When fact is fiction - The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The proof-reader in Jose Saramago's novel The History of the Siege of Lisbon, having turned in the manuscript w/ a major mistake he willfully entered into the text - essentially violated every creed and purpose of his profession- embarks on a stroll around the city, something he apparently rarely does, and he passes many churches, monuments, neighborhoods, whose names will mean nothing to most American readers, and then at last returns home and realizes that his house straddles the line between what centuries ago had marked the protective wall around Lisbon: that is, he lives at a cross-point, both inside and outside, which is in a sense what a proof-reader is and does, reads a manuscript that's not yet a book, keeps it on the "inside," factual, if in fact it is a historical book, but this proof-reader has straddled or crossed the line by making the historical fictive - which is also what Saramago is doing. The idea of the ruins of walls and churches appearing like a pentimento from beneath the surface of a contemporary city is something that all who have visited Rome or many other European cities will instantly comprehend, but that is remote for most Americans: out past is far more recent, and far more readily obliterated. This novel is about this resurrection of the past - and about the inevitable process of transformation that occurs when the past is re-created in words: to observe is to change.