The Cave - Softcover

Saramago, José

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156028794 ISBN 13: 9780156028790

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2003

Synopsis

An unassuming family struggles to keep up with the ruthless pace of progress in "a genuinely brilliant novel" from a Nobel Prize winner (Chicago Tribune).

Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta and her husband Marçal in a small village on the outskirts of The Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartment blocks, offices, and sensation zones. Marçal works there as a security guard, and Cipriano drives him to work each day before delivering his own humble pots and jugs. On one such visit, he is told not to make any more deliveries until further notice. People prefer plastic, he is told; it lasts longer and doesn't break. Unwilling to give up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls. Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds of figurines, and Cipriano and Marta set to work. In the meantime, Cipriano meets a young widow at the graves of their recently departed spouses, and a hesitant romance begins. When Marta learns that she is pregnant and Marçal receives a promotion, they all move into an apartment in The Center. Soon they hear a mysterious sound of digging, and one night Marçal and Cipriano investigate. Horrified by the discovery, the family, which now includes the widow and a dog, sets off in a truck, heading for the great unknown.

About this title

Review:

"We'll say it again: Saramago is the finest novelist, bar none."
--starred review "Kirkus "

"A compassionate study of loyalty, love and the ways in which people face the forces trying to obliterate their spirit."
--Francine Prose "People Magazine "

"A gripping, beautifully written, utterly enchanting, archaically romantic, and, at times, devastating take on ordinary people struggling to survive."
--Book Magazine

"Another masterpiece from a remarkable writer who really may be, as many readers believe, the greatest living novelist."
--Boston Globe

"Arguably the greatest writer of our time. He throw[s] a dazzling flash of lightning on his subjects."
--Chicago Tribune

What truly elevates-- is Saramago's style; this fantastically agile, irrepressibly funny, sympathetic, cerebral, and sometimes even corny voice."
--Christian Science Monitor

"The teensiest bit of plot is meaningfully, accessibly stretched into something enormous."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Saramago says he is really an essayist who took to writing novels. This is true. But the novels are masterly."
--Seattle Times

"A densely textured, wonderfully resonant reworking of Plato's allegory."
--Time Out New York

"Saramago's long fluid sentences, richly stocked with folk wisdom, lend his novels a rare quality of permanence."
--Los Angeles Times Book Review

Book Description:

By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, 'a novel with impact. . . hope and charm' Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0156028794
• ISBN 13: 9780156028790
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 307