The History of the Siege of Lisbon

In the novel Saramago challenges the common one-dimensional interpretations of historical events that only focuses on kings and battles and ask for a more pluralistic perspective that include individual motives and behaviour and take into account the role of chance in shaping history.

[1] Kirkus Reviews described the novel as "A brilliantly amusing metafiction about the instability of history and the reality assumed by fiction" and called it Saramago's best work to date.

"Saramago moves gracefully between the world of the reinvented past and the unheroic realm in which Raimundo's pleasing fantasies are constantly interrupted by hunger pangs and ringing telephones.

The novel embraces a dauntingly broad range of references, juxtaposes past and present tense mischievously, and takes the form of elegantly convoluted long sentences and paragraphs—which, though they demand intense concentration, never descend to obscurity, thanks to Saramago's lucidity and wit"[2] Reviewing for The New York Times Edmund White wrote: "I found the verbal pierce and parry of the two proofreaders' courtship the most persuasive and vivid aspect of the novel.

One way of partially reconciling these two opposing attitudes is having the quite sympathetic Portuguese Christian warrior who takes a prominent part in the book bearing an Arabic name – implying that he was himself of Mozarab or Muslim ancestry, and in general that despite the bloody fighting between Christians and Muslims, there was a certain basic continuity of the people inhabiting the Portuguese territory, whatever their religion.