{"status":"success","siteTitle":"Assisted Lab\nLiving Archive of Assisted Dying","title":"\u2018As intermit\u00eancias da morte\u2019 by Jos\u00e9 Saramago","slug":"as-intermitencias-da-morte","url":"https:\/\/assistedlab.ch\/textual\/as-intermitencias-da-morte","body":"<p>\u2018No dia seguinte ningu\u00e9m morreu\u2019 (The following day, no one died). Thus begins Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019s novel <em>As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte<\/em> (literally, \u2018The Intermittences of Death\u2019). People continue to get hurt and deteriorate; they just can\u2019t die in the country where this novel is set. Quickly, the nation faces economic, political, and religious conundrums: without income, the funeral homes pivot their services to pets, which still die; hospitals and hospices run out of beds, as the terminally ill never leave; the church fears that, freed from the spectre of death, people will lose their faith and morals; the insurance companies mandate a metaphorical \u2018death\u2019 at 80 years of age \u2013 when policy holders could collect their own death benefits. Like many others in the novel, two members of a peasant family \u2013 a baby boy and a grandfather \u2013 would have already died if death were not on strike. Yet, the patriarch is the first character to whisper an unusual request: to smuggle him, as well as the baby, across the border. While carrying out his wish, the family formulates a key distinction: to take someone to death is not the same as killing them. As soon as they leave their country, grandfather and baby expire. When the surviving relatives return home, a neighbour confronts them and finds out that the ill can die across the border. The news spreads fast, creating national and international problems: people wrangle over the ethics of assisting in their relatives\u2019 deaths, neighbouring countries close their borders, and the \u2018maphia\u2019 (spelled with \u2018ph\u2019 to distinguish it from the traditional mafia) cuts a deal with the government to keep smuggling the moribund as a way to alleviate the crisis. At some point, the director general of television receives a letter signed by \u2018death\u2019 (in lowercase), who claims that her death-suspension experiment failed and proposes a new deal: to warn people 7 days before they should die. The personal involvement of death triggers the existential second part of the novel, in which the Grim Reaper herself becomes infatuated with a cellist.<\/p><p>In 2005, Portuguese writer Jos\u00e9 Saramago claimed that all his novels \u2013 published before and after his 1998 Nobel Prize \u2013 flesh out the consequences of a surreal hypothesis (e.g. <em>Blindness<\/em>: what if we had a pandemic of blindness? <em>Seeing<\/em>: what if the blank vote won an election?). Yet, the guiding question of <em>As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte<\/em>, written when Saramago was in his 80s, is grounded in the author\u2019s own sense of mortality. Saramago said the idea for the book came to him on the eve of All Souls\u2019 Day in 2004, as he considered our aging society: what are the implications of a longer life, how long would \u2018old age\u2019 be, how could we pay for pensions? Reviewers note the novel\u2019s distinctive narrator, who is unusually preoccupied with the reaction of his readers and often intervenes to comment on the happenings, as if he were not in control of the story he is telling. The theme of control or agency bridges the literary and ethical discussions surrounding the book. Speaking to students of Ethics at a School of Medicine, Saramago highlighted the distinction between \u2018matar\u2019 (killing) and \u2018dar a morte\u2019 (giving death), echoing his characters. In a TV interview, he elaborated on that distinction, mentioning Ram\u00f3n Sampedro (whose plea for euthanasia is dramatized in the film <em>Mar Adentro<\/em>) as an example of someone who asked to be given death \u2013 which would exempt an eventual assistant from any crime. This distinction of Saramago\u2019s, as well as his novel, have been referenced repeatedly in legal contexts. In 2007, when a Brazilian judge blocked a 2006 resolution of the Federal Council of Medicine authorizing orthothanasia for terminal patients, a prosecutor remembered Saramago and his characters\u2019 request to be given death. References to the novel continued to appear in legal discussions even after the Ministry reversed its opinion in 2010. In Portugal, Saramago\u2019s kill-vs-give-death distinction was evoked by the Bloco de Esquerda party in the debate leading to the legalization of assisted dying in 2023 (Law 22\/2023). Among interest groups that oppose assisted dying, the Catholic church has had a troubled relationship with Saramago\u2019s work: breaking a long estrangement initiated in 1991 (when Saramago\u2019s controversial novel <em>The Gospel According to Jesus Christ <\/em>was published), ten years after the writer\u2019s death, the Vatican City newspaper <em>L\u2019Osservatore Romano<\/em> published a positive re-evaluation of Saramago\u2019s body of work; the reviewer cites <em>As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte<\/em> and praises the compassion of the novelist\u2019s characters \u2013 a testament to the far-reaching influence of Saramago\u2019s portrayal of assisted dying.<\/p>","cover":{"ratio":1.4372197309417040766987838651402853429317474365234375,"url":"https:\/\/assistedlab.ch\/media\/pages\/textual\/as-intermitencias-da-morte\/be61dee513-1752085084\/stokes-1908-death_and_the_maiden-2410x-q90.png","caption":"Marianne Stokes, Death and the Maiden, Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay, 1908"},"toggles":[{"title":"Suggested citation","list":[{"text":"\u2018As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte\u2019 by Jos\u00e9 Saramago, Assisted Lab\u2019s Living Archive of Assisted Dying, 9 July 2025 ","link":null,"pathname":null}]},{"title":"Reviews","list":[{"text":"Milton Ribeiro, \u2018As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte, de Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019, Milton Ribeiro blog, 2022","link":"https:\/\/miltonribeiro.ars.blog.br\/2022\/02\/21\/intermitencias-da-morte-de-jose-saramago\/","pathname":"miltonribeiro.ars.blog.br"},{"text":"Luigi Ricciardi, \u2018As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte \u2013 Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019, ACR\u00d3POLE LIVROS blog, 2019","link":"https:\/\/acropolerevisitada.wordpress.com\/2019\/06\/12\/as-intermitencias-da-morte-jose-saramago\/","pathname":"acropolerevisitada.wordpress.com"},{"text":"D. T. Max, \u2018Stay of Execution\u2019, The New York Times, 2008","link":"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/10\/26\/books\/review\/Max-t.html","pathname":"nytimes.com"},{"text":"James Wood, \u2018Death Takes a Holiday\u2019, The New Yorker, 2008","link":"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2008\/10\/27\/death-takes-a-holiday","pathname":"newyorker.com"},{"text":"Dalila Silva Lopes, \u2018Recens\u00e3o de As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte de Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019, Polissema, 2006","link":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.34630\/polissema.vi6.3335","pathname":"doi.org"}]},{"title":"Media citations","list":[{"text":"\u2018Nelson Nunes l\u00ea um excerto de As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte, de Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019, 2020","link":"https:\/\/www.bertrand.pt\/blogue-somos-livros\/livrolicos\/artigo\/nelson-nunes-le-um-excerto-de-as-intermitencias-da-morte-de-jose-saramago\/164546","pathname":"bertrand.pt"},{"text":"\u2018As Intermit\u00eancias da Morte, de Saramago, recebe boas cr\u00edticas nos EUA\u2019, 2008","link":"https:\/\/www.publico.pt\/2008\/12\/10\/culturaipsilon\/noticia\/quotas-intermitencias-da-mortequot-de-saramago-recebe-boas-criticas-nos-eua-218449","pathname":"publico.pt"},{"text":"\u2018Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019 [interview], Di\u00e1rio de Not\u00edcias, 2007","link":"https:\/\/www.dn.pt\/arquivo\/diario-de-noticias\/jose-saramago.html-3","pathname":"dn.pt"},{"text":"\u2018Romance da vida a pretexto da morte\u2019, Correio da Manh\u00e3, 2005","link":"https:\/\/www.cmjornal.pt\/cultura\/detalhe\/romance-da-vida-a-pretexto-da-morte","pathname":"cmjornal.pt"},{"text":"\u2018Seria muito violento viver se n\u00e3o existisse morte\u2019, RTP Not\u00edcias, 2005","link":"https:\/\/www.rtp.pt\/noticias\/cultura\/seria-muito-violento-viver-se-nao-existisse-morte_n155329","pathname":"rtp.pt"},{"text":"\u2018100 mil exemplares do novo Saramago \u00e0 venda a partir de hoje\u2019, P\u00daBLICO, 2005","link":"https:\/\/www.publico.pt\/2005\/11\/03\/culturaipsilon\/noticia\/100-mil-exemplares-do-novo-saramago-a-venda-a-partir-de-hoje-1237677","pathname":"publico.pt"}]},{"title":"Interest Group citations","list":[{"text":"Sofia Baptista, \u2018Da m\u00e1quina de suic\u00eddio \u00e0s intermit\u00eancias da eutan\u00e1sia\u2019, MGFamiliar blog, 2022","link":"https:\/\/www.mgfamiliar.net\/blog\/da-maquina-de-suicidio-as-intermitencias-da-eutanasia\/","pathname":"mgfamiliar.net"},{"text":"S\u00e9rgio Suchodolak, \u2018Saramago e a miopia do mal\u2019, L\u2019Osservatore Romano, 2020","link":"https:\/\/www.osservatoreromano.va\/pt\/news\/2020-06\/saramago-e-a-miopia-do-mal.html","pathname":"osservatoreromano.va"},{"text":"\u2018Ningu\u00e9m tem o direito de dizer a uma pessoa que quer sair da vida, Voc\u00ea vai ter que ficar a\u00ed ligada aos tubos\u2019, ESQUERDA, 2018","link":"https:\/\/www.esquerda.net\/videos\/ninguem-tem-o-direito-de-dizer-uma-pessoa-que-quer-sair-da-vida-voce-vai-ter-que-ficar-ai","pathname":"esquerda.net"},{"text":"M. R. Carneiro Santos, L. Lins, & M. Silva Menezes, \u2018As intermit\u00eancias da morte no ensino da \u00e9tica e bio\u00e9tica, Revista Bio\u00e9tica, 2018","link":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1590\/1983-80422018261235","pathname":"doi.org"}]},{"title":"Legal and Paralegal citations","list":[{"text":"Cristina Alves Longo, \u2018Direito \u00e0 boa morte\u2019, Jus.com.br, 2020","link":"https:\/\/jus.com.br\/artigos\/83568\/direito-a-boa-morte","pathname":"jus.com.br"},{"text":"Mois\u00e9s Ferreira, \u2018Dar a Morte: Mois\u00e9s Ferreira (BE) escreve a favor da eutan\u00e1sia\u2019, Expresso, 2020","link":"https:\/\/expresso.pt\/opiniao\/2020-02-20-Dar-a-Morte-Moises-Ferreira--BE--escreve-a-favor-da-eutanasia","pathname":"expresso.pt"},{"text":"Pedro Filipe Soares, \u2018Eutan\u00e1sia, direito a morrer com dignidade\u2019, P\u00daBLICO, 2020","link":"https:\/\/www.publico.pt\/2020\/02\/14\/politica\/opiniao\/eutanasia-direito-morrer-dignidade-1904081","pathname":"publico.pt"},{"text":"Rosinete Souza Barata, \u2018Eutan\u00e1sia\u202f: morte digna ou homic\u00eddio?\u2019 Jus.com.br, 2012","link":"https:\/\/jus.com.br\/artigos\/20818\/eutanasia-morte-digna-ou-homicidio","pathname":"jus.com.br"},{"text":"Alexandre Magno Fernandes Moreira Aguiar, \u2018A intermit\u00eancia da morte por obra do Judici\u00e1rio\u2019, Jus.com.br, 2007","link":"https:\/\/jus.com.br\/artigos\/10733\/a-intermitencia-da-morte-por-obra-do-judiciario","pathname":"jus.com.br"}]}]}