The Elephant’s Journey

By: José Saramago / Translated By: Margaret Jull Costa / Narrated By: Christine Williams

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Lovely, tho’ quite bittersweet

First off, I had to google and Wikipedia (Yes, I’m using Wikipedia as a verb) Portugal to see if it’s considered Hispanic. Wikipedia says so, so I’m including José Saramago’s The Elephant’s Journey in our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. Besides, it’s just such a lovely story based on a historical event, Saramago’s musings on How Things Could Have Happened.

And now second: This is the first Saramago I’ve either read or listened to (The man had me at: Elephant!), and I came for the elephant Solomon, but I stayed for his Hindi keeper, Subhro.

The King of Portugal gave Solomon to Archduke Maximilian in 1551, and an entourage had to travel from Lisbon to Vienna to get the elephant there. The afterword tells us that Saramago was smitten with this idea when he was at a restaurant and saw a trail of figurines representing the elephant’s journey (Hence the name), and the story grew from his imagination.

The weakest part of the story would have to be the narration, but I don’t mean to bash it here. It’s just that Christine Williams delivers this in fable-like tones, with great sweeping characterizations, much hemming and hawing, and surly voices for stern characters. It TOTALLY fits the story, as this can be quite whimsical, but it’s not exactly my cup of tea. It rather made me feel like I was listening to a kids book when, actually, there are some heavy-duty musings on life and purpose and God and miracles and the Reformation and soldiers and civil wars and how beliefs come to be. ALL that and more! So I could’ve done with a performance that was a bit less jovial, a tad more serious, especially as Solomon is as serious an elephant as they come.

It was jolly decent that at no point did he seem to be anthropomorphized (A word I haaaaate: Soooo presumptuous of us!) but was a sturdy and unswerving character in his own right. Which was where Subhro as a mighty character comes in: Because he’s spent yeeeeears in Lisbon with Solomon, where Solomon was once heralded as a near-miracle and was much touted but later devolved into oblivion. Subhro knows that their fate in Vienna could very well be the same. And that’s at best. On this journey, he comes to realize that he loves the elephant and the worst? He, Subhro, could be sent packing, forever parted from his dear friend, even tho’ he admits that, up there, riding Solomon from on high, he’s nothing but a parasite on the elephant’s body. Subhro has many thoughts and realizations like that, and that’s why I greatly liked him as a character. So Bravo to Saramago for crafting such a wise and honest character as this one leading the elephant to Vienna.

Which brings me to the bittersweet. There are many, many adventures all the travelers have along the way: “Miracles” performed, lives being saved, treacherous wintry passages through the Alps, near wars averted, but in the end, all make it to their new home. And history tells us what happens to Solomon, with not so much of what happens to his mahout. It’s enough to leave ya weeping, which I SWEAR I didn’t do, tho’ dang it if it wasn’t the THIRD time I teared up during this week’s Listening.

Bittersweet, yup, you bet.

But it was enough that I’m kinda interested in looking for more Saramago audiobooks, tho’ I hear tell his other works can be kinda on the dark side…

So maaaaybe I’ll just stick with this that I truly liked a whole heckuva lot, shall I? A whimsical tale of a good and faithful elephant with his good and faithful mahout, making friends along the way.

And I dearly love it when the two main characters are such wonderful people, be they man or elephant…!

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