Goodbye to a damn good one. Saramago was one of the first novelists I read in that way when you start searching out novels as a young teenager, when they start forming some nebulous constellation of taste and perspective around you, pointing you down trails your assigned reading in middle school English class simply won't. (It's not the most immediate transition from Avi's Nothing But the Truth to Bataille's Blue of Noon.) It was The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. It floored me, hadn't read anything like it. And it led me to Pessoa, who had the same effect.
(On top of it, Saramago was a Communist, an atheist, an anti-fascist, and a hater of bullshit. He'll be missed.)
Have you ever read The Double? I bought it the other day. I haven't read it yet, but I was wondering if you have any thoughts.
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