In a beat, the author explains why he called the book small Memories. He began with big ambitions of showing himself as a person prone to desires and terrors as in the beginnings of St Anthony, but his journey brought him to the ‘Nothing of great note .... small memories of when I was small’.
The book begins with recalling of the place where Saramago’s childhood & adolescence
Occurred. His usage of the marsupial pouch, the magical cocoon for the place called Azinhaga make you wonder if we should trust him when he says that he doesn’t bemoan the loss of the familiar place.
He came to it and did not begin with it. At the whim of his random and disoriented memory and images the reader goes through his familar landscape of childhood and adolescence, where his motto must have been 'leave no tree unclimbed'. Most stories revolve around family, neigbours and school. A myth of seamstress, then prevalent Santa, old time porters, a little of political scene are touched upon too.He does have a disclaimer whenever he is unsure of details of a sequence.
When Saramago says that the best moment of glory was dethroning a spelling bee monarch as a child over and above winning the PEN prize for his novel, our search for the writer in his 'small memories' should be put at bay. He was taken by the potter at work, blind writer punching words into the paper, shoemaker familiar with Fontenelle. He was fascinated by artists, letters in a newspaper but writing wasnt his idee fixee in his childhood. Connections with three of his works do show up in this book.
There are no chapter breaks. No wands of dramas and scenes. Its plain childhoodese. An old kind of Memoir like Harry Bernstein's.
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