Baltasar and Blimunda

Absolutely loved this book. Saramago’s style of writing is always beautiful, and here he tells a story of two characters deeply in love, during early 1700’s. Wonderful descriptions, humor and pathos together, I didn’t want the book to end. Super novel.

Saramago uses his beautiful prose and magical language to weave a story of love and history that entertains and informs the reader about life in 18th Century Portugal.

Took a side trip to Mafra, the Portuguese town just north of Lisbon which is the setting of this book's main endeavor, the building of a grand and huge palace by King Jao in the 17th century. The title characters are the hapless, but resourceful victims of a clueless king who blows through all the wealth brought into his kingdom from Portuguese exploration to satisfy his ego. The lack of punctuation is a challenge but one I was rewarded for taking on by my enjoyment of the wit and humor and sardonic observations of this prizewinning author. Some what fantastical the tale includes flying machines, snippers of the Inquisition and clairvoyance. For me the book offered the opportunity to acquire a frame of reference as a one week tourist in Portugal and to discover a wonderful writer whom I otherwise would not have sought-after .

I enjoyed this book, but I cannot pretend to know whet was going on, especially at the end. It seems to be a love story wrapped in a historical series of events wrapped in magical realism and finally wrapped in a religious environment made of one part allegory and two parts sarcasm.

What a difference a paperback can make in the editting. To get this wonderful book in fewer pages they eliminated the paragraphing and some of the punctuation. It reads poorly. The original translator, who did the hardback so well, had died by the time they came out with a paperback, and he would be rolling in his grave to see how they butchered his careful editting and phrasing.