‘It is not only great works of art that are born out of suffering and doubt.’Do we allow ourselves to be tricked into substituting simple pleasures and convenience for authentic reality? Do we willingly allow ourselves to be submissive pawns in a game of corporate and political control? Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s The Cave is an enlightening examination of Plato’s allegory of the cave as he depicts a natural world shrinking away as the cheap, plastic reign of a compartmentalized authoritative control casts its shadow across the land. The Cave chronicles the struggles and strife of the kind hearted Algor family, who find themselves in a difficult place when the powerful capital city The Center ceases purchasing their hand-crafted pottery, choosing instead to stock their shelves with plastic dining sets that are cheaper to mass produce, and are bound by a contract forbidding any dealer to the Center, past or present, from selling to anyone else. Saramago harnesses his marvelous poetic wit to make the readers hearts ache for the Algor family, and the plight of manual laborers as their livelihood is threatened by ominous forces that place profit and power over quality and general well-being. The political climate in The Cave creates a perfect breeding ground for a discussion of Plato’s Forms, with Saramago focusing his sights everywhere from plastic plates, police states, and language in order to examine the way we trade the authentic for cheap imitations and replicas. All of Saramago’s classic motifs are immediately recognizable in The Cave, such as obdurate authoritative forces chasing the common man out of the light; menacing capital cities operating through an elaborate, yet faulty, chain of command; musings on the nature of a Creator; and his brilliant, signature style of blending dialogue into his dense paragraphs of meandering prose. For the uninitiated, Saramago doesn’t break up dialogue in the traditional sense, but instead allows multiple voices to blend into one continuous stream separated only by commas and a capitalized first letter to denote a new speaker. This reinforces his perspective that his stories aren’t of the individual, but of the collective voices and hearts of all humanity, inseparable from the natural world around them. His books are the voice of existence, flowing and unscarred by the borders of ego, asking us to seek freedom and happiness in collective equality and cooperation instead of a competition where those who have assert their dominance through force and fear. The Center becomes the focal point for his admonition against authoritarianism. It is like a grey concrete tumor of commercialism swelling outward and destroying the green countryside, accumulating power and wealth as it tightens its grip of authority and dominerence over the rural manual laborers. Saramago mocks the bureaucratic structure of The Center, viewing it as an unnecessarily complex web that is self-sufficient only by imposing its own authority down through the ranks. …his position on the Center’s organization chart reminded him that the whole definition and maintenance of hierarchical configurations is based on their being scrupulously respected and never contravened or transgressed, and, of course, the inevitable result of being too free and easy with one’s inferiors or subalterns is to undermine respect and to encourage license, or, to put it more explicitly and unambiguously, it all ends in insubordination, indiscipline and anarchy Plato used his allegory of the cave to further illustrate his concept of Forms, roughly speaking, a theory to address the problem of universals by asserting that Forms are the quality of reality, and that phenomena are shadowy interpretations of Form. Forms are atemporal and aspatial, but had distinct, individual qualities that are perceived in multiple ways when represented by objects. The cave allegory consists of people chained to the floor and forced to spend their lives watching shadows flicker across the back wall of the cave. They would perceive the shadows as reality and give names to them, when in fact they were just reproductions of the true reality. Saramago expertly meshes his admonitory themes of authoritarian force with Plato’s Forms to argue that we are becoming like the prisoners of the cave, trading the authentic for imitations. Saramago’s defense of manual laborers asserts that hand-crafted work born from sweat and blood is authentic and that the plastic, cheap mass produced plates are like shadows on the wall of a cave. The ominous sight of those chimneys vomiting out columns of smoke makde him wonder which one of those hideous factories would be producing those hideous plastic lies, cunningly fashioned to look like earthenware.The Center and it’s hub of consumerism is the reproduction of authentic living. People are compartmentalized into tiny apartments away from the sun, living shallow lives that are dictated to them by the endless list of Center laws and experience the natural world through sideshow attractions—such as a ride that simulates each of the seasons and drops fake rain and snow onto the visitors—that are reminiscent of George Saunders’ short fiction. Even power is seen as only assumed and created, keeping people submissive through emotions of fear and hopelessness. The Center offers safety from the dangers of rural life, making a large show of the way they fight back against the shantytowns that rob trucks en route to The Center. It may be possible, however, that the robberies are staged to simply give The Center a reasonable motive to send in the troops and further build a sense of security and fear. The truck had not been burned by the people in the shacks, but by the police themselves, it was just an excuse to bring the army…he had suddenly seen what the world was like, how there are many lies and no truths, well, there must be some out there, but they are continually changing, and not only does a possible truth give us insufficient time to consider its merits, we also have to check first that this possible truth is not, in fact, a probable lie.Saramago is a lover of words, and the heart of the marvelous allegorical clockwork of this novel is his examination of words and their relation to the world around us. ‘Words were born to play with each other,’ he writes, ‘they don’t know how to do anything else.’ In a manner reminiscent of both Jacques Derrida (of whom Saramago was associated with several times through both men’s activist actions), and Jorge Luis Borges (Saramago’s books are littered with allusions to the great author), Saramago explores the way words are merely shadows on the wall of reality. ‘Words, for example, which are not things, which merely designate things as best they can, and in doing so shape them…’ Saramago offers that the world of physical reality is experienced by putting our perceptions into words, but words are not the same tangible reality, and we must accept that they can only form imperfect representations regardless of how poetic and poignantly words can play with one another. While language is shown as another replica of Forms, it is through language that the mind can find a haven—language is the bridge through which we can glimpse true reality and meaning. By arranging words together into the magic of literature, we are able to point towards a deeper understanding and dig up the buried treasure of substantial meaning. Some read for pure enjoyment, some for escape, others to appreciate the aesthetics of linguistics organized onto a page like a painting on a canvas, and while each individual reader may take a different path through words, we all travel this path because it offers us a taste of our own personal heaven and a glimpse at overwhelming beauty. The same method doesn't work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those rivers don't have just two shores but many, unless each reader is his or her own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching.Saramago hints at the true beauty of literature and how one idea can be interpreted in multiple ways, each shaping or reaffirming what we hold most dear in our hearts. Words may only take meaning in the way they interplay with one another, but it is through a careful consideration of words that we are able to deduce a fountain of wealth that flows through the author. ‘What you call playing with words is just a way of making them more visible.’One of the many aspects that continuously pull me back into Saramago’s enchanting pages is his loving attentiveness to words and the reader. Saramago approaches his story as if it were a living thing independent from himself, being both the narrator delivering the story, but also an observer and participant much like the reader themselves. In a manner much like Macedonio Fernández, Saramago questions the motives of his characters, chastises them for their actions, and presents them as if they were writing themselves into his pages. ‘If this demonstrably ill-natured assistant head of department were to have any kind of future in the story we have been following, we would probably eventually get around to asking him to explain what lay behind his feelings on that occasion…’ This helps to build a camaraderie and mutual respect with the reader as you feel he is sharing the journey along with you. I greatly enjoy his authorial interjections, a tactic that often bothers me with other authors but seems completely endearing with Saramago. He gives off such an innocent joy to be an integral part to the creation of a story and just can’t contain his excitement when he blurts out his commentary on the characters and story. Reading Saramago is akin to having a wise, caring grandfather rocking you to sleep in his arms while bestowing the secrets of the universe to you in an engaging bedtime tale. Many of the novels shortcomings are easily glossed over because the reader is so captivated by his soothing narrative voice. This novel occasionally dips dangerously close to oversentimentality and often feels a uneven, yet chastising it beyond mere mention seems malicious. It would be like insulting your own loving grandfather for his bedtime stories, which you know please him to tell as much as they please you to hear. Saramago’s narrative voice is comforting while still cutting to the core of matters with a razor sharp edge.Despite the growing tumor of consumerism and authoritarianism, The Cave offers a bright beacon of hope. Ciprano Algor and his family bond together to create a new product, a line of clay figurines (his selection of figurines speaks volumes about the human race and our attraction to warfare and power, but I’ve blabbed on long enough and shouldn’t spoil the discovery for future readers), to sell to The Center. The creation process in the kiln opens up a channel for Saramago to examine the role of a Creator, and he openly chastises any Creator that would knowingly damn their creations. He will not, like Marta, call them rejects, for to do so would be to drive them from the world for which they had been born, to deny them as his own work and thus condemn them to a final, definitive orphanhood.Through caring, understanding, cooperation and hard-work, Saramago proposes a bright future. The son-in-law, Marcal, employee of The Center, finds his true purpose lies as a member of a family, a part of natural order as opposed to his imitation family as an employee to a company. At the end, we see that we must strive for the real instead imitation despite that the latter seems to be the easier way.While The Cave is a wonderful allegory exploring Plato’s philosophy and the nature of language, it is not best suited as an introduction to Saramago. This book is best viewed as another glowing intersection for the themes that characterize Saramago’s fantastic oeuvre and would fall short without interpreting it through its interplay with his other novels. The book is creeps forward at a very leisurely pace, content to build its themes in authorial asides and intense investigations of mundane actions, which made it easy to set aside whereas other Saramago novels were impossible for me to put down once I'd been hooked. The Cave is a novel about exploring language and Form, not plot, and if you are patient there is an immense wealth of ideas to ponder and mull over that more than justify the effort. It is not a weak novel, but one simply best suited for those that already hold the wise Saramago as dear in their hearts. Of all his novels, this one shines as the most endearing as the way he presents the Algor family can be best described as a tender caress of words. Moving and heartfelt, yet slow and ponderous, Saramago brilliantly examines the way we trade the authentic for cheap imitation and begs us to not to be bound to the floor of a cave by consumerism and a willful submission to authority, but to be daring enough to step out from the cave and great the bright sun of our existence with open arms, an open mind, and goodwill towards all of mankind. 3.5/5'[B]ut if ancient knowledge serves for anything, if it can still be of some use to modern ignorance, let us say softly, so that people don't laugh at us, that while there's life, there's hope.'
لفهم رواية ساراماغو الرائعة الكهف لابد لك ان تمر اولا على كهف افلاطون الذي جعله على شكل حوار على لسان شخصيته المفضلة سقراط و تلميذ له جلوكون . في وصف انسان الكهف المقيد للاوهام امامه يستنكر جلوكون بقوله يالهم من سجناء غرباء ، فيرد عليه سقراط لكنهم مثلنا ..https://youtu.be/MKKQOsk_Kcgمثلهم نعم نحن محاطين باشياءانا الخاصة باجهزتنا ونمط حياتنا الذي يبدو وضع انه لايسير بشكل صحيح الا بروتين معين ولتسليتنا نحن ننخرط اكثر واكثر بما ينتجه البشر من اساليب ترفيهية بصرية وسمعية وخلافه لكان العقل يظل مقيدا فينسى معها انها دخيل .في كهف ساراماغو هناك المركز الضخم الذي يبتلع الامتار متوسعا ، خالقا داخله عالم من المتع الحسية التي قد تعوض عن الخروج منه قد تقول في بداية الامر نعم هناك حياة وهي لامثيل لها ولامكن تخيلها لكن مابين، العدم والجدوى يخرج الجور سيبريانو بلا شيء ، كل شيء مصطنع مادي في الداخل حتى الهواء ، بينمافي الخارج تقبع شجرة التوت الجميلة بجانب البيت الحقيقي وبجانبه فرن الفخار وان كان قد خسر استمراريته ككل شيء ينتهي الا انه كان اكثر من حياة ، حياة حقيقة وملموسة .استهل ساراماغو الرواية من كهف افلاطون وبعد بداية الرواية بدات الاحداث الهادئة تفسر بعضها بعضا لكادح يعمل لاجل قوت يومه لكل احداثه ومع الحوارات الممتعة بنه وبين ابنته مشاركا لقية الكلب التي ستتواجه معه ايها القاريء وفي افكاره في اول كتاب اشعر انني لمست تفكير حيوان او ماتتنازعه نفسه الداخلية مع تفاعله مع اسياده .ايضا ماحببته وصف عملية الخلق الطين الذي يتشكل والنفخة التي جاءت بسرد سارامغو بديعة جدا يرسم ساراماغو بشكل ديني وميثلوجي بحت عمل صانع الفخار من اوله لاخره بالتفصيل الممتع اللذيذ .الرواية كما قلت قبل الاستطراد تاخد منحى هاديء وروتيني تتخلها دراما قليلة كمحرك للاحداث ويرنمقها اسلوب ساراماغو المسرع لها والحوارات التي اقرب للتحليل ساردا علاقة صانع فخار كممون لمركز تجاري ينمو وينتعش حتى تتغير اذواق زبائنه وبذلك يتوقف التعامل مع صانع الفخار فيواجه الصانع وضعا جديدا يستصعب التعامل معه بداية فيحاول مجاراته بعد طلبية كبيرة ليستسلم انه لابد من ان تتغير امور كثيرة وان يسلك طرق التغيير التي تطرحها الحياة بعيدا عن الاستلقاء في وضعية سجناء الكهف ..
What do You think about The Cave (2003)?
Um dos melhores livros de Saramago, após receber o Nobel. Um livro que nos interroga sobre o momento que vivemos, que toca o fundo da profissão que escolhemos, que nos interroga sobre o dia de amanhã dessa mesma profissão, mais fundo do que isso, interroga se somos apenas o que essa profissão é, ou podemos ser mais... São vários os temas que Saramago convoca para questionar o mercantilismo e a velocidade a que este nos ultrapassa a cada dia, mas o livro é mais do que isso, é todo um trabalho de grande enredo sobre uma família, num mundo indiferente. Os personagens são profundamente retratados, enquanto tudo o mais fica destratado, desconsiderado. A cidade ou o "Centro" como entidades abstractas servem a qualquer leitor, e exigem que este faça o seu trabalho de leitor, construa o mundo que rodeia esta família, se reveja a si e ao seu mundo no meio deste mundo desenhado por Saramago. É o próprio narrador que o diz a meio do livro, “Terás então de ler doutra maneira, Como, Não serve a mesma para todos, cada um inventa a sua, a que lhe for própria, há quem leve a vida inteira a ler sem nunca ter conseguido ir mais além da leitura, ficam pegados à página, não percebem que as palavras são apenas pedras postas a atravessar a corrente de um rio, se estão ali é para que possamos chegar à outra margem, a outra margem é que importa, A não ser, A não ser, que, A não ser que esses tais rios não tenham duas margens, mas muitas, que cada pessoa que lê seja, ela, a sua própria margem, e que seja sua, e apenas sua, a margem a que terá de chegar,” Acabo por dar 4.5 em 5, porque me parece que se alonga um pouco a meio do livro com os aliteramentos e os jogos de palavras, habituais no seu trabalho, aqui usados como exercício de estilo mas mais do que isso, como construção do enredo próprio daquilo que faz as relações entre pessoas de uma família. Julgo também que a Caverna aparece demasiado tarde, quase a dar a sensação que é preciso começar a fechar a narrativa, apesar de até poder fazer todo o sentido, já que é no final que todo aquele mundo começa a ganhar forma dentro de nós, e o mito pode surgir com maior força e pujança, ganhando um sentido que nos consome muito para além do fim da última página.
—Nelson Zagalo
هذه رواية تشذّ عن أسلوب ساراماجو صاحب الكتابات الفانتازية. وربما تكون هي أول رواية بالمعنى المتفق عليه للروايات. فالشخصيات عمومًا في الكتابات السابقة لساراماجو هي مجرد واجهات لعرض الفكرة؛ فعند ساراماجو الفكرة هي البطلة دائمًا، ثم يليها أي شئ آخر.ولإن ساراماجو مختلف دائمًا، فمن المتوقع أن يتناول الشخصيات -عندما يقرر أن يوليها بعض الإهتمام أخيرًا- بطريقة مميزة للغاية. وربما السبب هو أن القصة هنا إنسانية بحتة، ويُمكن تأويل أحداثها الصغيرة بأشكال متعددة.لا تتوقع أن تقرأ نصًا لاهثًا محمومًا بالأحداث. النص هنا هادئ ويتأمل في الطبيعة البشرية.إذا لم تطّلع على الغلاف الخلفي للكتاب، فلن تعرف قبل آخر ثلاثين صفحة سبب تسمية الرواية بالكهف. وإذا اطّلعت -كما هو متوقع- فستقرأ أن للرواية علاقة بفكرة (كهف أفلاطون) الفلسفية، لكن التشابه فقط في مشهد الأشخاص المقيدين في الكهف لكن الهدف من الرواية مختلف إلى حد كبير عن فكرة كهف أفلاطون.لمن لا يعرف (كهف أفلاطون)، إليكم:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLSa6...
—أميــــرة
قراءة عن الروايةhttp://wp.me/p28q6M-fiقرأت رواية الكهف وأنا على ثقة بإبداع ساراماغو الروائي، ورغم ظروف الرواية المكانية والزمانية إلا أنها أشبه بالمعاصرة، في صفحاتها الأخيرة وصفت جزء مهم من حياتي، عندما قررت التخلي عن طريق يضم الهدوء والاستقرار إلا أنه يأكل من روحي واتجهت لطريق آخر ليس واضحاً لكن أستطيع السير فيه وأنا على ثقة. ساراماغو هنا يهاجم المدينة الحديثة، رغم عدم ذكرها صراحة وعدم تقديم أي نقد له. وهو هنا يبجل حياة الريف والطبيعة، رغم أنه لم يقدم أي قصيدة في مدح هذا الريف أو الطبيعة. لكن، حين يقطع المرء الطريق في سبيل أن يصل إلى مكان آخر، ويشعر بتقلب الفصول وتغير الأجواء وحركة البشر والحيوانات والطيور، يشعر المرء حينها بوجوده في مكان - مهما كانت سلبياته- إلا أن إيجابياته وجماله أكبر. وها هو ساراماغو هنا، في رحلة صانع الخزف، تبدأ مسيرته من الريف إلى المدينة إلى الريف، مكتشفاً وكاشفاً لطبيعة الحياة.أشعر بمقدرة الروائي على العطاء عندما يهتم بموضوعه، موضوع الخزف والصناعة الخزفية، جعل ساراماغو من مادته الروائية مكانا ضخماً لتشريح العمل اليدوي لصنع الخزف. وكيف يتكون هذا المادة بعد الانتهاء- ومقارنتها بالمواد التي تصنع من قبل الآلات
—Mamdouh Abdullah
