Jose Saramago - The Black Duck

Like "always" this afternoon I went to a small coffee near the river to study a while. While I was there I noticed a magazine called "Caras" which had an article talking about Mr. Jose Saramago. After a quick look to check if the article was interesting for me - because "Caras" is one of those magazines that talks about the rich and famous therefore most of the time its content doesn't really interest me that much. Anyways, after that quick look I then decided that I had to stop my studies for a while to read that article and learn a little bit more about that man. If you’ve never heard of him I will tell you as much as I know which is: he was a very talented Portuguese writer who received the Nobel Prizes of literature.

The article was indeed worth my time (by the way - congratulations to the writer) and I learned many interesting details about him: he married 3 times, had many jobs, exiled in Spain and many other things that i will not quote. But the most obvious thing and, for me, the most interesting was that he was sort of the "black duck" of society. This happened for many reasons but the main reason was that he was a "why'er" (woo... is it me or did I just invent a word?!) which is: he had the ability and will to question most of the world whether it was religion, politics or any important subject. This does not mean I do agree with his opinions or thoughts, mainly because I do not know them. But still being a "why'er" myself i must assume that sure did improve my curiosity and made me want to know more about him. I do think that we must question "everything" because that is the beginning of the process of evolution. Not beeing affraid of beeing the "black duck" is very important - he was misunderstood and he dared to question what was unquestionable and for that i somehow admire him.

The "why'er attitude" (and now i made it an expression) is the source of many, if not all, of the world’s major changes. Imagine that the apple had fell in a John Doe's head well he probably would have cursed for a while and that would be it, but when it fell on Mr. Isaac Newton's it triggered more than curses (assuming that the man cursed) and he asked himself "why did it fall at all?".

Questioning the "status quo" is the way to move on ... and I'm not talking about the 16-year-old rebel way of seeing the world that basically fight the power and long live anarchy, no not at all. I'm talking about the grown up way of questioning it.

What about you, have you ever heard about him at all? If yes do you like him as a writer and what about his thoughts?