Review: 'The Elephant's Journey'

THE ELEPHANT'S JOURNEY
By Jose Saramago
Fiction
September 2010
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0547352589
Men have been many things over the years -- ignorant, greedy, forgetful, inconstant, loyal, intelligent, hard-working and inspired. To the fortunate, their companions have been animals. When that happens, animal companions represent the best of these qualities that mankind wishes or believes it displays.

Such is the case with the quiet, stolid Indian elephant Solomon in Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's last novel, The Elephant's Journey. Saramago, who died this summer, took the true tale of an elephant that was regifted from King João III of Portugal to Archduke Maximilian as a wedding present in 1551, and turned it into a rambling fable of small acts and, when least expected, large emotions.

Good Words: 'The Elephant's Journey'

The late Nobel Prize-winning Jose Saramago left us one more tale before his death this summer. The Elephant's Journey is a fable and mediation based on the real trip of an elephant from Lisbon to Vienna, a gift from King João III of Portugal to the Archduke Maximilian in 1551.

The huge contrast between the elephant's moving gestures and the oneupmanship practiced by many of the humans in this novel are portrayed with humor and knowing, wry compassion. Saramago, even in a scant 224 pages, also divulges in long asides whenever he feels like it, and often comes up with gems. To wit: