With this essay, we intend to study one of the particularities of José Saramago’s style that has escaped those who have been studying his work: reflection on writing itself and, more specifically, on the matter of language, that is, the words he uses and their meanings. The writer often goes on a series of wanderings, in which he reflects on the semantic properties of certain words or expressions, a rare or even non-existent process in other Portuguese writers.Com este ensaio, pretendemos tratar uma das particularidades do estilo de José Saramago que tem escapado aos que se vêm ocupando do estudo da sua obra: a reflexão sobre a própria escrita e, mais concretamente, sobre a matéria da linguagem, ou seja, as palavras que utiliza e os seus si...