Earlier today, I finished reading The Cave by Jose Saramago (1922-2010), a Portuguese writer, who spent the last 15 years of his life in a self-imposed exile in the Spanish Canary Islands. The conservative Portuguese government and the Catholic Church took offense at his writings. Despite the government's censorship of his works and opposition to earlier literary awards, Mr. Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Two themes dominate this novel. One is a criticism of globalization with the obsolescence of the local means of production and commerce; the second is the personal obsolescence that comes with age within the context of a changing economic environment. What is the message for the individual in such an environment ? "It's ridiculous to throw away the present just because you're afraid there might not be a future." As one ages one must not forget that "...folly and illogicality may be a duty to the young, but the old have a perfectly respectable right to them too..."

A dog plays a supporting and an essential role in this novel. "Dogs are like that, they sometimes decide to do their owner's thinking for them."

After reading this novel, I don't think folks will ever look at shopping malls in the same way as they did previously.