Cain

Saramago has been among my favorite contemporary authors ever since I became acquainted with his works in 2000. He is a genius in carrying the narrative in unexpected directions, and the way his prose flows seems so effortless it's impossible to comprehend fully the talent involved. And then there's his ability to use the narrator's voice to inject wit and occasional wisdom into the work. In short, his works read well, they're fun and often deeply humane.

At 176 pages Cain is just too long. Saramago's narration has that usual wit (”man doesn't live by bread alone” is a brilliant moment), but most of the time he seems too witty for his own sake, and this becomes apparent as the narrative progresses and the narrative device employed wears itself out. Instead of substance what we seem to get is window-shopping: Saramago ransacks the pages of the Old Testament and points at the obvious things modern readers find laughable, and laughs. I would have yearned for something concentrated, that is, a more rooted and focused story of Cain, which, I think, is inherently tragic. By this I don't mean there couldn't have been any comedy. But now Cain reads like the done-to-death archetypically scornful atheist reading of the Old Testament, which it is, of course, but offering very little else for someone like me who has actually heard these arguments before quite a few times concerning the Old Testament or the Bible in general, be they theological or literary.

In terms of the English language translation, Margaret Jull Costa's works is very beautiful.