Cleaving Saramago

“The narrator is slightly split,

as if, like Saramago’s Ricardo

Reis, he were always just on

the verge of realizing he is the

figment of someone else’s

imagination.”

Fernando Eberstadt,

“The Unexpected Fantasist,”

The NYTimes 8/26/2007

saramago — carpentier

both of us ironic — pessimistic

using — unreliable narrative

satirizing myself — but why?

“the objectivity — of the narrator

a modern invention — we need only

reflect — that our lord god didn’t

want it — in his book.”

such — blasphemy

but it’s too late — it’s no news when

i tell myself the world — is pure hell

for millions of people — some of us

manage to find — a way out
not really — but pretend
but good — for now i suppose
i can’t change — i just get worse

i live — in a dark age

when freedoms — are diminishing

when there’s — no space for criticism

when the — totalitarianism

of multinational — corporations

a vast snarkosphere — no longer

even needing — an ideology
or religious — wars

orwell’s “1984” — already here
it’s been here — for a long time…

carpentier — los pasos perdidos

pre-WWII — surrealist mindset

while saramago — opens postmodernism

wide open — subversive works
the history of the siege of lisbon
the double — death interrupted
ingeniously turning — everything
completely — upside-down…

the thought — occurs perhaps
carpentier’s — protagonist
in los pasos perdidos — is the
basis for — saramago’s “reis”
a kind of — “absurdist man

without qualities” — the year

of the death — of ricardo reis…

this morning — i looked at myself

bleary-eyed — in a cracked mirror

the face of — miss lonelyhearts

looking back — at me after falling

down the staircase — all tangled up

in another day — the locusts

eraserhead — mulholland drive