The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Saramago, Jose

15,565 ratings by Goodreads

Language: English

Published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991

0151997357 / 9780151997350

  • First Edition
  • Hardcover
  • Used
See all details
Heritage seller

Seller: zenosbooks, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.zenosbooks

4-star seller

AbeBooks seller since March 24, 1997

View this seller's items
Hardcover

Condition: Used

£ 27.19

£ 4.40 shipping 
Ships within U.S.A.

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Item description from seller

San Diego. 1991. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0151997357. Translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero. 358 pages. hardcover. keywords: Europe Portugal Literature Translated World Literature. DESCRIPTION - The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (in Portuguese: O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis) is a 1984 novel by Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago, the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in literature. It tells the story of the final year in the life of the title character, Ricardo Reis, one of the many heteronyms used by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. In the novel, Ricardo Reis returns to Lisbon from Brazil, upon receiving word of Pessoa's death. While there, he chooses not to resume his practice of medicine, but rather takes up residence in a hotel where he wastes his days reading newspapers and wandering the streets of Lisbon. The novel was translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero in 1991 and won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The novel addresses several powerful literary themes, but most of them indirectly. For instance, Reis reads of the events leading to the Spanish Civil War, and he sees floods of Spanish immigrants arrive in Lisbon seeking refuge, but he himself never expresses strong feelings or even a cogent understanding of the meaning of the conflict. Reis also carries on a lackluster love affair, but even in what seem to be his most intimate relationships, he is continually and voluntarily alienated from society. The most revealing glimpse of Reis is in a series of conversations with the spirit of Fernando Pessoa, over the course of which Reis loses a clear concept of the nature of life and death and the difference between the two. In the novel's final scene, Reis dies by calmly putting on his jacket and following Pessoa to the graveyard. Ultimately, it is a story of one man's attempt to resist any sort of cultural contextualization and reject any place in society whatsoever. This book is also, in some sense, an exercise in meta-literature. Fernando Pessoa created the character of Ricardo Reis fifty years or more before this novel was written, giving him a biography and writing many poems in that name. That Saramago would place the two characters side by side suggests a deliberate blurring of the boundaries between fantasy and reality, a theme common in Saramago's work, and a rejection of traditional limitations on narrative practices. Reis spends much of his time reading a novel called The God of the Labyrinth, a fictional novel mentioned by Jorge Luis Borges and attributed to the title character of his short story A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis is written in Saramago's distinctive style, in which he uses no punctuation except commas and periods, denoting dialogue and changes of speaker using only capital letters. He uses long, flowing sentences and paragraphs often several pages in length. Saramago also digresses from the story frequently, occasionally even in the first person, remarking philosophically on the significance of images, objects or situations encountered in the story. Saramago's writing technique often has strong magical-realist elements. inventory #9829.

Seller Inventory # z9829

Title
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Author
Saramago, Jose
Publisher
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Publication year
1991
Condition
Very Good in Dustjacket
Dust jacket
Very Good
Binding
hardcover
Language
English
ISBN 10
0151997357
ISBN 13
9780151997350
Edition
First Edition.

zenosbooks

San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

4-star seller

AbeBooks seller since March 24, 1997

Shipping rates within U.S.A.

Item5 to 14 business days3 to 6 business days
First item£ 4.40£ 8.80
Delivery times are set by sellers and vary by carrier and location. Orders passing through Customs may face delays and buyers are responsible for any associated duties or fees. Sellers may contact you regarding additional charges to cover any increased costs to ship your items.

Payment methods

VisaMastercardAmerican ExpressApple PayGoogle Pay
Paypal

Store description

Zenobooks.com is a secondhand and out-of-print Internet bookstore. While our stock is general, we specialize in Literature, Mysteries, Latin American Literature, African-American interest, and Translated Literature...Zeno's Web Page - www.zenosbooks.com

Specialty

modern 1sts, latin america, mystery, african american studies, translated literature, literature, modern 1sts, latin america, mystery, african american studies

Seller's business information

zenosbooks

CA, U.S.A.