This book was really interesting to me in that it brought up conversations on how death is inherently linked to politics and that it brings value to the policies of politics. Saramago shows that death is what brings value as he highlights how starting with the queen evading her death led to bringing monarchy to its limits. I did think however the book did drag on when the author wrote about the “maphia” and how it would be a sort of solution to this new world. I didn’t like that the “maphia” had moments where they would cross the border as it was a little repetitive and made the book drag on. However I did find it curious that even with this huge new issue, the government still found a way to instill control using the “maphia” to contain the growing population. But it did get better later with the female persona that death took on. I think it is interesting the author brought into the aspect that death has feelings of remorse and rethinks that making people immortal was not the right choice. In terms of the greater themes of the book I think it is really relevant in whose life matters, who deserves rights and when a nation thinks it is important to intervene to prevent the possibility of death. People facing poverty for instance are seen as less important and are not taken care of as much in Canada in terms of benefits. As well to an extent even if we don’t have immortality, the average lifespan in wealthy countries has increased and people live longer. In countries like Japan there’s an old age epidemic. Like in the book where hospitals are being filled up, the same happens in Canada, where people struggle to get healthcare in time because of high demand. Moving on I liked the concept of the week long warning to get your affairs in order. I thought it was such a simplistic solution on the leaders’ part to solve the immortality issue.
My question for the rest of the class is what would you do in this situation, would you relax with your life more and not be worried about all of life’s stressors or would you take advantage of the new found time you have and accomplish all you can (without the possibility the maphia would get rid of you and you could do whatever you wanted)?
“Saramago shows that death is what brings value as he highlights how starting with the queen evading her death led to bringing monarchy to its limits.“ Rather, as I read in the novel, it is the permanence of administrative hierarchies despite the biopolitical and necropolitical upheavals in that small country. The character of death herself is subject to a bureaucratic apparatus, but she breaks it little by little. This seems very suggestive to me to reflect on.
Hi, I really like your point about how the underprivileged are seen as less important in society, and this ties to the issue of immortality, which revolves around the novel. Immortality means that the government would have to allocate funds to establish more social programs to assist the underprivileged; however, as you pointed out, they are often ignored. I think Saramago writes about the dilemma that the government may face, specifically whether they can take advantage of the situation to eliminate some of the population (the majority being the underprivileged), so as to alleviate the financial burden, or to work with the maphia, giving them a moral license to take away people’s lives.
– Janae
Hi, I thought it was very interesting how you managed to make connections between the book and current phenomenons in our society. Personally, I would relax under this situation because I would feel reassured by the huge amount of time that I have.
— May
Hi Naz! I think personally, if this were to become a reality, I would panic a little just like a lot of the people involved in the novel. I think this book opened my eyes as to how immortality is not all that it seems. humans want to live forever, but this book really makes u question if that’s truly what we want as a society.
Hi Naz, I also liked the way the author personified Death as being more than just an entity that kills. Answering your question, the eternal life presented in the novel is different from the eternal life that usually comes to mind. In eternal life in the novel, you are kinda left in a limbo state between life and death which does not sound very fun at all so I would probably not go about my life thinking that I have unlimited time to accomplish what I want.