The History of the Siege of Lisbon
The History of the Siege of Lisbon () is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, first published in 1989. It tells the story of a proofreader and the story of the Siege of Lisbon as it both is and is not told in the book he is charged with correcting. It discusses many themes including language, history and historiography, and war in the medieval world. In the novel Saramago challenges the common one-dimensional interpretations of historical events that only focuses on kings and battles and ask for a more pluralistic perspective that include individual motives and behaviour and take account of the role of chance in shaping history. Plot summary Raimundo Silva, assigned to correct a book entitled The History of Siege of Lisbon by his publishing house, decides to alter the meaning of a crucial sentence by inserting the word "not" in the text, so that the book now claims that the Crusaders did not come to the aid of the Portuguese king in taking Lisbon from the Moors. This has repercussions both for himself and for the historical profession. The second plot is Saramago's simultaneous recounting of the siege in the style of a historical romance. The multilayered plot also include the love story between Raimundo Silva and his editorial supervisor Maria Sara and the middle-aged Silva's discovery of his imagination and ability to experience desire and passion. On other levels it is also a novel about the act of writing, the process of publishing and a comic commentary on recurring human foibles. Critical reception Kirkus Reviews described the novel as "A brilliantly amusing metafiction about the instability of history and the reality assumed by fiction" and called it Saramago's best work to date. "Saramago moves gracefully between the world of the reinvented past and the unheroic realm in which Raimundo's pleasing fantasies are constantly interrupted by hunger pangs and ringing telephones. The novel embraces a dauntingly broad range of references, juxtaposes past and present tense mischievously, and takes the form of elegantly convoluted long sentences and paragraphs—which, though they demand intense concentration, never descend to obscurity, thanks to Saramago's lucidity and wit" Reviewing for The New York Times Edmund White wrote: "I found the verbal pierce and parry of the two proofreaders' courtship the most persuasive and vivid aspect of the novel. [...] The rest of the writing can sometimes seem to be nothing but digressions, although the author scatters plenty of clues that he fully intends his periphrases and divagations. At some point he tells us that a story can be 10 words long or 100 or 100,000 -- that every story, in fact, is infinitely extensible. He jokingly refers to his own long-windedness -- which differs from real pomposity in that it is never dull or humorless." Attitude to the Reconquista As noted by the Israeli reviewer Noam Levinhof a major theme in the book is Saramago's appreciation of the Reconquista, a central element in the history of Portugal as well as Spain, of