Obrigado Senhor Saramago

...for the most thought inspiring and engaging novel I have read for a long time.
I had no real intention of blogging on my vacation, but having just finished this last night l felt l wanted to share my thoughts while they were fresh. "Death With Interruptions" by Jose Saramago was thrown into my bag as an afterthought.
The novel opens: THE FOLLOWING DAY, NO ONE DIED. The flyleaf synopsis had already clued me in to the initial premise.. what would indeed happen if people stopped dying.
My mind had already strayed to some of the less desirable consequences of such a happening, but Sr. Saramaga tells a tale beyond my imagining in a style that ensures the reader's complete attention.
The first thing l noticed is his penchant for something near and dear to my heart; he is the master of the run-on sentence, with liberally applied but grammtically correct punctuation. Although there is dialog in the tale, he distains the use of quotation marks; the novel is seperated into chapters but has no paragraphs, requiring one to pay close attention. I loved the challenge. The prose is captivating and each page made me want to take notes to later pursue a secondary train of thought, something l will do when l reread it.
As to the tale itself, I cannot comment too specifically; l would hate to ruin any part of the story, and will only say that what was the expected end for me came already in the middle of the book, and l was incredibly sad when l finished it, not due to the ending but because it had ended.