Baltasar and Blimunda
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Baltasar and Blimunda Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Tamir (Narrator), Giovanni Pontiero - translator (Author), José Saramago (Author),
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 306 ratings
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Portugal, 1711: an amorous friar is pursued naked through the rubble-strewn streets of Lisbon; an enthusiastic procession of flagellants roars with pleasure over the damnation of adultery; a royal prince uses hapless sailors for target practice; and women dressed in colorful finery watch as lapsed converts and sorcerers are put to death by flames. In the midst of the terrors of the Inquisition and the plague, a seemingly mismatched couple discovers the wonders of love. This poetic tale, graced with exquisite historical detail and full of magic and adventure, is a tapestry of human folly and human will. The best-loved of all of the great Jose Saramago's works, this novel radiates with achievement.

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  1. Listening Length
    15 hours and 5 minutes
  2. Author
    Giovanni Pontiero - translator, see all
  3. Narrator
    Tamir
  4. Audible release date
    December 20, 2011
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Audible Studios
  7. ASIN
    B006O526JS
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 15 hours and 5 minutes
Author Giovanni Pontiero - translator, José Saramago
Narrator Tamir
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date December 20, 2011
Publisher Audible Studios
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B006O526JS
Best Sellers Rank #212,795 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#500 in Political Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#612 in Satirical Literature & Fiction
#7,825 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
306 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Israel Drazin
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a very enjoyable masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2018
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Baltasar and Blimunda is one of Jose Saramago’s several masterpieces. Jose Saramago (1922-2010), a Portuguese writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. In 2008, the noted critic Harold Bloom called him “the greatest novelist alive in the world today.” He wrote his first novel in 1947 “The Land of Sin” when he was 25. He was not noticed as a brilliant writer until he was 60. Some readers see some of his novels as allegories, others see some of them as satires. The Noble Prize Committee described his books as “modern skepticism about official truths.” He was an atheist and communist. He mocked religion in such books as his 1991 “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” which I enjoyed, although the Catholic Church understandably scorned and ridiculed the book.
This novel takes place during the early 1700s. It contains very interesting characters. Baltasar is an ex-Portuguese soldier who returned from a war without his left hand, so he wears a hook. Blimunda is a beautiful young woman who can look at a person and learn all about the person. This only works if she looks before eating breakfast. She and Baltasar fall in love and live together outside of marriage. She tells Baltasar that she will never look at him before her breakfast. Her mother was a quarter Jewish and was arrested by the Inquisition and expelled from Portugal because the Inquisition claimed she was a witch.
Baltasar and Blimunda are joined by a priest who likes them a lot and is willing to overlook that the cohabiting pair are not married. He even lies for them and claims he married them. He is convinced that he can build a ship that can fly, and he gets Baltasar and Blimunda to help him build the ship.
There are many other fascinating characters in the book, including the king of Portugal and the famed Italian musician Domenico Scarlatti, and events such as a friar getting the king to build a convent because he promised that if he did so his wife would bear a child, and Saramago’s humorous mocking of the church. But the best part of the book, the part that makes it into a masterpiece is the writing, which is so pleasant to read, like the best kind of poetry, filled with wisdom and humor. It is no surprise that he won the Nobel Prize for literature.
18 people found this helpful
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R. J. Marsella
4.0 out of 5 stars A Strange And Fanciful Allegory Set in 18th Century Portugal
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2013
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Baltasar and Blimunda is my first book by Jose Saramago. It is a richly textured love story of two unique individuals who find each other during the inquisition in Lisbon of 1710. As their tale is related the author introduces a friar who is obsessively building a flying machine in secret. The lovers are drawn into his quest and what follows are lyrically beautiful passages that describe their devotion to the friar's vision. In addition a massive convent is being built by the King and the descriptions of the quarrying of stone and transportation of materials over mountain ranges is one of the most gripping depictions of the challenges of pre-mechanical construction that I've ever read.
All of this is set against the background of the auto de fe and religious absolutism. There is much more to this book than meets the eye. It is a deep and challenging read and the beautiful language that is employed here while at times spellbinding , at other times can be tough to absorb.
Overall in retrospect it is a very rewarding novel for the reader who perseveres to the end and I admit there were several times I almost put it aside. In the end I am happy to have read it, found it thought provoking and feel inspired to explore more of Saramago's works but only after a break with some lighter fare in between.
10 people found this helpful
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Aimee Brant
5.0 out of 5 stars Satirical and romantic novel on courtly and peasant life in old Portugal
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2014
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Nobel Prize for Literature winner Jose Saramago wrote this wonderful novel. He is no longer with us, sadly. I wish I'd come across his work years ago. His two main characters, a peasant ex-soldier and a beautiful peasant seeress, love one another and avoided holy matrimony at risk of death by the Inquisition. There's magic in their story of working with a rogue Franciscan monk, who devises a flying vehicle. They help him with it and all three fly it over the home town of Mafra. Saramago is exquisitely clever in the way he can satirize the court and the nobility, as well as the Inquisition-dominated church, while using moralistic asides that arrest one's attention, often producing a guffaw. I read the book at night before bed. I did not want to finish this story, it was so intriguing and quietly beautiful. I kept it going that way. The ending is sad but I won't give it away. The flying machine story is based on life. The monk who designed, built, and flew it once had to flee to Spain to escape the Inquisition. They accused him of converting to Judaism. A well-documented book by historian Bernard Bachrach, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe, 1977-- on 16th c. southern Europe during the same period as this novel under review, shows that in those times conversions from the Roman church to Judaism were an item. Bachrach shows that either church councils in different "countries" allowed this, or didn't legislate against it, more often than they banned it. Jewish (and Roman Catholic) merchants traded in slaves and used them as workers. Hence the issue of conversions to Judaism--easier to deal with RC slave workers if they had the same rituals and feasts as their Jewish owners. I wish to add that the actual monk who invented a flying machine escaped the Inquisition. According to Saramago's afterword, he returned to his original religion and died peacefully.
9 people found this helpful
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Carla F. Berry
3.0 out of 5 stars 1400’s Potugal Myths.
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2024
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Saramago elegant prose describes King’s and peasant’s lives in exquisite detail. Entwined stories of many folk tend to slow a central plot. Not for all who want clarity and action.
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Top reviews from other countries

D. Warner
5.0 out of 5 stars Baroque Portuguese fantasy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2022
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I loved this book - particularly the bit about Domenico Scarlatti coming to view the amazing airship. I am not well versed in Portuguese history - but it' not hard to understand. It is about machinations of the King and Queen and the (Catholic) Church. The king promises to build a new monastery for the church in return for favours - but the novel concerns the poor people forced into building it - and the mad monk who devises an airship using alchemy.
In a way this might be compare to Swift's Gulliver's Travels - not in terms of date of writing, but in terms of how the bizarre subject matter relates to the society of the time.
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Nadine Dennison
5.0 out of 5 stars Saramago is worthy of exploration.
Reviewed in Australia on June 11, 2019
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Really interesting read. Probably the Saramago novel that propelled me further into his writing. Reads like an unfolding dream.
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hdf
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on December 4, 2014
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Well worth your time.
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M. Bamford
5.0 out of 5 stars May well be Saramago's best work , but possibly not the best one to start with.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2014
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Have been a massive fan of Saramago for years, and having just re-read this one, I found myself thinking it was his best book, which surprised me because it wasn't an impression I'd had before.

All of the Saramago trademarks are here - a poignant love story, fictional personal tales set in a historical context, a subtle bit of magical realism and a seething anger against the injustices of church and state that is sometimes hidden so well behind deadpan dry sarcasm that it could go completely over your head and you could mistake him for a conservative. (Very much like Halldor Laxness in this regard)

Here though, in comparison to his other books, maybe the love story is even more convincing and moving, the historical backdrop even more fully realised, the magical realism more integral...

I find that Saramago got more accessible as the years went by, and although this is by no means a "difficult" book, I think that later works such as The Double, Death at Intervals or Cain (all brilliant) may offer a simpler introduction to his unique punctuation style and biting sarcasm before moving onto this slightly more complex earlier work.
6 people found this helpful
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J C E Hitchcock
3.0 out of 5 stars Etherpunk
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2018
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“Baltasar and Blimunda” is a historical novel set during the reign of King John V of Portugal in the early 18th century. King John has made a vow that if an heir is born he will build a convent for the Dominican Order, and when his wife gives birth to a daughter he orders work to begin on what is to become the Convent of Mafra. (The Salic Law did not apply in Portugal so John’s daughter Maria Barbara was briefly heir to the throne, although the birth of a younger brother meant that she never became Queen of Portugal. She did, however, become Queen Consort of Spain).

Set against the story of the building of the convent is the love-story of the two title characters. (At least they are the title characters in the English translation. The original Portuguese title was “Memorial do Convento”). Baltasar is a young soldier invalided out of the army after losing his left hand in battle. Blimunda, who is said to have the gift of second sight, is a young woman whose mother has fallen foul of the Inquisition and as a result has been exiled to Angola. A third plot strand tells of Bartolomeu Lourenco de Gusmão, a Brazilian-born priest (and a real historical character) who dreams of building a flying machine and of how the lovers become involved with helping him in this strange project. (Another actual historical personage who makes an appearance is the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti). Saramago’s treatment of religion in the novel is generally a cynical, mocking one- and when one considers the record of the Portuguese Inquisition during this period one can understand his cynicism- but Gusmão, whom the author sees as a free spirit, is treated more sympathetically.

The Convent of Mafra is today regarded as an architectural masterpiece and one of Portugal's chief tourist attractions, but Saramago (who had left-wing political sympathies) reminds us of the suffering involved in its construction. There was no health-and-safety legislation in the 18th century, and numerous workers were killed or injured during the works. As the building grew, King John’s ambitions grew with it and the building eventually erected, which incorporated a new royal palace, was far more grandiose than the relatively modest convent originally planned. Unable to find enough willing volunteers, the King took to conscripting skilled workmen from all over the kingdom, using them as little more than slave labour.

This is, however, not just a social-realist novel with a historical setting. It has been described as “magical realism”. In reality, Gusmão dreamed of building a working flying machine but never succeeded in doing so; human flight had to wait until the Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloon several decades later. In the novel, however, he does indeed succeed, although the method he uses for lifting his machine off the ground, based on a mysterious “ether”, is pure fantasy, magic rather than some plausible alternative science. More etherpunk than steampunk. Saramago's language, with long, unpunctuated sentences which can go on for an entire paragraph, and at times for entire pages, seems to reflect his surrealistic theme.

I was attracted to this book because of Saramago’s status as a Nobel laureate, but I cannot really say that it is a favourite of mine. There are some good passages, notably those dealing with the hardships suffered by the King’s workers, but I felt that the various themes were not well integrated into a coherent whole and the principal characters did not really come alive. The rambling sentences helped to provide a sense of unreality and strangeness, but often made the narrative difficult to understand.
2 people found this helpful
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