The Lizard

July 15, 2019
Panic ensues when an unwelcome guest arrives. A lizard appears in the Chiado neighborhood of Lisbon, Portugal. It stops in the middle of the street, halting cars and causing an old woman to scream. People scatter in fear, planes fly overhead, all while the lizard remains mostly unperturbed. Finally, the people launch an attack, and, "thanks to the fairies," the lizard "was transformed into a crimson rose." The rose blooms, turns white, then becomes a dove. The narrator claims in the opening that "this is a fairy tale," for "in what other kind of story would a lizard appear in Chiado?" Semantic arguments aside, this tale is high-concept fiction. With political-leaning overtones, the 1998 Nobel Prize-winning Saramago integrates overriding realism akin to Aesop with Carrollian exaggeration. Young non-Portuguese readers may need an older reader to help interpret the tale's meaning (and the older reader may also need some outside help). Borges contributes bold, rustic woodcuts that leave plenty of room for symbolic interpretations. There is a visual lack of continuity between pages, with the described "green" lizard alternatively appearing in black and red shades while its head and number of legs also changes. Like the story itself, the translation challenges readers with sophisticated vocabulary. A pensive, allegorical fairy tale for readers ready to sit with perplexity. (Picture book. 5-8)

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August 19, 2019
Ably translated by the Caistors, this surreal fable by Noble Prize–winner Saramago imagines a monstrously outsize military response to the appearance of a lizard. The “superb creature” is first spotted in the Lisbon neighborhood of Chiado. “This is a fairy tale,” Saramago opens; “in what other kind of story would a lizard appear in Chiado?” In folk-style woodcut figures by Brazilian artist Borges, the lizard is sometimes black, sometimes rust-colored. “It stood there in the middle of the street, its mouth half-open, flicking its forked tongue.” People flee, rumors fly (“Some said the lizard was poisonous, others that its scales were bulletproof”), emergency squads assemble, and armored cars and military planes approach. But the tale’s fairies have other plans: the lizard morphs, morphs again, then vanishes altogether, much to its attackers’ confusion. First published in the 1970s, when Portugal was ruled by a dictatorship, Saramago’s tale envisions a state so insecure that it is threatened by anything unknown. While some readers may find the mayhem disturbing rather than comic, the fable serves as a reminder that in toxic political situations, nothing—not even a fairy lizard—is safe. Ages 6–9.