Currently Reading: The Tale of the Unknown Island

Kathleen found The Tale of the Unknown Island by José Saramago (translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa; illustrated by Peter Sis) at the library and blazed through it. “You’ve got to read this,” she said. And I did. At 51 very small pages, it was a quick read. But it’s one of those stories that could take a lifetime to fully appreciate.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is quoted as saying “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” This is as true in life as it is in writing. And so it is with Saramago’s tale. What I appreciate most about the telling of the story is that Saramago seems to have crafted each sentence to say no more or less than it should, and all of it in an engaging, run-on prose style that pushes the story forward, a style that is both humorous and sensible at the same time, and he marries that with a story about a protagonist who is on a simple, yet profound, quest.

You, sir, are only interested in islands that are known, And unknown ones too, once they’re known, Perhaps this one won’t let itself be known, Then I won’t give you the boat, Yes, you will. When they heard these words, uttered with such calm confidence, the would-be supplicants at the door for favors, whose impatience had been growing steadily since this conversation had begun, decided to intervene in the man’s favor, more out of a desire to get rid of him than out of any sense of solidarity, and so they started shouting, Give him the boat, give him the boat.