The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – Summary and Reflection

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – Summary and Reflection

José Saramago’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (original title: O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis) is a profoundly philosophical novel that blends fiction with history, politics with metaphysics, and literature with identity. Published in 1984, the novel imagines the return of Ricardo Reis, one of the heteronyms of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, to Lisbon in 1936, shortly after Pessoa’s death. Saramago uses this fictional premise to explore themes of identity, death, political indifference, and the existential condition of modern man, all set against the backdrop of rising European fascism.

Ricardo Reis, a monarchist and doctor who has been living in exile in Brazil, returns to Portugal following news of Pessoa’s death. The narrative spans approximately one year, mirroring the title, and traces Reis's slow and detached re-immersion into Lisbon society. He takes up residence in the Hotel Bragança and adopts a routine of visiting cafes, observing the city's inhabitants, occasionally attending to patients, and maintaining a distant relationship with two women: Lídia, a maid at the hotel, and Marcenda, a young woman from an aristocratic family who visits the city regularly to treat a paralyzed hand. Neither relationship provides him with the emotional or intellectual connection he seems to long for.

What defines the novel is its tone and rhythm: slow, introspective, and filled with inner monologue and digressions that challenge the reader to reflect alongside the protagonist. Saramago’s distinctive style—marked by long sentences, scarce punctuation, and a blurring of dialogue and narrative voice—mimics the mental wandering of Reis, a character suspended between the real and the imaginary, between history and literature, between life and death.

My best quote is:

"Also within the body, the darkness is deep, and yet the blood reaches the heart, the brain is blind and can see, it is deaf and hears, it has no hand and reaches, man, clearly, is the labyrinth of himself."

Throughout the book, Reis is visited by the ghost of Fernando Pessoa, now dead but haunting Lisbon as a critical observer. These ghostly dialogues offer philosophical discussions on death, literature, politics, and the role of the writer. Pessoa serves as both conscience and contradiction to Reis, embodying a Portugal that is both lost and searching for meaning. Their conversations, often enigmatic and ironic, suggest that even after death, one's ideological and moral dilemmas persist.

Set during a time of intense political turmoil—Salazar's Estado Novo in Portugal, the Spanish Civil War, and the looming threat of fascism across Europe—the novel subtly criticizes the passivity and aloofness of intellectuals in the face of oppression. Reis, despite his intelligence and classical erudition, remains largely indifferent to the violent transformations happening around him. He reads newspapers without fully engaging, comments on events without acting, and observes the decay of democracy as though from a distance. This apathy becomes a metaphor for the moral abdication of individuals who retreat into aestheticism or nostalgia while the world burns around them.

The conclusion of the novel, in which Reis chooses to "die" a year after Pessoa’s actual death and effectively dissolve his borrowed identity, carries multiple symbolic interpretations. Is it a surrender to fate, an act of poetic justice, or an acknowledgment that heteronyms cannot outlive their creator? Saramago leaves the answer open, inviting the reader to consider the limits of fiction, the permanence of ideas, and the elusive nature of selfhood.

Fraud, Integrity, and the Invisible Lines of Responsibility

While Saramago’s novel is rooted in literary and political philosophy, it also offers insights into questions of ethical responsibility that resonate deeply with modern concerns in compliance and corporate governance. Ricardo Reis embodies a figure who, through inaction and detachment, becomes complicit in the political realities of his time. His intellectual distance and refusal to engage critically with the injustices he witnesses mirror the behavior of individuals and institutions that, while not directly perpetrating harm, enable wrongdoing by turning a blind eye or hiding behind formality and hierarchy.

In the world of corporate compliance and fraud prevention, this translates into a critical reminder: silence and passivity are not neutral. The failure to speak up, question, or act can facilitate systemic abuses. Like Reis, who reads about arrests and violence but remains in his hotel room, professionals in regulated industries may observe suspicious patterns, weak controls, or unethical behavior and choose not to respond—perhaps out of fear, apathy, or convenience. Yet, modern compliance frameworks are built precisely to counter such inertia, promoting transparency, accountability, and a culture of integrity.