Told in his distinct, inimitable style, Saramago's 'All the Names' is the story of a perturbable, middle-aged clerk working in the Central Registry, a governmental bureau where records of births, deaths and marriages are kept and managed.

Senhor José has rather let life pass him by: he is single (never having had a significant partner of any note); his position, despite being over 50 years of age, is on the bottom rung of a strict hieracrhachly organised agency, and his home is but a door's breadth away from his place of work, since he lives in a small chapel-like building attached to the central registry.

We are in no doubt that he is a very ordinary bordering on pitiable man, living a somewhat self-imposed, repressed life. He is disatisfied and disquieted by his situation yet incapable to free himself from it. He does however have a eccentric and insubordinate pastime: he uses the adjoining door between his home and the central registry to secretly (and unlawfully) enter at night so that he may copy out details of 100 famous people, which he adds to a comprehensively compiled collection of newspaper cuttings clandestinely kept in his house (think, an antiquated version of lurking on the internet).

As a result of his peculiar hobby, Senhor José happens upon a misplaced record card of a young woman, which he finds amongst those of the celebrities he borrows one night. Unable to ignore or forget the record card, this trivial acquisition leads to an obsessive-compulsive search for the mysterious woman, one which slowly discombobulates his hitherto restrained existence.

All the Names is quintessential Saramago. Major themes he discourses on are present here such as the relationship between life and death, the purpose and meaning of life and the agency of our decisions, all explored in his methodical, omniscient manner. It was readable, well-written and provoked interesting questions to muse on but I found the central character's immaturity and impotence slightly frustrating, and the densely delineated story a trawl in places. Despite these reservations however, Saramago is truly a literary great and even his less successful books are rife with stimulating commentaries and observations on life. Cane has been my favourite so far but Blindness and The Cave were also impressive. ( )

A história de um obscuro arquivista cujo hobby é colecionar recortes de jornal sobre pessoas famosas. Protagonizando uma espécie de enredo kafkiano às avessas, ele abandona seu labirinto de papéis e seus hábitos de retidão, movido pela obsessão de encontrar uma mulher desconhecida.

Todos os nomes é a história de um modesto escriturário da Conservatória Geral do Registo Civil, o Sr. José, cujo hobby é colecionar recortes de jornal sobre pessoas famosas. Um dia sua curiosidade acabará se concentrando num recorte que o acaso põe diante dele: a mulher focalizada ali não é célebre, mas o escriturário desejará conhecê-la a todo custo. Abandonando seus hábitos de retidão, ele estará disposto a cometer pequenos delitos para alcançar o que deseja: pequenas mentiras que darão à vida uma intensidade desconhecida.
Numa espécie de enredo kafkiano às avessas, o pequeno burocrata enrodilha-se na imprecisão das informações que ele mesmo acumula e acaba forçado a ganhar o mundo, a deixar os meandros de seu arquivo monumental, em busca de dados que, em última instância, mantenham alguma fidelidade à vida.

Todos los nombres es el relato de aventuras de un José “sin nombre”, aunque el suyo sea el único que figure en la historia. En su aparente humildad, en su auténtica soldedad, en su falta de bienes materiales y afectivos y, sobre todo, en su inalienable dignidad humana, este don José es pariente próximo de otros personajes literarios: Bouvard y Pécuchet, los copistas enciclipédicos de Flaubert; el obstinado Bartleby de Melville; el metafísico Bernardo Soares de Pessoa...
Don José comienza cultivando la afición inocente de coleccionar noticias sobre personas famosas. Pero, para otorgales fiabilidad, decide completarlas con los documentos del Registro Civil donde trabaja. Ello lo obliga a cometer infracciones al reglamento y a protagonizar aventuras de las que nunca se había creído capaz.

Todos os nomes é a história de um modesto escriturário da Conservatória Geral do Registo Civil, o Sr. José, cujo hobby é colecionar recortes de jornal sobre pessoas famosas. Um dia sua curiosidade acabará se concentrando num recorte que o acaso põe diante dele: a mulher focalizada ali não é célebre, mas o escriturário desejará conhecê-la a todo custo. Abandonando seus hábitos de retidão, ele estará disposto a cometer pequenos delitos para alcançar o que deseja: pequenas mentiras que darão à vida uma intensidade desconhecida. Numa espécie de enredo kafkiano às avessas, o pequeno burocrata enrodilha-se na imprecisão das informações que ele mesmo acumula e acaba forçado a ganhar o mundo, a deixar os meandros de seu arquivo monumental, em busca de dados que, em última instância, mantenham alguma fidelidade à vida.

We've all encountered Senhor José, some of us may even know him; a man so inconsequential he has no family name. Names are his life though, for Senhor José toils five and a half days a week at the Central Registry for Births, Marriages, and Deaths, the place where all life's milestones have been recorded painstakingly on file cards by hand since time immemorial. Divorces are recorded now too in this secular age, but the institutional name remains.

Senhor José's leisure time is spent augmenting the histories of those he feels may become famous. To do this, he surreptitiously brings home records from the Central Registry and copies them onto purloined official forms, then augments these files with newspaper and magazine clippings; a harmless enough activity, but not sanctioned.

His home is little more than a stable attached to the great building. This means he can secretly enter and exit at night through a forgotten connecting door. Each morning, however, he must line up on the front steps with all the other workers, who enter by seniority with the Registrar last of all.

One day Senhor José found an ordinary woman's file card accidentally picked up with those of his chosen subjects. He made the daring decision to find out all he could about her. Once launched on this quest, José became more and more daring. He asked for a half hour off one day, his first such request in twenty-five years of working at the Registry. He created a masterful forgery, a letter identifying him and requiring all he questioned to aid him. He stumbled along, always terrified of getting caught, yet going deeper and deeper down his rabbit hole. As he went, this friendless man learned to speak with others, to realize there were areas of chaos in the world. Each night, after writing his findings in a journal, he discussed them with the ceiling above his bed, and pondered the replies.

Anyone who's ever worked in a bureaucracy will recognize the sheer silliness of so much in Senhor José's work world. Every couple of years, The Registry buillt out a new rear wall to accommodate the ever increasing number of file cards for the deceased. Should these be arranged with the most recent dead in front, as these are the cards most likely to be needed; or should they be arranged with the earlier dead in front so that the files don't all need to be moved back with each extension?

Saramago writes with a real fondness for Senhor José, an Everyman of the office. Who else could create such a delightful book around such a character, and successfully liberate him?