SOURCE: "Baroque Portrayal of the Sadness of the Portuguese," in Los Angeles Time Book Review, December 13, 1987, p. 3.

[In the following review, Eder considers Baltasar and Blimunda at times weighted down with unnecessary details but otherwise a successful example of magical realism.]

Jose Saramago is one of Portugal's most eminent writers, and his elaborate novel Baltasar and Blimunda has an authentically national theme. It is about the melancholy of magnificence.

A national stereotype can be rejected but it can't be ignored, particularly when it is as odd as Portugal's. Sadness is a quality that others have claimed for the Portuguese, but mostly the Portuguese claim it for themselves.

More than Spain, their country was the exemplar of an empire impoverished by wealth. Thanks to a burst of early seafaring prowess, Portugal found itself in possession of Brazil, Goa, Macao and Mozambique. A tide of riches swept in and almost...