From Myth to Novel

In this reading of the Gospel, from Jos Saramago's perspective, the reader finds a way of feeling and thinking about reality from the point of view of man, of human values. This is one of the strengths of this study by Concei o Flores on the controversial novel by the Portuguese author, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. To this end, the free play of the writer's verbal creation - according to the scholar - calls for de-automatisation and questioning of the established Christian myth, appropriated by religious and political powers. Not to replace it with other dogmatic discourses, but to place it in a critical dialogue with (his) fictional text. In this way, the writer reveals human self-determination against all forms of authoritarianism. The dogmatic discourse of origin, the bearer of a single, essentialist truth, is therefore opposed to the historicity of Saramago's literary discourse. He de-sacralises myth by moving it from the heights to which it has been elevated by the powers that be, to the prosaic nature of human existence. Benjamin Abadla J nior (USP).