the man who died was her husband. He gives her António's identification and asks for her forgiveness. She responds: "Forgive is just a word." Helena asks Tertuliano to stay with her and take the place of her husband, and he accepts her invitation. Three days later, as Tertuliano is reading about Mesopotamian civilization, the phone rings. He answers and a man on the other end of the line exclaims, "At last!" in a voice identical to his own. The man says he has been trying to reach him for months and claims to be his double. Tertuliano agrees to meet him in a nearby park that night. Tertuliano changes his clothes, loads the pistol he keeps in the house, and puts it into his belt. He writes Helena a note, "I'll be back", and leaves for his rendezvous in the park. Critical reception The Guardian said Saramago did not push the concept of the double far enough, noting that every culture plays with this idea. He wrote: Jonathan Carroll of The Washington Post criticized the novel, saying that he displays: John Banville in The New York Times wrote of The Double: "His take on the theme is clever, alarming and blackly funny..." Banville continues about Saramago's work: "He has Kafka's petrified detachment, Celine's merry ferocity and the headlong, unstoppable style of the Beckett of Malone Dies and The Unnamable." John Updike praised the novel at length in The New Yorker as did the reviewer for the London Review of Books. Film adaptation Denis Villeneuve directed a Canadian thriller feature film, Enemy in 2013, with a screenplay adapted by Javier Gullón from this novel. Set in Toronto, it stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as the physically identical men Adam and Anthony, Isabella Rossellini as Adam's mother, Mélanie Laurent as the professor Adam's girlfriend Mary, and Sarah Gadon as the actor Anthony's wife Helen. The novel shares a quote with the film, shown in the opening scene: "Chaos is order yet undeciphered." References 2002 novels 21st-century Portuguese novels Novels by José Saramago Metafictional novels Portuguese novels adapted into films