine, without one death from an illness, a fatal fall, or a successful suicide, not one, not a single one.
The first half of the book explores the country's reaction to this suspension of mortality. It is not, to be clear, a suspension of aging. And those who were on death's doorstep, the infirm, the comatose, do not recover from their wounds or illnesses; instead they are caught in a sort of stasis, hovering just this side of the afterlife. And as the aging process has not slowed, this would seem to be the eventual fate of all the country's residents. Thus the immediate reaction of joy at the seeming surrender of death is quickly replaced by quite a bit of anxiety. Saramago targets several groups in particular, notably the insurance companies, the undertakers, the hospitals, and especially the organized church, which realizes that "without death there can be no resurrection" and thus little need for a church.
Before long families are taking their near-death relatives across the country's borders, where death is still maintaining her regularly scheduled activities. When these foreign neighbors take umbrage at this practice, the country stations militia along the border to prevent further crossings, giving rise to a underground criminal enterprise engaged in the circumvention of death's interruption. Eventually, after several months, death sends a letter, notifying the country that shortly she will be back in business. On that day, death catches up with the more than 60,000 people whose demise had been postponed. But then another seven days go by without any further mortal departures:
The week-long pause, during which no one died and which, initially, created the illusion that nothing had, in fact, changed, came about simply because of the new rules governing the relationship between death and mortals, namely that everyone would receive prior warning that they still had a week to live until, shall we say, payment was due, a week in which to sort out their affairs, make a will, pay their back taxes and say goodbye to their family and to their closest friends. In theory, this seemed like a good idea, but practice would soon show that it was not.
Indeed, rather than use the remaining time allotted to tie up loose ends, the more common path is one of hedonistic excess, giving Saramago another opportunity to let loose against the failings of modern man. This transition in death's modus operandi also brings a transition into the second half of the book, which features death herself as the protagonist of sorts. She does not capitalize her name, to distinguish herself from the Death. She is, after all, just one of many deaths, with responsibility only over the human citizens in this particular country. And it is one particular citizen who is causing her trouble. The problem has to do with that little purple envelope she sends, the one that notifies each individual of their impending death. For one man, the envelope keeps getting returned to its sender. She tries again, and it returns once more. So death decides to make a personal visit to this man, to observe him surreptitiously in his home. She discovers he is a cellist in an orchestra, becomes somewhat infatuated with him, and decides to take human form and make contact with him:
The man didn't know her, but she knew him, she had spent a whole night in the same room as him, she had heard him play and, whether you like it or not, such things forge bonds, establish a certain rapport, mark the beginnings of a relationship, and to announce to him bluntly, You're going to die, you have a week in which to sell your cello and find another owner for your dog, would be a brutal act unworthy of the pretty woman she has become. No, she had a different plan.
The carrying-out of death's plan, which takes up the remainder of the novel, is certainly the better section of the book. The first half, with its focus on society's reaction to the suspension of death, is dull and small-minded and heavy-handed. Saramago takes a subject as weighty as death and uses it to silly effect, taking aim at such easy targets as morticians and nursing homes. But even the better half of the book is difficult to discern. Lovely as death's seduction of the cellist is, it is not at all clear what Saramago intends by the liaison. As one reviewer said, "Maybe this is just Saramago growing old. Writing novels is hard work. Or maybe even this committed novelist has thrown up his hands at modern life."
