num_pages: 324
description: The inspiration for the major motion picture "Enemy" starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Denis Villeneuve Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, when he is awakened by noises in his apartment, he goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video. He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-or, more specifically, exactly like he did five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face-appears on the screen. He sleeps badly.Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation on identity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displays his remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versus reality.
language: English
title: The Double
titlecomplete: The Double
characters: Helena Claro, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, Maria da Paz, António Claro, Carolina Màximo
genres: Portugal, Nobel Prize, Novels, Portuguese Literature, Literature, Fantasy, Classics, Fiction, Contemporary, Magical Realism
ratings_count: 20022
publisher: Mariner Books