Method acting with a vengeance
Sebastian Smee
THE DOUBLE by Jose Saramago Harvill, f15.99, pp. 292, ISBN 1843430991 rt £13.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T%
vo of a good thing is usually better than one unless, of course, the good thing in question is you. Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's new novel, The Double, is built around just such a premise. His main character, a mildly depressed history teacher called Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, watches a video and comes to the realisation that one of the bit-part players resembles him — exactly. He tracks the actor down, calls him, and arranges a meeting, whereupon both men are horrified to discover that, physically, they are identical.
I spent a very unsettling week with this book, and for once I think the dust-jacket has it about right: The Double will become a classic. It is written in an arch, self-referential manner which recalls the conceitdriven pyrotechnics of European writers such as Italo Calvino. Sentences peppered with subclauses meander for whole pages at a time, and the narrator is constantly drawing our attention to alternative paths not taken, novelistic conventions not usually acknowledged and psychological or social speculations that would feel out of place in any ordinary tale.
But the knowingness never gets in the way of our trust in the story's reality. The writing feels psychologically astute and credible throughout. And Saramago's digression-loving wit, when not in the service of some very funny asides, in no way impedes the brisk purling out of the plot.
Although the setting and the treatment are completely different, there is much in the book that reminded me of David Lynch's recent films, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. Both Saramago and Lynch are taken up with parallel identities, and both have tapped into the fear and rancour that can arise from any threat to our sense of singularity.
In truth, however, the singularity of the characters in The Double is in doubt from the beginning. The actor, for instance, who is constantly playing different roles, operates under a professional pseudonym, while the history teacher cleaves in two every time he has to make a decision: one side, common sense, remonstrates with the other (these arguments are wittily rendered as actual conversations by Saramago).
Upon first meeting, the question both characters want answered is: which of us is the original and which the duplicate? The question gathers toxic ironies as a stagnant pool accumulates scum. The female partners of both men are drawn into the battle, and the upshot is catastrophe — with a neat twist.
Presumably, our sense of uniqueness is an inextricable part of our humanity; yet our hero's response to his predicament is far from heroic, and not always humane. 'Good heavens,' writes the author as the climax approaches, 'how ridiculous, where will it all end, cry those happy people who have never come face to face with a copy of themselves...' But is Saramago's premise so terribly far-fetched? Some recent experiments with sheep would suggest not. On the other hand, I don't think Saramago intends his brilliant, dreadinducing novel as an oracle, a kind of anticloning Cassandra. Certainly, as I read it, I gave scarcely a thought to such future possibilities; I was too immersed in the appalling situation at hand.
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