Death With Interruptions

Hey, remember when I was reading through all of Jose Saramago's books because of an impulse purchase from several years ago? Sure, I haven't read anything of his since this past March, but I'm actually closing in on the end of this giant Kindle e-book- yes, all of these novels are one e-book that's several thousand pages long! While the books' level of quality have varied wildly, I knew going into this one, Death With Interruptions that I'd probably like it. In a random country that's probably Portugal, on New Years' Day, death simply stops happening. All those who were close to death just kinda hang on by a thread, but never getting better or worse. Saramago avoids the more grim questions that might arise (I don't know, what would happen if someone was beheaded or something?) and focuses more on the effects of death's sudden ending on various organizations. Funeral homes go out of business. A healthcare crisis appears to be on its way. Politicians struggle to explain what the hell is going on. Christian leaders find one of their central tenets (Jesus's death and resurrection) stripped of all its meaning. Eventually people figure out a loophole in the madness that allows people to die, but since it's kinda tantamount to "murder" even during the crisis, a sort of black-market death mafia is formed. It's all pretty cool to read about, but similar to Seeing and All the Names Saramago completely switches gears halfway through- the concept of death becomes a character, a woman named death (lower-case!), who apologizes to the country for taking a leave of absence, promises to kill people again, and offers to send out notes forewarning people of their upcoming demise this time. Understandably, this just starts a whole new crisis as people panic like crazy from getting their notes from death. Then the book's focus is switched again, as the country's crisis is largely ignored afterwards, when death starts receiving notes back, marked Return to Sender, from a man who just won't die. She visits him, while invisible, because she's death, falls in love, and debates whether to kill the guy or not. Does she? You'll just have to read and find out! Seriously though, this was a weird one but it's a subject that's perfect for Saramago- weird, unexplained crisis shows up out of nowhere. There's only a novel and a short story left in this collection, and then Cain if I feel like picking that one up, but I'd say Death with Interruptions ranks among Saramago's better novels.