A névoa do tempo: o pensamento utópico na trilogia crítico-religiosa de José Saramago

Abstract

On José Saramago s critical religious trilogy, formed by the novels Memorial of the Convent, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Cain, the constant presence of an utopic way of thinking is perceptible. Thus it does not reveal itself primarily as an idealistic perception of an immutable reality. It is only when aiming at Ernst Bloch s philosophical mindset that it appears as an acute awareness on both historical process and libertary practice. Through the dynamic constitution of this conscience, it is possible to outline the interactive encounter of times: a contemporary and rebuilt past, a present time full of ideological activism and most important of all, the conscience of an open, concrete and possible future. On those novels, this possibility enables a human craving for radical changes on the effective order feasible. This encounter of times, from an esthetic literary point of view, takes shape essentially through parody: the constant criticizing of icons and themes coming from the Judeo-Christian universe. Either on the heated images presented, on the mocked conceptual framework, or even on the hybrid constitution of the novel, which destroys the totalitarian tenor of a traditional narrative, José Saramago seems to draw out of religious archetypes a seditious intensity where, on the fictional weaving elaborated, he teases and questions the metaphysical construction supported by centuries of Jewish and Christian models. On a contemporary context of the novels, this revisited past reading process points out not only the impossibility of an all-absorving worldview existing on the occidental religion model but also to a modern world existential rebuilding process, considering that, through frustrated dreams from that past, an enabling of utopic desires trapped into collective memory would be possible. Therefore, the utopic thinking, on Saramago s trilogy, turns into mist: on the multiple and complex field of novel, a past- present- future dialectic is revealed, which through its dynamic constitution manages and keeps the novum, the not yet