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The Elephant’s Journey

It has taken me almost a year to be able to face reading the adventures that Solomon the elephant experienced in his travels from Lisbon to Vienna. It Has not been because it is about an elephant, or due to the story itself. It was because as I started reading the book a year or so ago, I heard the news that its author had died. I had since then, consciously or not, avoided reading anything by Dom José Saramago. I just couldn’t… Maybe it is now time to come to terms with it.
Wait for me Solomon, wait for me…
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2 thoughts on “The Elephant’s Journey”

  1. Now that I see this I remember that I should read his “Memorial do Convento” (I don’t know the translation). It’s a book every high school student in Portugal must read :s
    However, I don’t like Saramago very much, though his criticism is sometimes interesting.

    1. Hi! I still have not read “Memorial…” that is one of those that I actually do have in Portuguese. I am not surprised that you say you don’t lie Saramago that much… In fact, I have a friend who said pretty much the same, until she actually read the English translations (she is Brazilian). I prefer the English versions of his books actually. One of my favourite ones is “The double” (the original title is “O homem duplicado”). It felt like watching one of those Latin American soap operas and I just wanted to know what happened next with Maria da Paz and Antonio Claro (or was it Tertuliano Maximo Afonso? aha!). I could not help sobbing with the ending of “Death at Intervals” (originally called “As intermitências da morte” and I had a great time reading “All the names” (“Todos os nomes”). Reading “Blindness” and the sequel “Seeing” (“Ensaio sobre a cegueira” and “Ensaio sobre a lucidez” respectively) was really breathtaking. Give one of them a go, perhaps in English (if you can stomach reading a translation) and let me know what you think…

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