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Because Sofia asked 
I found this book very unusual in the context of Saramago's oeuvre, perhaps because I'm better versed in his 'parable period', i.e. his work after Blindness.
The Stone Raft has geographical references, unlike The Cave, All The Names, Blindness or Seeing, for instance, all set in unnamed cities/countries. Here the action is set in the Iberian peninsula; since the story unfolds as a sort of personal odissey (think Steven's car ride through the English countryside in The Remains of the Day), the story identifies several cities, like Lisbon, Venta Micena and Orce.
The characters, also unusually, have names. There's a dog, of course What can I say of them? I didn't find them particularly well-written, Saramago likes to speak through his characters, and here in particularly they all seem to share the same voice. Perhaps that's not a problem in novels like All The Names or The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, where there's just one protagonist, so Saramago speaks through just one mouth; but here we have five protagonists! Apart from supernatural phenomena that characterise each one, there's little to say about them.
I have no complaints about the prose: as always, Mr. Saramago is at the top of his game rambling, interrupting the narrative, telling jokes, making asides, making sarcastic comments, telling proverbs, etc. His keen observations about human nature are always a joy to read; he makes the banal and mundane seem new and important, he can show compassion for the most absurd things, he can produce hope and kindness in the darkest moments. The best I can say of Mr. Saramago is that he has a tremendous love for people, and that he can show them at their best and worst without moral judgements.
The novel is a work of magical realism: one day a series of mysterious eartquakes sever the Iberian Peninsula from the mainland and it's cast adrift in the ocean, hence 'stone raft'. The five protagonists meet through a series of strange events bordering on synchronicity. They're five people who may or may not be responsible for the catastrophe. For instance there's a lady who draws a line on ground at the same moment the first earthquake happens, and we're left wondering whether that harlmess action had greater consequences. I can only compare this to Marquéz' One Hundred Years of Solitude. In this novel there's a couple that has a very active sex life, and so long as they have sex their cattle grows in number; when they stop having sex the cattle stops breeding. It's the same logic here
I'm sorry to say the action is more interesting when the protagonists aren't around. Saramago gives a panoramic perspective of what's going on in the peninsula, sometimes postponing the plot, and the political aspects are usually funnier. Like in Seeing, Saramago uses the figure of the unnamed prime minister to criticise politics in general; and there are some occasional stabs at the American president because the peninsula is heading towards the USA. However, he tells us it's thanks to the US that the peninsula keeps getting oil supply and other aid, so it's not all bad.
The novel, by the way, was written in 1986, the same year Portugal joined the European Union, and this may be Saramago's way of saying he was against this. Saramago's view in the novel is that the rest of Europe isn't particularly bothered the 'western people' are leaving. He's also very critical of the Portuguese people, but rightfully so, I'd say.
In many ways, The Stone Raft is unlike anything Saramago wrote in his early years. The novel foreshadows many of the elements that would be more common in his work after Blindness, but then again it has many similarities with his early work. Consider it a hybrid, a a novel of transition between two styles.
I found this book very unusual in the context of Saramago's oeuvre, perhaps because I'm better versed in his 'parable period', i.e. his work after Blindness.
The Stone Raft has geographical references, unlike The Cave, All The Names, Blindness or Seeing, for instance, all set in unnamed cities/countries. Here the action is set in the Iberian peninsula; since the story unfolds as a sort of personal odissey (think Steven's car ride through the English countryside in The Remains of the Day), the story identifies several cities, like Lisbon, Venta Micena and Orce.
The characters, also unusually, have names. There's a dog, of course
What can I say of them? I didn't find them particularly well-written, Saramago likes to speak through his characters, and here in particularly they all seem to share the same voice. Perhaps that's not a problem in novels like All The Names or The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, where there's just one protagonist, so Saramago speaks through just one mouth; but here we have five protagonists! Apart from supernatural phenomena that characterise each one, there's little to say about them.I have no complaints about the prose: as always, Mr. Saramago is at the top of his game rambling, interrupting the narrative, telling jokes, making asides, making sarcastic comments, telling proverbs, etc. His keen observations about human nature are always a joy to read; he makes the banal and mundane seem new and important, he can show compassion for the most absurd things, he can produce hope and kindness in the darkest moments. The best I can say of Mr. Saramago is that he has a tremendous love for people, and that he can show them at their best and worst without moral judgements.
The novel is a work of magical realism: one day a series of mysterious eartquakes sever the Iberian Peninsula from the mainland and it's cast adrift in the ocean, hence 'stone raft'. The five protagonists meet through a series of strange events bordering on synchronicity. They're five people who may or may not be responsible for the catastrophe. For instance there's a lady who draws a line on ground at the same moment the first earthquake happens, and we're left wondering whether that harlmess action had greater consequences. I can only compare this to Marquéz' One Hundred Years of Solitude. In this novel there's a couple that has a very active sex life, and so long as they have sex their cattle grows in number; when they stop having sex the cattle stops breeding. It's the same logic here
I'm sorry to say the action is more interesting when the protagonists aren't around. Saramago gives a panoramic perspective of what's going on in the peninsula, sometimes postponing the plot, and the political aspects are usually funnier. Like in Seeing, Saramago uses the figure of the unnamed prime minister to criticise politics in general; and there are some occasional stabs at the American president because the peninsula is heading towards the USA. However, he tells us it's thanks to the US that the peninsula keeps getting oil supply and other aid, so it's not all bad.
The novel, by the way, was written in 1986, the same year Portugal joined the European Union, and this may be Saramago's way of saying he was against this. Saramago's view in the novel is that the rest of Europe isn't particularly bothered the 'western people' are leaving. He's also very critical of the Portuguese people, but rightfully so, I'd say.
In many ways, The Stone Raft is unlike anything Saramago wrote in his early years. The novel foreshadows many of the elements that would be more common in his work after Blindness, but then again it has many similarities with his early work. Consider it a hybrid, a a novel of transition between two styles.
