All the Names 
by 

José Saramago, 

 

Margaret Jull Costa (Translator)

 

Registered Redemption

Most of Saramago's themes are found here: death, the community of the living and the dead, the beautiful uncertainty and fluidity of language, the ultimately indecipherable complexity of human communication, identity, the search for meaning. 

Saramago would probably have reacted harshly to the suggestion that he had created (perhaps 'outlined' is a better verb, but then again perhaps there is no adequate word at all) a sort of religion without a deity, the core of which is a humble irony laced with wit and grace. Then again perhaps he wouldn't object too forcefully; there are worse religious beliefs. 

Saramago’s point is after all to redeem, through a kind of communal registration and remembrance, the existence of every one of the unique human species that has become extinct. For, as Aquinas taught so eloquently, each human being is indeed a distinct species and deserves recognition as such. It deserves its proper name.*

*Proust had a similar theme in the third volume of his Lost Time. It would be interesting to know if Saramago was influenced by him in All the Names.See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... 
Or then again, who knows, it could have been the Mormons. I’m open about it.