Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago (New York: Mariner Books, 2009)

The difference, if there is one, between great art and mediocre art is a matter of intention. A great artist has a passion for the art form itself while a mediocre artist uses the art form to express an idea.

Raymond Chandler despised mystery writers like Agatha Christie who wove improbable plot lines that no self- respecting private detective would be caught dead in. The Big Sleep and Chandler’s other novels and short stories allowed their characters to write their own plot.

Can you imagine Picasso deciding during his Blue Period to paint scenes of waves breaking on a beach? He wasn’t painting ideas; he was letting the painting lead him wherever it wanted to go.

People of faith often make the same mistake as mediocre artists. They try to impose their ideas of God on their faith. My pastor, Rev. Blythe Sawyer, preached a sermon last Sunday about opening our faith to the unlimited possibilities of images of God. If we get stuck in thinking about God as an old man with a white beard we won’t be open to seeing God as a young girl inspiring us to get off our asses and dance once in awhile (my words, not hers).

Jose Saramago is a great artist. His publisher lets us know he is a great writer by printing his credentials as a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature on the cover. I’m not sure that would make someone buy the book; but it helps. The average customer in a bookstore spends three seconds looking at each book. My own method for deciding on a book is to read the first sentence. If it makes me want to read the first paragraph, and then the first page, and so on, I’ll buy it.

“The following day, no one died.”

If you can resist that line, I have a painting of Bodega Bay to sell you.

Saramago’s sentence structure, or lack of structure, he is a writer of the postmodern variety, shifts back and forth between the story of death’s holiday and the narrator’s interpretation of the unfolding story. This approach led me to go back and forth between my role as a reader and my role as an accomplice of the narrator in reading the story. Saramago brilliantly blurs the line between author and reader.

You have probably had an experience of this kind if you have ever attended a reading by an author. The event opens with a flowery introduction by a bookstore employee or the chair of some sort of literary committee or establishment, followed by a few modest witticisms by the author and then the reading. Afterwards, the audience is allowed to ask a few questions and, under the best circumstances, engage in a dialogue with the author. This is a chance for the audience to collaborate with the writer in the art of literary criticism, which is a fancy way of saying what a person likes and doesn’t like.

The same process occurs in Death with Interruptions. It may occur with any book or work of art; but it occurs in a self-conscious way with great art. As soon as someone says, “I don’t understand that painting” or “I hate that painting,” they have entered into a dialogue with the artist. Their emotional response is part of the art. That’s what critics of controversial art don’t understand.

When the Catholic League mounted a boycott against Andres Serrano’s crucifixion in urine or Cosimo Cavallaro’s chocolate statue of Jesus they had entered unwittingly into a dialogue about the art work with the artists. They ranted and raved against the artists for deliberately trying to piss off people of faith but what they were really upset about was the idea that someone might think differently about God. As guardians of the True Faith, their job is to prevent that sort of nonsense. We all know that God is an old white guy with a beard, right?

Saramago continually surprises. I don’t want to see another painting of waves breaking on the beach. That’s only one idea about waves, and not a very good one either. I’m sure that there are a lot of irate waves who are tired of being stereotyped by artists who are trying to make a quick buck off tourists from Iowa. Waves don’t even refer to themselves as waves anymore. They want to be called swells.

The ending surprises. I will never think of death in the same way. I imagine that there are people who will never read Death with Interruptions because it has the word death in the title. Who wants to read about death? On to the next book for three seconds.

Resist the urge to turn away. Great art makes demands on us. We have to confront our own limitations. That’s the fun part. We can break free of those ideas that have held us prisoner inside ideas of reality and enter into a dialogue with reality itself. If art makes us feel more alive, more human, more in love with life, of which death is a part, it’s worth a few bucks and a few hours of our lives. But if it only confirms our firmly held ideas, it isn’t worth three cents or three seconds.