Review: The Lives of Things

Read 3/24/12 - 3/28/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to fans of Jose Saramago's previous work / a great intro to Jose Saramago
Pgs: 142
Publisher: Verso Books
Release Date: April 25, 2012

Oh god, how I love reading Jose Saramago. Picking up a book by this man is like slipping into a pleasure-coma. I wish I could remain buried within his books forever. Just cover me with his words and never move me again. Deal?

Words cannot explain how excited I was when I heard that Verso Books picked up his short story collection The Lives of Things, which was first published in its original language back in 1978. This edition, translated by Giovanni Pontiero, drops on April 25th and I highly recommend finding a place for it on your bookshelves.

If you are at all familiar with him, you know that only Saramago can write a 25 page story about a falling chair. Yes, you heard me right... a story detailing the act of a chair falling. True to the stream of consciousness, mind wandering style that I have come to know and love, Saramago dissects every conceivable possibility as the chair begins to fall in slow motion, continuously freezing it in mid-fall, like those stop-action screen shots that are employed in films - where everyone is suddenly locked in a moment in time while one person is left free to roam the scene and snatch things out of the air. Listen to the opening of The Chair ... "The chair started to fall, to come crashing down, to topple, but not, strictly speaking, to come to bits. Strictly speaking, to come to bits means bits fall off. Now no one speaks of the chair having bits, and if it had bits, such as arms on each side, then you would refer to the arms of the chair falling off rather than coming to bits. But now that I remember, it has to be said that heavy rain comes down in buckets, so why should chairs not be able to come to bits? .. therefore accept the fact that chairs come to bits, although preferably they should simply fall, topple, or come crashing down." How can you not fall in love with his circular thinking?!

The Chair, the first of 6 short stories, is by far my favorite. While I appreciate the story as it is, it's also incredibly allegorical (a writing technique that is very common in Saramago's novels). This particular story was influenced by the event that triggered the end of Salazar's terrifying reign in Portugal. Can you guess what ended his reign? That's right. His beach chair collapsed. The falling chair caused the brain hemorrhage that would bring about his death. That's the trick with translations and international fiction, isn't it, though? The fact that, for most of us, we are practically clueless as to what is (or has) taken place in other countries, and typically these allegorical spoofs and political satires tends to fly completely over our heads.


The Chair also contains what I believe to be one of the best lines within the book.. "Fall, old man, fall. See how your feet are higher than your head." If nothing else, The Lives of Things contains little pockets of humor hidden beneath the otherwise dark fictional stories contained within its covers.

Now, that isn't to say that the rest of the stories pale in comparison. Each tale brings something new to the table. Take Embargo, for example. It's the story of a man who just wants to get to work on a day when his town's gas stations are running out of gas. Filling up his car at the very first station, he happily heads out on his way but his car has other ideas. Reflux details a town that decides to dig up all of its dead and buried, moving them into one centralized cemetery, creating what essentially becomes a giant city of dead surrounded by four small cities of the living.  Things tells the tale of a town that is plagued by objects, utensils, machines, and installations (OUMI's for short) that suddenly stop working and then begin disappearing altogether. And The Centaur is a twisted fairy tale that introduces us to the ageless creature whose two halves are in constant turmoil with each other.

This collection is an excellent way to introduce yourself to Samarago. His unique writing style - run on sentences, paragraphs that go on and on for pages without a break, and lack of identifying marks when characters are speaking - can take some time getting used to. These stories will give the hesitant newbie an opportunity to dip their toes in the water and prepare you for taking the greater plunge into one of his full length novels.

Sadly, Jose Saramago passed away in 2010, so I am left at the mercy of our american publishers, anxiously awaiting their decisions to pick up his older literature and have them translated for my eager consumption. Just to put my worries to bed, I snagged this bibliography off of Wikipedia and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw how many novels were still out there, waiting patiently to be published.... I have issues. I know. I simply can't imagine a world without new Saramago stories to read, and thankfully, it will be quite a few more years before I have to start. (I've already read the ones in bold)

Title	Year	English title	Year	ISBN
Terra do Pecado	1947	Land of Sin		ISBN 972-21-1145-0
Os Poemas Possíveis	1966	Possible Poems
Provavelmente Alegria	1970	Probably Joy
Deste Mundo e do Outro	1971	This World and the Other
A Bagagem do Viajante	1973	The Traveller's Baggage
As Opiniões que o DL teve	1974	Opinions that DL had
O Ano de 1993	1975	The Year of 1993
Os Apontamentos	1976	The Notes
Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia	1977	Manual of Painting and Calligraphy	1993	ISBN 1-85754-043-3
Objecto Quase	1978	Quasi Object (The Lives of Things)	2012	ISBN 1-84467-878-4
Levantado do Chão	1980	Raised from the Ground	2011
Viagem a Portugal	1981	Journey to Portugal	2000	ISBN 0-15-100587-7
Memorial do Convento	1982	Baltasar and Blimunda	1987	ISBN 0-15-110555-3
O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis	1986	The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis	1991	ISBN 0-15-199735-7
A Jangada de Pedra	1986	The Stone Raft	1994	ISBN 0-15-185198-0
História do Cerco de Lisboa	1989	The History of the Siege of Lisbon	1996	ISBN 0-15-100238-X
O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo	1991	The Gospel According to Jesus Christ	1993	ISBN 0-15-136700-0
Ensaio sobre a Cegueira	1995	Blindness	1997	ISBN 0-15-100251-7
Todos os Nomes	1997	All the Names	1999	ISBN 0-15-100421-8
O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida	1997	The Tale of the Unknown Island	1999	ISBN 0-15-100595-8
A Caverna	2000	The Cave	2002	ISBN 0-15-100414-5
A Maior Flor do Mundo	2001	Children's Picture Book
O Homem Duplicado	2003	The Double	2004	ISBN 0-15-101040-4
Ensaio sobre a Lucidez	2004	Seeing	2006	ISBN 0-15-101238-5
Don Giovanni ou o Dissoluto Absolvido	2005	Don Giovanni, or, Dissolute Acquitted
As Intermitências da Morte	2005	Death with Interruptions	2008	ISBN 1-84655-020-3
As Pequenas Memórias	2006	Small Memories	2010	ISBN 978-0-15-101508-5
A Viagem do Elefante	2008	The Elephant's Journey	2010	ISBN 978-972-21-2017-3
Caim	2009	Cain	2011	ISBN 978-6071103161

* Lifted from Wikipedia

Tell Me a Story : Thor Garcia

Welcome to another addition of TNBBC's Tell Me A Story. 

Tell Me a Story is a monthly series that features previously unpublished short stories from debut and Indie authors. The request was simple: Stories can be any format, any genre, and any length. And many amazing writers signed up for the challenge. 

This month's story comes from Thor Garcia, author of the upcoming novel The News Clown, which is being released this spring by Equus Press. Born in Long Beach, California, Thor has worked as a journalist in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New YorkCity and Prague, Czech Republic, where he continues to live. His story collection TUNDwas published in 2011 by Litteraria Pragensia. Garcia’s stories have been published online in Dogmatika and The Drill Press, and in VLAK and GRASP, among others. 


The News Clown was a finalist in the 2009 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award. Today, Thor shares an excerpt from it:

The News Clown

Victory!

It was warm and sunny the day Joyce and Jerry showed up to move Jerry out. They drove up in a white rental van.

Joyce, according to Jerry, had a “degree in brain surgery” and was enrolled in a work-experience program at Bay City Medical University. What they did there, apparently, was experimental surgeries on rats. According to Jerry, Joyce’s job was to knock out the mouse, lock him into a contraption, then use a laser and scalpel to remove the top of his skull. Later, other experts would come in to work on the brain.

Jerry had met Joyce at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Shortly thereafter, Jerry had also joined Alcoholics Anonymous.

“You should go too,” he had said to me.

“Forget it, not a chance. . . .”

“O.K., but you’re only fooling yourself. . . . I feel for you, bro. I know how it is to be lost in your pain. You just need to know there’s a way out. People are there for you.”

“Thanks for caring so much.”

“I am sincerely trying to help you.”

Joyce was a big girl, nearly six feet tall, four or five inches taller than Jerry. She wore a purple sweater, her bulky thighs covered with loose blue jeans. She was light-haired and full-faced, with a look to her eyes that seemed to combine wholesomeness and insanity.

After his first date with her, Jerry told me she had been a practicing lesbian for several years. But the lesbianism was several years in the past now.

After the second date, he told me that she believed I was a big part of his problems.

“You’re not the cause, but more of a symptom that reinforces all the reasons why I’m unhappy. . . .”

“You think so?”

Jerry shrugged. “There might be something to it. . . . I don’t want to dog you, bro, we’ve been through too much. . . . Her thing was, she said I can’t ever be my real self around you, around people like you. . . . To be honest, I see what she means. I don’t want to be harsh on you, man, it’s not you – you know? I’m in charge of who my friends are. Do you see what I mean?”

“No. Yeah. No. Yeah. Absolutely not. Sounds like crap, bro. C’mon, wake up! What is all this?”

“Listen to me, bro – I smoked heroin with Candace. I smoked heroin with the girl that killed my baby. Think about that.”

“Shit. . . . I don’t want to think about it. That sucks, man.”

“Think about that. . . . I murdered my baby, man. Or at least I let Candace murder it. It’s nearly the same thing, bro. It’s something I’ll always have to live with. I can be forgiven, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself. . . . You know what I mean? There’s no excuse for people who kill babies as a birth-control method for their personal convenience. There was a baby moving around in there, man! My baby. And she sucked its brain out and they threw it in the trash.”

“I’m sorry, man. . . .”

“Who knows what it would have become? Even if it had lived a shitty life, it still would have been worth it. Just to be like me and you, talking, that’s worth everything, isn’t it? Could have been a guy like me and you. Why would she want to take that away?”

“It hurts, Jerry, I know it hurts. . . . I don’t have an answer. . . .”

“I mean, doesn’t it feel great to be alive? Even if it feels bad sometimes, doesn’t it feel great?”

“Yeah, it feels all right, Jerry.”

Jerry had cut his hair short and grown out his goatee. He had kept the earrings, but got rid of the contact lenses. He wore glasses everywhere now.

The latest thing was Joyce had converted him to Christianity. They went several times per week to a church where the priests and other high honchos were nearly all homosexuals and lesbians. They held barbecues and ping-pong nights. Church of the New Christ Savior Risen, it was called.

“You did what?” I remember saying.

“See, that’s part of the problem,” said Jerry. “No one ever listens to what Jesus really says. Jesus offers the way out, bro. . . . He says we don’t need all this craziness, this garbage. We don’t need to destroy ourselves. He says ‘Let it be, because I am the truth and the light.’ He doesn’t lay all these trips on you – that’s not Jesus. That’s other churches and people that abuse him. Jesus just shows . . . how easy it is to be a good person, to cast your troubles away and try to help others, to forgive and go on. . . . That’s why, like – I forgive you, Thor. . . . I apologize to you, and I forgive you.”

“Well, shit. . . . I forgive you, too, pal.”

“You don’t really mean it. You’re just saying it. Or do you?”

“Sure, I mean it. I don’t hold anything against you. . . . You’re my best pal.”

He came forward and we had a hug.

“This world’s coming to an end,” said Jerry. “I want you to be ready, bro. Nobody knows how or when, but we know it’s coming. This whole place is gonna go up in flames, man. It’ll be a question of who’s ready and who’s not. I hope you’ll be ready.”

“I’m ready, Jerry. I’m waiting for it like everybody else. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine.”

It took about 45 minutes for the three of us to load Jerry’s things into the van. Joyce seemed very bothered by the worms in the apartment, she recommended that I move out and that the city health authorities be called in. She offered to call them herself. She claimed to be worried about my health.

“It’s all right, Joyce,” I said. “They’re not really bothering anybody. . . .”

When we were done, I offered to take them out for a drink and a hot dog. They agreed, but added they only had “about an hour.”

I climbed into a crawl space in the back of the van, and Joyce drove us the mile or so to The Hacienda. I ordered a pitcher of beer and three shots of tequila, despite their protestations. They insisted that they would not and could not drink, under any circumstances – and they did not. Joyce had a green tea. Jerry had an O’Doul’s non-alcoholic, then settled for a tea himself.

I drank their shots and the beer pitcher. I went out for a smoke, came back and ordered another pitcher and two more tequila shots.

“We said we don’t drink. . . .”

“Don’t worry . . . they’re for me.”

We sat there.

Jerry went off to the toilet and Joyce asked, “So what are you going to do, Thor?”

“Not much.” I took a slurp, raised my glass. “You’re looking at it. Continue until victory.”

“What do you call ‘Victory’?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

I slugged a tequila, gulped beer.

“Maybe there is no victory, Joyce. . . .” I took more drinks. “Maybe this is the victory right here. Bottoms up, baby. . . .”

She looked at me, shook her head. She sipped tea, smiled sadly.

“Living healthily is the only victory,” she said.

“Joyce,” I said, “do you know what they used to call syphilis?”

“Oh, come on. . . . What’s that supposed to mean? You’re projecting. . . .”

“They called it the Frenchman’s disease. Except in France, where they called it the Italian disease. . . .”

“Boy, you’ve really got a problem. . . .”

“Hey, Joyce – when did the fly fly?”

“What?”

“When the spider spied her. . . .”

“You’re crazy. . . .”

“Hey, Joyce, listen . . . what weighs more – 100 pounds of iron, or 100 pounds of feathers?”

She looked off.

“Joyce, I’m waiting. . . .”

Jerry came back.

“C’mon, I don’t want you guys to fight. You’re important people to me. . . . Can’t I even leave you alone for a second?”

“We’re not fighting. . . .”

Joyce stood up. She had started crying.

“We’re gonna go, Thor,” Jerry said.

“O.K., man. Let’s get together real soon. . . .”

“Yeah. . . . You should go to a meeting, Thor.”

“Sure, man. . . .”

I licked the bottom of the tequila glass. I sat there and downed the last of the beer from the pitcher.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I want to thank Thor for participating in TNBBC's Tell Me a Story. If you like what you've read, please support Thor by checking out his book.  Help spread the word by sharing this post through your blog, tumblr page, twitter and facebook accounts. Every link counts! And be sure to check back with us next month for the next installment....

If you are interested in submitting your short story for consideration for this series, please contact me mescorn@ptd.net.