Thoughts on José Saramago’s All Names?
Hello everyone.
I just finished reading José Saramago’s All Names and I’m left with a lot of questions. The novel feels like both a surreal exploration of bureaucracy and a deeply personal meditation on loneliness and identity. Senhor José’s obsession with tracing the unknown woman struck me as strange yet oddly moving.
Do you think the book is more about critiquing institutions or about the human need for connection? How did you interpret the ending, and the role of the Central Registry as almost a character itself?
I’d love to hear your insights and interpretations on this fascinating novel.
I think All Names works on both levels. On one hand, the Central Registry clearly represents the dehumanizing weight of institutions—it reduces people to entries in a file, stripping away their individuality. Yet, through Senhor José’s obsessive search, Saramago reveals the other side: the quiet but urgent human need to affirm that each life matters, even an “unknown” one.
The ending felt ambiguous but hopeful to me. It suggests that meaning isn’t found in the Registry’s rigid order, but in the personal act of caring enough to remember someone. In that sense, the Registry becomes a kind of cold, omnipresent antagonist, while José embodies resistance through compassion.
I think the novel is about both. The Central Registry shows how institutions can reduce people to data, but Senhor José’s search highlights the human need for recognition and connection. His obsession with the unknown woman feels strange, but it’s also an act of defiance against a system that erases individuality. In All Names, the ending suggests that meaning comes from remembering and caring, not from official records. To me, the Registry almost becomes a character, an impersonal force that shapes lives but cannot fully contain them, while José represents the fragile, stubborn insistence that every life has value.