Group Read, March 2019: The Double

Our Group Read for March is The Double by Jose Saramago. Please join in the read and post any comments and thoughts on this thread.

I started The Double yesterday and I have been struggling a little with the author's style. His sentences run on for paragraphs, very few periods and tons of commas.

>2 DeltaQueen50: Sounds a bit like Baltasar and Blimunda which we did as a Group Read in 2013. My review then stated that "it helps that Saramago is generous with his commas even if not with his full-stops! Definitely well worth the read, and one I probably would have avoided at first glance given the unforgiving appearance of the pages". I ended up giving it 4/5 so hope this one has a similar result. I'll be joining the read in the next week.

>3 puckers: Once I adjusted to the writer's style, I have found this to be a very interesting and intriguing story.

I really want to get to this - it's been on my shelf for quite a while and I probably nominated it! - but I'm feeling overcommitted at the moment. We'll see . . .

I have completed The Double, I loved the story and found it very interesting but as I mentioned above, I am not a fan of his writing style.

I'm half way through the book now. As DeltaQueen says it is an intriguing story - not sure where it will end up. I am finding it a quick read despite the unending paragraphs. The only things I don't like about this are that it is hard to find a good place visually to stop reading, and multi-person conversations are hard to follow as they are unpunctuated and don't specify who's speaking. Nevertheless I'm looking forward to finishing this (in a good way!).

Finished the book today. Even if the basic premise of an exact physical double of a human is (I understand) scientifically impossible, you'd think that differences in psychology and experience would be more obvious to those who know them well. Anyway it's a work of fiction and enjoyable as such, and I liked the twist on the last page.

Anyway it's a work of fiction and enjoyable as such, and I liked the twist on the last page.

Oh, that's a lot of pages to get to a twist. I picked this up for free years and years ago and think it'll end up in the donation pile. I wanted to read it at one point, but .....

Group readers -- I am almost done with my current 1001 book and was going to start The Double next. But i will be traveling and it sounds like this work might be more challenging than I want in my airplane reading. I didn't manage to do the group read last month on The Colour. Would that be a better airplane book? Any advice appreciated. Will be flying from California to Europe & back so a lot of in-flight hours ahead.

I haven't read The Double (it's still on my shelf . . . ) but The Colour was easy and engaging to read. If you like historical fiction, I think you'll like it.

>10 annamorphic: I didn't find The Double too challenging - it is quite a quick read once you get over the intimidating appearance of the paragraph long pages. Having said that The Colour is a more straightforward book and would likely be more suitable as an airplane read.