The Double - by José Saramago (Paperback)

About the Book

Tertuliano Afonso is depressed. After a colleague suggests he rent a certain video, Tertuliano is astonished to see a man who looks exactly like him--or, more specifically, like he did five years before. Against his own better judgment, Tertuliano pursues his double.

Book Synopsis

The inspiration for the major motion picture "Enemy" starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Denis Villeneuve Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, when he is awakened by noises in his apartment, he goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video. He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-or, more specifically, exactly like he did five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face-appears on the screen. He sleeps badly.

Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation on identity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displays his remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versus reality.

From the Back Cover

A San Franscisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004
"It's tempting to think of [The Double] as his masterpiece." -- The New York Times
Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, when he is awakened by noise, he goes into the living room to find the VCR replaying the video. He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-- or, more specifically, exactly like he did five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face-- appears on the screen. He sleeps badly.
Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation on identity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displays his remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versus reality.
"Our impression is of a writer, like Faulkner, so confident of his resources and ultimate destination that he can bring any impossibility to life by hurling words at it." -- John Updike, The New Yorker
JOSE SARAMAGO is one of the most acclaimed writers in the world today. The author of numerous novels, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
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Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR THE CAVE
"Yet another triumph, albeit a typically melancholy one, for Portugal's, or even the world's, greatest living novelist." -The Washington Post Book World
"[Saramago] has the power to throw a dazzling flash of lightning on his subjects, an eerily and impossibly prolonged moment of clarity that illuminates details beyond the power of sunshine to reveal." -Chicago Tribune

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