The Double (Saramago novel)

First edition (publ. Caminho)

The Double (Portuguese: O Homem Duplicado) is a 2002 novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, who won the Nobel Prize for literature. In Portuguese, the title is literally "The Duplicated Man." It was translated into English and published as The Double in 2004.

Plot summary

Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a divorced high school history teacher who spends his nights reading about Mesopotamian civilizations. One day Afonso rents a movie recommended by a colleague; he sees a bit actor who looks exactly like him. Afonso becomes obsessed with meeting the man and spends weeks discovering the actor's name. He sends a letter to the production company, from his girlfriend's address and posing as a film student, in order to be put in contact with the actor. His relationship with his girlfriend, Maria da Paz, suffers because he refuses to disclose his motives to her. After receiving the actor's phone number and address, Afonso stalks his double, António Claro, eventually calling him. Claro's wife mistakes Afonso for her husband on the phone. Initially, António Claro dismisses Afonso and refuses to meet, but later contacts him and agrees. They decide to meet at Claro's country home in a week.

Afonso buys a fake beard and drives out of town to meet Claro. Upon arrival, the men strip down and find that they are indeed identical, and they discover they were born on the same month, day, and year. Their voices are exactly the same, and they share identical scars and moles. Before Afonso leaves, Claro asks him to clarify one more thing: the exact time he was born. He wants to know which of them is the "original," and which the double. Afonso says that he was born at two in the afternoon. Smugly, Claro informs Afonso that he was born a half-hour earlier, making him the original. Afonso gets up to leave, saying that he has the small compensation of knowing that Claro will be the first to die, and he will become the original in turn. To this, Claro responds, "Well, I hope you enjoy those thirty-one minutes of personal, absolute, and exclusive identity, because that is all you will enjoy from now on." The men agree that they have no reason to ever meet again, and Afonso leaves.

Afonso sends the fake beard to António Claro, who has not been able to stop thinking about the meeting. Meanwhile, Afonso and Maria get engaged to be married. Claro wonders how Afonso acquired his phone number and address. After visiting the production company offices, Claro comes to possess the letter, written by Afonso but signed by his girlfriend, Maria da Paz, and bearing her address. Donning the fake beard, Claro stakes out Maria's apartment and, finding her very attractive, he follows her to work. Claro realizes that Afonso has not told Maria da Paz about their situation.

Soon after, Claro pays Afonso a visit at home. He shows Afonso the letter with da Paz's signature. Threatened, Afonso tells him to leave, saying he will call the police. Claro says that he will call Maria da Paz and tell her of the whole situation. Afonso asks what he wants, and Claro says he intends to spend the night with Maria. Claro has already contacted her and invited her to his country home; posing as Afonso, he said he wanted her to look at the place with him. Claro wants revenge for Afonso's intrusion into his married, stable life. Furious and ashamed, Afonso gives Claro his clothes, identification, and the keys to his car for him to use.

After Claro leaves, Afonso exchanges his clothes for some in the other man's closet. He uses Claro's car to drive to his house, where he makes love to Claro's wife Helena that night. In the morning, she makes him breakfast while he reads the paper; she never suspects that he is not her husband.

Meanwhile, da Paz and Claro have spent the night together. In the morning, Maria wakes first and notices the indentation on Claro's finger from his wedding ring. She deduces that he is not Afonso and demands to leave.

Afonso had hoped that Claro would return to find him in bed with Helena. As time passes, his anxiety concerning Maria causes him to leave, and he rushes to a pay phone to call her house. A colleague of Maria's answers the phone and tells him that Maria da Paz died earlier that morning in a car accident.

Afonso checks into a hotel and calls his mother to tell her he is alive. She meets him at the hotel and he tells her everything. The next day, he buys a newspaper to learn the details of the accident: a head-on collision with a truck. The truck driver, when questioned by police, said that the passengers in the car appeared to be quarreling before their automobile crossed the center lane and crashed into the truck.

Afonso returns to Claro's house and reveals himself to Helena, telling her that the man who died was her husband. He gives her Claro's identification and asks for her forgiveness, to which she responds, "Forgive is just a word." Helena asks Afonso to stay with her and take the place of her husband, and he accepts.

Three days later, as Afonso is reading about Mesopotamian civilization, the phone rings. He answers and the voice on the other end exclaims, "At last!" in a voice identical to his own. The man says he has been trying to reach him for months, and claims to be his double; Afonso agrees to meet him in a park nearby that night. Afonso changes clothes, loads the pistol he keeps in the house, and puts it through his belt. He writes Helena a note, "I'll be back", and goes to meet the man.

Critical reception

The Guardian said Saramago did not push the concept of the double far enough, noting that every culture plays with this idea. He wrote, "Old as our fears, the familiar figure of the double haunts the literatures of every country."^[1] He says,

"Since the immutable laws of nature insist that something cannot exist in two places at the same time, a man and his double cannot both remain alive: one of the two must vanish for the order of the universe to be respected. It is no unfair disclosure to say that a death is the novel's conclusion."^[1]

John Banville in the New York Times wrote of The Double: "His take on the theme is clever, alarming and blackly funny..."^[2] Banville continues about Saramago's work: "He has Kafka's petrified detachment, Celine's merry ferocity and the headlong, unstoppable style of the Beckett of Malone Dies and The Unnamable."^[2]

Jonathan Carroll of the Washington Post criticized Saramago, saying that he displays

"an obvious archness, an authorial sneer at the fantastical subject matter that quickly distances the reader from any emotional involvement with either the character or his situation. As a result, we don't care what happens to Afonso or how he ends up."^[3]

Film adaptation

Denis Villeneuve directed a Canadian thriller feature film, Enemy (2013), adapted by Javier Gullón from this novel. Set in Toronto, it stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as the physically identical men, Isabella Rossellini as one man's mother, Mélanie Laurent as the teacher's girlfriend, and Sarah Gadon as the actor's wife.

References