Rumores, paisagens sonoras e sugestões aromáticas em Claraboia, de José Saramago

Abstract

José Saramago’s second novel Claraboia, written in 1952–1953 and published posthumously in 2011, fictionalizes the interaction between the members of six families living in a small building in a middle class area of Lisbon in 1952. Much of the novel’s sensorial suggestions are based on what the characters are able to see (landscape), hear (soundscape) and smell (smellscape) in their own homes at different times of the day. As this study shows, these sounds and scents mark the characters’ everyday life and even their social conduct, as does gossip, with its normative function, and small talk between neighbors.