The Elephant's Journey, Jose Saramago
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1mirrani
The secretary ran his eyes over the superabundance of polite salutations, which, in the epistolary style of the time, proliferated like mushrooms after rain, then read further on and found what he was looking for.
Beautiful imagery, once you get used to the writing style. p14
Inside were the king of portugal, dom joao the third, and his secretary of state, pero de alcacova carneiro, whom we may not see again, although perhaps we will, because life laughs at predictions and introduces words where we imagined silences, and sudden returns when we thought we would never see each other again. p20
Like I've said and will say, once I got used to the writing style, I really enjoyed this book. It was very creative and poetic.
There is an awesome talk about measurement in page 24-25, but I'm not typing it all up to put in here, you need to go read it for yourself.
The man who insisted he'd heard the elephant speak began to lose consistency and substance, to shrink, then grow round and transparent as a soap bubble, if the poor-quality soaps of the time were capable of forming the crystalline marvels that someone had the genius to invent, then he suddenly disappeared from view. He went plof and vanished. Onomatopoeia can be so very handy. Imagine if we'd had to provide a detailed description of someone disappearing. It would have taken us at least ten pages. Plof. p70
Awesome, isn't it? I mean really, I love this stuff.
Around page 81 I got confused at the placement of the ox cart in the caravan. Not sure if the writing style threw me off, or if it was something else, or if it was an honest mistake. Whatever it was, I've moved on, obviously. :)
We are, more and more, our own defects and not our qualities. p115
Sadly, this is all too true.
People have very mistaken ideas about elephants. They imagine that elephants enjoy being forced to balance on a heavy metal ball, on a tiny curved surface on which their feet barely fit. We're just fortunate that they're so good-natured, especially those that come from india. p133
Scolding without scolding, but still firm. This goes on, but I left it right here, since I didn't want to type up a whole page.
Fritz even went so far as to say, My life is in your hands, which just goes to show how ideas can spread, not only directly, bu word of mouth, but simply because they hang about in the atmospheric currents around us, constituting, you might say, a veritable bath in which one learns things quite without realizing. p153-154
See. Just such good stuff in here.
Final note for you:
He wonders why it had never occurred to him before to sell elephant hair when he lived in india and then he thinks to himself that, despite the ridiculous number of deities, subdeities and demons infesting that country, there are far fewer superstitions in the land where he was born than in this particular part of civilized and very christian europe, which is capable of blithely buying some elephant hair and piously believing the vendors lies. Having to pay for your own dreams must be the most desperate of situations. p156-157
http://www.librarything.com/review/101564138
Beautiful imagery, once you get used to the writing style. p14
Inside were the king of portugal, dom joao the third, and his secretary of state, pero de alcacova carneiro, whom we may not see again, although perhaps we will, because life laughs at predictions and introduces words where we imagined silences, and sudden returns when we thought we would never see each other again. p20
Like I've said and will say, once I got used to the writing style, I really enjoyed this book. It was very creative and poetic.
There is an awesome talk about measurement in page 24-25, but I'm not typing it all up to put in here, you need to go read it for yourself.
The man who insisted he'd heard the elephant speak began to lose consistency and substance, to shrink, then grow round and transparent as a soap bubble, if the poor-quality soaps of the time were capable of forming the crystalline marvels that someone had the genius to invent, then he suddenly disappeared from view. He went plof and vanished. Onomatopoeia can be so very handy. Imagine if we'd had to provide a detailed description of someone disappearing. It would have taken us at least ten pages. Plof. p70
Awesome, isn't it? I mean really, I love this stuff.
Around page 81 I got confused at the placement of the ox cart in the caravan. Not sure if the writing style threw me off, or if it was something else, or if it was an honest mistake. Whatever it was, I've moved on, obviously. :)
We are, more and more, our own defects and not our qualities. p115
Sadly, this is all too true.
People have very mistaken ideas about elephants. They imagine that elephants enjoy being forced to balance on a heavy metal ball, on a tiny curved surface on which their feet barely fit. We're just fortunate that they're so good-natured, especially those that come from india. p133
Scolding without scolding, but still firm. This goes on, but I left it right here, since I didn't want to type up a whole page.
Fritz even went so far as to say, My life is in your hands, which just goes to show how ideas can spread, not only directly, bu word of mouth, but simply because they hang about in the atmospheric currents around us, constituting, you might say, a veritable bath in which one learns things quite without realizing. p153-154
See. Just such good stuff in here.
Final note for you:
He wonders why it had never occurred to him before to sell elephant hair when he lived in india and then he thinks to himself that, despite the ridiculous number of deities, subdeities and demons infesting that country, there are far fewer superstitions in the land where he was born than in this particular part of civilized and very christian europe, which is capable of blithely buying some elephant hair and piously believing the vendors lies. Having to pay for your own dreams must be the most desperate of situations. p156-157
http://www.librarything.com/review/101564138
