"O que transforma o mundo é a necessidade e não a utopia": Estudos sobre a utopia e a ficção em José Saramago ed. by Burghard Baltrusch (review)

This volume of collected essays is presented as the fourth volume of the Ibero-Romance Studies in Literature and Translatology—Studies in Contemporary Literature, a series sponsored by the GAELT research group of the University of Vigo. It brings together twelve distinct essays, besides an extensive introduction, by a variety of scholars with different perspectives and methodologies. As with many collected volumes, keeping unity is a challenge. Even though most of the essays do reflect, in one way or another, on the proposed topic of utopia in the works of José Saramago, in some cases this is a far stretch. The authors range from very established senior Saramago scholars such as Ana Paula Arnaut, to young promising ones such as Verena-Cathrin Bauer. The reader looking for a thorough analysis of how utopia plays out in Saramago's works might be disappointed, as the initial introduction makes clear; yet, any reader with even a passing interest in Saramago studies will welcome this collection and many of the topics it addresses, be it the role of women characters in Saramago's novels in the second essay by the volume editor, the importance of analyzing Saramago's role as translator (Ana Paula Ferreira) or the problematic relations between national and colonial ideologies (Bauer).

The first essay by Ana Paula Arnaut is packed with information as it briefly but skillfully traces a mini-history of the concept of utopia and applies it to a variety of works by Saramago. The mapping of the interconnections between the political concept and its use by Saramago starts the collection on very strong footing and, even if the expectations it raises are not always matched by the subsequent articles, it remains a very valuable and readable introduction to a topic that is as important as it is timely. There are many points surrounding the discussion of Saramago's somewhat troubled relationship to the concept of utopia that one may wish to argue. Clearly, a simplistic version of utopia as merely a postponement into an undefined and ever receding future of any possibilities for change, is one that Saramago rejects and that can be clearly seen in the phrase quoted as the title for this volume. As Burghard Baltrusch makes clear, Saramago's rejection of the force of utopia for bringing about change, is only seemingly paradoxical. He rightly points out Saramago's pragmatism, preferring to leave aside the traditional definition of utopia to concentrate instead on a potential for renewal and change instigated by necessity (9–10). Obviously one could say that Saramago was knowingly disingenuous and that his claim at making a historical pronouncement at the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre was a rhetorical move from the consummate writer he was, meant to focus attention on the importance of practical change as opposed to mere speculative hope.

Depending on one's personal interests there is much in this volume to attract readers, even those with a more linguistic bent—Fernando Venâncio for instance has an extensive entry on Saramago's lexical choice and its relation to trans-Iberian issues. At the same time this volume also brings to mind the vicissitudes of literary studies in the present and specifically those relating to issues of canonicity and cultural impact. If one takes Ana Paula Ferreira's call for recognition of the importance of Saramago's translations in a context of postcolonial intervention (or its invisibility, or even its absence), several fault points become very visible. For one, the way in which Saramago, his avowed political radicalism notwithstanding, has been largely normalized and domesticated by a Portuguese public opinion eager to seize his success as reflecting somehow on the entire nation, yet also ready to drop him as quickly as possible once that moment of...