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José Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero: Baltasar and Blimunda (1998, Harcourt Brace & Co.) 4 stars

Too strange for me, but perhaps not for thee

3 stars

I really struggled through this. The narrative style flips between verbose description and stream-of-consciousness. Which meant that I was basically often a bit lost as to what was actually happening. There are many paragraphs that aren't punctuated, some of which are conversations which I had to read several times to figure out who said what. I found it challenging.

At times frustrating, I just wished for the narrative to just tell me what was happening. All that said, I'm sure that many people will find this a beautifully written book, and the story itself is quite interesting.