A Siddur to Saramago

On Prayers and Characters in The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Abstract

In The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, published in 1991, Saramago puts Jewish prayers in the mouth of his characters, like the one present in the Talmud, according to which a man should be grateful for not being a woman. In this work I seek to analyze the way in which these prayers and other Jewish texts are quoted and treated in the narrative. I emphasize how they are used in the construction of the novel’s characters, of their habits, their culture, and their religion. Similarly to the novel’s intertextuality with the biblical text, which is better known and has been more studied, the use of these references is not without consequences: Saramago seeks, for example, to question the subalternity of women in the time and space portrayed. I analyze the novel’s approach to these intertexts, which is simultaneously critical, historical, and fictional. Such references are equally valued for other reasons, such as their poetic features. I also discuss how Saramago was able to explore this dialogue thanks to the help and to the siddur lent by Sam Levy, an important figure to the history of this novel.