Jose Saramago: Death with interruptions

I want to start by saying this was a super entertaining book to read, though it did tend to drag on a bit in certain areas, especially when it was listing things, i enjoyed the sociopolitical commentary on the business of death and how it plays out in our society. I had never really taken time to ponder the demonization of death within our society and this book was a good reminder that despite how much we all dread and hate death mortality is what makes us human. Without death, we would become decrepit victims of the passage of time unable to meet our basic needs on our own, mere shadows of who we used to be, and I like that Saramago writes about death getting sick of her treatment. 

One part of the book I'd like to mention is the section in which the people of this country stop caring for the people in the limbo between life and death and the story diverges to talk about a boy who built a bowl for his father for when he is too old to take care of himself and eventually becomes a burden “without glancing up from what he was doing, replied, i’m making a bowl for when youre old and your hands shake and youre sent to sit on the front step to eat your meals, like you did with grandpa” (86). This reminds me of a story in an Indian comic I read when I was younger called ‘Panchatantra’, which contained stories with a moral at the end. One of the stories was about a young boy and his father digging a grave for his grandfather before he has passed away, then later the young boy goes back into the woods and digs a grave for his father even though the father is still healthy. The boy sees nothing wrong with this as he is simply copying his father’s actions and doing what he thinks is normal but the father freaks out. At the end of the story, the father starts treating the grandfather with the respect he hopes to get from his son when he becomes old and the moral of the tale is to treat the elderly and others in general with respect and kindness. While this story and Saramgo’s are in no way identical they share some distinct similarities. This highlights commentary on how we treat those we deem to be a burden in our society no matter how much we love or used to love them. This cavalier attitude toward those near the end of their lives is seen in our society today as I learned in my psychology class about ageing. Many people elderly people who depend on the institutions we have in place to care for them do not receive the care necessary to meet their basic human needs. I would like to finish this post off with a happier note by ending with a joke

Q: what happened to the country that avoided death 

A: they faced GRIM REAPER-cussions (lol)

My question is a little unrelated to the content of my post but I wanted to ask why do you think death burned up the man’s letter: do you think she had fallen in love with him, or do you think she had a different motive?