![]() ![]() But of little or no importance to the writer is the convent itself. Much of the plot involves preparations to construct the convent, employing fifty thousand dragooned peasants, including a painfully detailed and exhaustingly brutal effort to bring a needed, huge stone to Mafra, leaving a trail of bloodshed behind it. Its promised founding serves as a motivation-to God presumably-to give the king a son. The Convent of Mafra, an actual and still existing site in Portugal, is something of a MacGuffin in the novel. The title in the author's native tongue, translated literally as Memorial of the Convent, indicates a less romantic theme, although it might mislead others who don't know Saramago into thinking it's a religiously inspiring novel. "After all, this is a fairy tale," the novel's unknown narrator says at one point. Yet, despite such dark material, eighteenth-century Portugal is quite a bright and fantastic world as recreated by Saramago. ![]() This may confuse some readers once they wade into the pageantry of political leaders, the scheming of religious leaders, and the suffering experienced by the people. The title in English of José Saramago's most acclaimed novel, Baltasar and Blimunda, gives the impression it's a love story, about the love between the soldier who has lost a hand in battle and the girl who has been orphaned by the Inquisition. ![]()
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