This seems to be a big year for the literary dead. Jose Saramago, Nobel prize-winning author, died last Friday June 18th. Check out the NYTimes obit.

I immersed myself in Saramago a few years back whilst living in Chicago. I read his novels riding the El to and from work and in the few spare minutes at the end of my work day.

Our apartment had a deck built between the two crumbling edifices that our landlord generously called carriage houses. One of those was ours. I remember vividly sitting on this deck as a summer sun faded into the gloaming and finishing Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.

As an apostate who spent the first twenty years of my life chasing after the mirage of Jesus, I thought that I had pretty much dwelt upon every aspect of the historical Christ, explored every angle. But Saramago moved me. He made me feel for the man Jesus and I thought he even made a plausible explanation for the unwitting divinity of Christ. Mostly, though, I thought Saramago knew how to tell a damn good story. Better than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John put together.

There is much to commend in Saramago. He seems to represent a type of literature whose time is gone.

I should add that I also take comfort in the fact that he did not become a full-time writer until well into his 50’s. A fact that is lost on the NewYorker’s “20 under 40″ debacle.