Ensayo Sobre La Ceguera (Paperback) by José Saramago - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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Jun 18, 2007

William rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: identity

Read in April, 2006

When you sit in a coffee shop at the corner of two busy streets and read a book about blindness, you find yourself thinking unfamiliar thoughts, and you believe, when you raise your head to watch the people passing, that you see things differently. You notice the soft yellow light of the shop reflecting off the bronze of the hardwood floors. You notice among the people coming from the train two girls who intersect that line, spilt, call back, and go their ways, dividing into the two directions o...more

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6 comments

May 29, 2007

Sammy rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: b-the-good

Read in October, 2006

This is definitely a book that people will either love or hate. It's just that kind of book. Not everyone is going to pick this up and like it. Even the people who end up really liking it, while reading it keep finding themselves putting down the book, looking around the room and sighing in discomfort, wondering if they should really continue. They will though, and they will once again find themselves fully immersed.

Jose Saramago writes this specific story in such a way that you are ...more

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Apr 23, 2007

Amos rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

Read in May, 2007

Saramago is an incredible writer and I think Blindness is, hands down, his best novel.

There are no names in the book (the narrator identifies everybody by their traits) which makes the characters universal. In typical Saramago style, there are very few paragraph indents and very few periods, but a great number of commas. Also, as Saramago readers have come to expect, the language is deceptively simple yet loaded with meaning. Saramago conveys in half a dozen words what another w...more

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2 comments

Jul 17, 2008

Alison rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: contemporaryfiction, ew25best

Read in September, 2008

recommends it for: someone who would enjoy a story about the effects of crisis on society

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

"...Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see."

In 1998, Portugese writer Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his novel, Blindness, he uses an inexplicable epidemic of blindness, striking an unnamed city to illustrate how a society might unravel under the stress of a cris...more

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May 24, 2008

Shannon rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: 2008, apocalyptic-or-post-apocalyptic, dystopian, fiction

Owns a copy — Read in September, 2008

There are some books where, as you are reading them, you can actually feel them enrich your life, broaden your mind, wow you with their awesomeness. For me, Blindness is one such book.

This is a classic example of "highbrow" literature because the way it is written is an artform, and just as important as the subject matter, but I wouldn't want that to put you off. It's not an alienating book, I don't think; it's not that it's difficult to read as such, just plays with conve...more

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13 comments

Aug 26, 2007

Marieke rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: leila, dave

this is the first of a two-part inquiry by jose saramago into the implications of the phenomenon of cultural blindness. because it is jose saramago, and he is a literalist, he makes this come alive by introducing us to a city hit by a sudden and devastating blindness epidemic. no one knows why the first man (in a sense, very much like albert camus' first man in his ambiguous and rather anonymous depiction in the novel) went blind, or why it becomes infectious. understandably, complete chaos ensu...more this is the first of a two-part inquiry by jose saramago into the implications of the phenomenon of cultural blindness. because it is jose saramago, and he is a literalist, he makes this come alive by introducing us to a city hit by a sudden and devastating blindness epidemic. no one knows why the first man (in a sense, very much like albert camus' first man in his ambiguous and rather anonymous depiction in the novel) went blind, or why it becomes infectious. understandably, complete chaos ensues, but we realize that one woman, the wife of the opthalmologist first exposed to the blind seeking help, is inexplicably immune. i have come to think that she represents the spiritual guide that helps us through the novel, and somehow manages to remain a bastion of calm and reason even in the face of horrific circumstances. in other words, she is a grace, a muse embodying hope. the main characters, a core of five or six of the first individuals to go blind, must find their way through the labyrinthine and kafkaesque setting of the mental institution designated by the government for quarantine. the blind are herded there, left with little sustenance and no guarantee of supervision and very quickly people become survivalist, some altruistically, and some in a savage, aggressive and violent manner. the haphazard organization that emerges is threatened by a band of rogue blind men who demand food and supplies from the various barracks and rape the women. as in 1984, there is an announcement played over a loudspeaker at the same time every day, repeating instructions and essentially threatening death if anyone plans to escape. deftly and surreptitiously, the opthalmologist's wife helps as many people as she can. left to their own devices, the inmates soon understand that the entire city has been overtaken. in many ways, this book is a tender character study revealing the rapidity with which human frailty wreaks havoc on moral codes and ethical systems. i read the second part of the series, "seeing", but i would NOT recommend this, as saramago's extremely fluid style, sometimes annoyingly lacking in punctuation, does not serve the less philosophical project of exploring the political resistance of the people involved in the epidemic years later. this book was ultimately readable, frightening, and fits under the aegis of the apocalyptic/disaster literature that some of the greatest living writers have been causing to flourish.(less)

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Dec 26, 2007

Laura Jean rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

recommended to Laura Jean by: Amy

Science fiction literature. Yes, it is possible.

Here's a response I wrote to the book:

Blindness by José Saramago, published in English in 1997, is a pre 9-11 parable that aptly depicts the debasement of which humans are capable in extraordinary circumstances, and is therefore relevant to contemporary audiences struggling with government incompetence and the consequences of apathetic cruelty. While his characters and nearly all those living in the book’s fabulist sce...more Science fiction literature. Yes, it is possible.

Here's a response I wrote to the book:

Blindness by José Saramago, published in English in 1997, is a pre 9-11 parable that aptly depicts the debasement of which humans are capable in extraordinary circumstances, and is therefore relevant to contemporary audiences struggling with government incompetence and the consequences of apathetic cruelty. While his characters and nearly all those living in the book’s fabulist scenario struggle with their own blindness, the creation of order from chaos, and the power of primary drives (hunger, lust, violence, etc.), these characters simultaneously exhibit traits that are examples of their human reasoning. When hungry, the woman with the dark glasses gives the boy with the squint her food. The blind accountant sides with violence and tyranny in exchange for larger rations and authority. In the horror of their circumstances, these unnamed characters are equalized, each becoming an animal with only tenuous threads of identity, held together by small demonstrations of intellect. Saramago creates a desperate world so complete, so fantastic, that the reader is left trying to see the shape of things through the all illuminating description, dialogue, and action, just as the characters grope their way through the white blindness with which they are stricken.
But what does it mean? What is Saramago saying about human nature when depicting the authoritarian criminality of some humans and the meekness of others in desperate situations? While Saramago’s depiction of abuse and submissiveness are accurate to the real life actions of humans in such instances as the Stanford Prison Experiment and more recently, the treatment of internees at Abu Ghraib, there seems to be a larger commentary at work on how humans conduct themselves in society. At the end of the book, when the characters are beginning to regain their sight and the symptoms of white blindness are subsiding, the doctor’s wife tells her husband: “Do you want me to tell you what I think..I don’t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.” As the only character to never lose her sight, these words seem ironic, but she is touching on a parallel between the animalistic foundation they have been reduced to, and the blindness that precipitated this change.
In the same way that humans are forever capable of acting on their most base instincts, losing all boundaries of human decency, the doctor’s wife recognizes that the blindness is always there, behind the seeing, where the shadows and boundaries fall away, flooded by light. In this milky state, she has seen humans lose their sense of self, propriety, and hope, and understands that the threat is always imminent. As the only seeing person in the book, she has lived with this threat throughout the epidemic, and upon everyone else regaining their sight, she, not her ophthalmologist husband, diagnoses them. It is the seeing that is the condition, and blindness their natural state. It is seeing that gives each the foundation to construct identities and governments. But as humans, they each remain blind to their own blindness. They are unable, in their seeing state, to see the constant threat; they are unable to see the reversion back to the base, the animal, the blindness within.
If Saramago’s work is a parable, as I have proposed, it is a cautionary tale about the decisions of which we are capable when faced with harrowing choices and the haunting of ignorance. For it is sight that gives us knowledge, and when reasoned, knowledge that gives us insight. In the extraordinary circumstance of their blindness and the preservation of sight in the face of extreme misery (in the case of the doctor’s wife), Saramago’s characters are forced to make moral decisions on basic criteria – to eat or not to eat? To be naked or to be clothed? While these decisions may be insignificant to the seeing, provided for, or fortunate, to the afflicted and desperate, and as Saramago demonstrates, to all – they are the foundation of what makes us human.

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Mar 15, 2007

spencer rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

Like Stephen King without all the punctuation.

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

2 comments

Jan 28, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

(review of isbn 0151002517)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: deep, contemplative readers who aren't bothered by depressing topics

This book was a major challenge for me to finish. For that reason, I cannot give it more than two stars, maybe 2 1/2. I admire this author's cautionary tale, but there are so many parts that I did not like. The first half of the book drove me crazy with frustration. It took me quite a while to get used to the author's lack of grammar. I had a difficult time getting into the story. I still do not understand why names for the characters are unnecessary. I think that people can be called a n...more This book was a major challenge for me to finish. For that reason, I cannot give it more than two stars, maybe 2 1/2. I admire this author's cautionary tale, but there are so many parts that I did not like. The first half of the book drove me crazy with frustration. It took me quite a while to get used to the author's lack of grammar. I had a difficult time getting into the story. I still do not understand why names for the characters are unnecessary. I think that people can be called a name even if they are blind. It was very confusing.

Basically, a contagious disease of white blindness eventually overtakes a nation. No one can see anything but whiteness, except the eye doctor's wife. She can only help those in direct contact with her. She and her husband, along with other characters are quarantined at a mental asylum. Because no one can see, chaos ensues. While trapped in the asylum, under guard by the military, a group of blind thugs with a gun hijack the food supply and require the rest of the blind people to pay for the food with valuables. After there were no more valuables to pay with, then the thugs require that the women pay for everyone's food by servicing them sexually. I thought this part of the book to be uncomfortable and explicit. I can imagine and I don't need to know exactly how someone is forced into sexual relations with a bunch of animalistic men. Too much information! Another annoying and unnecessary plot point was when the eye doctor sleeps with the "girl with the dark glasses," whom I refer to as hooker girl. The wife who can see watches the whole thing and then cries with them about the entire situation. She never gets upset and they bond together afterward. I have a hard time believing this would even happen. Blindness does not equate to a complete loss of morals. The author just says that the one night stand between them happened and never explains why. It was lame. Then the hooker girl is in love with the old man with the eyepatch by the end of the book. Who did this author want this girl to be really?

Thank goodness for the last quarter of the book. By then, it was easier to read and more interesting. After the asylum burns to the ground, the story is much better with the final seven characters out in the city. I would've liked more of the story outside of the asylum. I am not doubting that quarantines would be used like crazy if large amounts of people started to go blind.

This book did make me think. Like I said, I can appreciate what Mr. Saramago was doing. He is a good writer for the right "reader." I am just not into his style of writing. I prefer a different type of doomsday novel. The ending was solid and happy after a whole bunch of depression and poop on the streets. Thank goodness! (less)

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Aug 28, 2007

مريم بانو rated it:

(review of isbn 964405069X)

bookshelves: رمان

كتاب كوري يكي از بهترين كتاب هايي بود كه من تا به حال خوندم. اينقدر در داستان غرق شده بودم كه حتي فرصت نوشتن جملات زيبايش را پيدا نكردم و به همين خاطر مي خوام در اولين فرصت براي بار دوم بخونمش تا جملات قشنگش رو براي هميشه براي خودم بنويسم....

خلاقيت نويسنده اش برام قابل تحسي...more

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Jul 11, 2007

Yulia rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: read-to-me-by-frank

Read in January, 2005

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This supposed classic falls apart after the midway point, when the patients who are quarantined escape the hospital and we realize the entire city has gone blind, leaving the reader to wonder, why did they remain in quarantine if the virus had spread beyond its walls and why did the army continue to give them meals even when those outside the city had to scrounge for food and chaos was overrunning the city? A greater meaning is never given to the epidemic (whether due to social, moral, or polit...more

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Jul 29, 2008

Becky rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: --2008--, 5-star, dystopias, fiction, loaned-out, owned, reviewed

Owns a copy — Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: Everyone

This was definitely a thought provoking book.

What would the world be like if we all suddenly lost our ability to see? Would we try to help and protect each other or would we adopt such a heightened sense of self-preservation that it would make every other living being an enemy? Would we lose our humanity along with our sense of identity...?

It took me a little while to get the feel for this book, literally. Dialogue was reduced to a disorienting jumble of voices, which w...more

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Jun 19, 2008

Saman added it (review of isbn 9643054748)

bookshelves: novel

Read in July, 2008

رمان خوف‌ناك و تفكرانگيز (كوري) يا ترجمه‌ي صحيح‌تر آن(نابينايي) با جملاتي كه در زير مي‌آيد شروع مي‌شود. سرآغاز كتاب هم اين چنين نوشته شده است
وقتي مي‌تواني ببيني، نگاه كن
وقتي مي‌تواني نگاه كني، رعايت كن
«از كتاب مواعظ»

كه صد البته چنين كتابي وجود خارجي ندار�...more رمان خوف‌ناك و تفكرانگيز (كوري) يا ترجمه‌ي صحيح‌تر آن(نابينايي) با جملاتي كه در زير مي‌آيد شروع مي‌شود. سرآغاز كتاب هم اين چنين نوشته شده است
وقتي مي‌تواني ببيني، نگاه كن
وقتي مي‌تواني نگاه كني، رعايت كن
«از كتاب مواعظ»

كه صد البته چنين كتابي وجود خارجي ندارد و نويسنده با اين سرآغاز مي‌خواهد نكته‌اي را در لفافه گوشزد كند: اين يك داستان موعظه‌وار است

درباره‌ي رمان (كوري) و نويسنده‌اش بسيار نوشته‌اند و اخيراً نيز پس از سال‌ها نويسنده‌اش اجازه‌ي به تصوير كشيدن داستانش را به يكي از استوديو‌‌هاي هاليوود داد و جشنواره كن امسال(2008) نيز با اين فيلم افتتاح شد

خواندن داستان (كوري) لذتي‌ست توام با ترس و تفكر: اگر من آنجا بودم چه كار مي‌كردم؟ اگر اين شرايط براي من پيش بيايد چه كار مي‌كنم؟ و يا اگر اين بلا نازل شود چه مي‌شود؟ و هزاران اگر ديگر

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689

***

چراغ زرد شد. دو اتوموبيل جلويي پيش از اين‌كه چرغ قرمز شود رد شدند. آدمك سبز براي پياده‌ها روشن شد. مردم كه منتظر بودند راه افتادند تا از روي خط‌هاي سفيد آسفالت از عرض خيابان رد شوند... سرانجام چراغ سبز شد، اوموبيل‌ها فوراً راه افتادند، اما بعد معلوم شد كه همه‌شان آنقدرها هم تر و فرز نيستند. اتومبيل جلو خط وسطي تكان نمي‌خورد، لابد عيبي پيدا كرده، پدال گاز شل شده، دنده جا نمي‌رود...اتومبيل‌هاي پشت سر يكريز بوق مي‌زنند... مردي كه توي اتومبيل نشسته سر به سويشان بر مي‌گرداند، اول به يك طرف و بعد به طرف ديگر، پيداست كه با داد و فرياد چيزي مي‌گويد، حركت لب‌هايش نشان مي‌دهد كه چند كلمه را تكرار مي‌كند، نه يك كلمه بل‌كه سه كلمه، چون بعد كه يكي به هر ترتيب در را باز مي‌كند، معلوم مي‌شود كه مي‌گويد: من كور شده‌ام
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Feb 07, 2009

HairycusHippocantropusErectusSimiriwingus rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: 2009, book-to-movies, fiksi

Read in April, 2009

bagaimana jika penduduk satu kota atau satu negara jadi mendadak buta semua?
repooooooooooot dan susaaaaaaaah mungkin itu jawabannya.

rada lama namatin buku ini karena beberapa faktor, misalnya ini buku bercerita tentang masyarakat yang sakit yang sering bikin gue brenti baca karena merasa mual dan gak kuat untuk nerusinnya. faktor lainnya yaitu sok2an baca dua versi bukunya yang edisi terjemahan dan edisi inggrisnya (e-book). faktor baca bolak2 itu mungkin jadi faktor kela...more
bagaimana jika penduduk satu kota atau satu negara jadi mendadak buta semua?
repooooooooooot dan susaaaaaaaah mungkin itu jawabannya.

rada lama namatin buku ini karena beberapa faktor, misalnya ini buku bercerita tentang masyarakat yang sakit yang sering bikin gue brenti baca karena merasa mual dan gak kuat untuk nerusinnya. faktor lainnya yaitu sok2an baca dua versi bukunya yang edisi terjemahan dan edisi inggrisnya (e-book). faktor baca bolak2 itu mungkin jadi faktor kelambanan baca buu ini. ketika mumet baca inggrisnya langsung switch ke edisi indonesianya. faktor lainnya mungkin karena keunikan buku ini yang samasekali tidak memakai nama untuk tiap karakternya. saramego hanya menyebut si buta pertama, istri dokter mata, apoteker, anak juling dll untuk tiap karakternya. faktor lainnya (untuk edisi inggris) sama sekali tidak memasukan tanda kutip untuk tiap dialog. dialognya hanya dipisahkan oleh tanda koma saja yang membuat pembaca harus berpikir ekstra untuk memahami sebuah dialog. apalagi ketika terjadi dialog beruntun yang kadang bikin bingung, sapa yang ngomong neh?
tapi kenapa buat yang edisi indonesia penerbitnya make tanda kutip buat dialognya? mungkin untuk "membantu" pembacanya biar gak terlalu bingung yah. itu pemikiran sotoy gue.

intinya, gue termasuk jarang baca buku dengan genre dystopia seperti ini, apalagi dengan gaya penulisan yang sedikit tidak umum. tapi gue suka ceritanya, meski endingnya gue dah bisa nebak mo kemana larinya. nah, abis baca bukunya trus nonton filmnya. wah, termasuk mengecewakan filmnya. penderitaan dan kesengsaraan tiap tokohnya nyaris tak sebanding dengan apa yang di gambarkan di bukunya. segitu aja deh

PS: adegan menjelang ending ketika tiga cewe mandi bareng di balkon malam-malam ketika sedang hujan benar-benar hiburan yang "menyegarkan" setelah tersiksa dengan begitu banyak penderitaan dan kengerian di sepanjang bukunya :D
------------------------------

PERHATIAN!!

ini buku punya gue, bukan punya adik gue, apalagi sodara :D

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May 07, 2008

Logan rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: dystopian-fiction, fiction, i_am_in_love

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Logan by: Lori Hettler
recommends it for: those who like dystopian fiction, the blind, all of humanity

This is an early contender for "book of the year" status. Many thanks to those who have recommended it to me, I would have missed out on an essential work of fiction.

It's written in a different style that eschews typical rules of punctuation and paragraphs, yet Blindness remains understandable to the lay reader in a way that the books of Cormac McCarthy do not. This book was incredibly haunting, painting a realistic portrayal of the darkness in the hearts of humanity and ...more

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Oct 07, 2007

marg rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

Since this will probably be my last pleasure read for a good long while, I'm thrilled it was such a good one. This was a random purchase at Steimetskys where they were having a buy one, get one half off special on fiction in English (thus justifying - somewhat - my purchase of The Saturday Wife, Khay) - anyway I had never heard of it but the Nobel for literature ribbon on the front seemed a good haskamah so I went with it - wow! One of the most meaningful, profound (read: depressing ;) reading...more Since this will probably be my last pleasure read for a good long while, I'm thrilled it was such a good one. This was a random purchase at Steimetskys where they were having a buy one, get one half off special on fiction in English (thus justifying - somewhat - my purchase of The Saturday Wife, Khay) - anyway I had never heard of it but the Nobel for literature ribbon on the front seemed a good haskamah so I went with it - wow! One of the most meaningful, profound (read: depressing ;) reading experiences I have had in a while - it is basically a tale of a nameless city (everyone, in fact is nameless, though, Khay, this is a bit better done than 'girl' and whatever else in the nanny books - but admittedly it got distracting, as well as the fact that he doesn't break for dialogue, the only sign that someone new is speaking is a comma and a capital and there is little attribution - a touch shticky and I am still contemplating the significance) where there is an outbreak of white blindness, ie, a person is merrily minding his business when all of a sudden all he can see is white. There seems to be no cause and it seems highly contagious, so the government decides to quarantine the blinds as a means of capping the outbreak - so basically what you have is some Lord of the Flies themes of the struggle within man (animal, survival, brutality etc) as well as the emergence of heroism, but as cliched as that sounds, it is done so well and so poignantly, all the more because the concept of blindness (and white blindness at that) carries with it so many themes and layers of meaning. On occasion I thought he overstepped and made his meaning a little too clear, the symbolism and whatnot, but for the most part it worked as a beautiful allegory and a means of expressing some truly breathtaking philosophy. This was a great companion as my two hour layover in Budapest became five - I couldn't put it down, though it is a coarse book, be warned, but truly worthwhile. It seems he has a follow up, 'Seeing' (go figure) but I suspect it is Mr Bridge to Mrs Bridge. Part of the power of Blindness was that it was its own entity, I think.
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Jun 25, 2007

Don Rea rated it:

(review of isbn 0151002517)

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

Wow, this is a book that will stick in the mind. At the narrative level it's simply an exploration of what would happen if everyone in a modern nation were to become blind. The breakdown of sanitation, food distribution and the normal social order are described in just enough detail to make the reader squirm and cringe, from the viewpoint (so to speak) of the the one eyewitness who is spared, and her companions. The story is told in a matter-of-fact voice that makes the worst degradations just b...more

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8 comments

May 17, 2009

John rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: avatars--gods--energy-sources, fine-strange-foreign

Read in January, 2005

recommended to John by: Josh Weiner, a fine poet
recommends it for: readers who want to know the world in its noisy entirety

(1st, special thanks to Michelle W for the cattle prod)

Recently I dipped again into this one, as I dusted off a few of the artifacts picked up during my heart's recent resurrection. Not that I'm unaware of the novel's haul: the Nobel for literature, for one, & well-nigh 13000 reviews here on GR for another. To toss in my own two cents suggests the sound of coins falling in an empty forest. Yet then I revisit this brutal yet balanced fairytale, & I find I've got to offer up someth...more (1st, special thanks to Michelle W for the cattle prod)

Recently I dipped again into this one, as I dusted off a few of the artifacts picked up during my heart's recent resurrection. Not that I'm unaware of the novel's haul: the Nobel for literature, for one, & well-nigh 13000 reviews here on GR for another. To toss in my own two cents suggests the sound of coins falling in an empty forest. Yet then I revisit this brutal yet balanced fairytale, & I find I've got to offer up something. BLINDNESS, let's note for starters, bear the specific weight of a certain history. Yes, in summary it seems to take place outside of any particular social or political frame, recalling the famous parable out of Plato -- the story follows a few people, decent & otherwise, around a more or less recognizably modern civilization in which everyone has suddenly & inexplicably lost his or her sight (w/ one exception, but more on that later). Nonetheless Saramango derived his inspiration from the blandly repressive dictatorship that ruled Portugal through most of the 20th C. To a free-thinker such as him, his culture must often have felt like a case of the blind leading the blind. More significantly, his is another city-novel, another perverse celebration of urban life under threat of collapse, one of a line stretching back through Calvino's & Mahfouz's & those of a couple dozen others, all the way back to ULYSSES. Saramango's metropolitan nightmare even takes the shape of blocklong paragraphs. He indicates changes of perception & speaker via commas & capitals, & never offers so much as the clear parking space afforded by a pair of quotation marks. This Gotham, in narrative terms, gets just a nudge. Yet the epidemic -- & its lone case of immunity, a loving wife who spends most of the novel pretending to be blind -- amounts to an unassailable case of genius. Every touch rings city-true, from the unpredictable person-on-person caroms that create new allegiances to the discovery of how our comforts are hammocked in a badly-frayed web. So the newly blind have nowhere to go but into a suburban asylum like a concentration camp, soon enough littered w/ shit & blood & more than a few corpses. Every hardship gets fingered & sniffed, in particular the devastation & abuse brought on by a Mafia of the blind, in the explosive central episodes that, at no small cost, release Saramango's core of pilgrims to wander back into the city proper. By now these are people of genuine emotional resonance, in yet another miracle of storytelling, since not only are readers deprived quotation in the usual sense, they've also gotten this far w/out learning anyone's name. After that point, the city scenes are played like a trump card, affording Saramango's most provocative extrapolations out of his core paradox. There's the lone sighted woman feeling her way, terrified, around a pitch-black supermarket basement, or the damaged old man, enriched by his damages, who develops a relationship of equals w/ the pretty young thing of the group. For those who care about the fate of the novel, at this moment when its prospects seem to grow dim, BLINDNESS is a reassertion of how much the baggy old form can still contain, & how it can still generate honest passion, not a mere manipulation of the gestures that stand in for passion. Beyond that, for all the narrative's cold clarity about moral & other failings, & about the greedy obliviousness of worldly powers, this is finally what the Shakespeare scholar Bradley would call a "white tragedy," a passage through the inferno that arrives at a greater breadth of humanity, & the challenge of what to do w/ that falls back on the reader. As Saramango reminds us, in a notably brief & straightforward closing line: "The city was still there." (less)

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Nov 11, 2008

Diana rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

This isn't a fun read, but extremely thought provoking and well written. I highly recommend it. It won the Nobel Prize for Lit. and is translated from Portugese.

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Jul 28, 2008

Sera rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: literary-fiction

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Sera by: TNBBC

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

*SPOILERS FOR BLINDESS AND THE ROAD*

I thought that Blindness was a great book. However, like The Road, I can't seem to give it 5 stars; nor can I put it on my top 10 list of favorite books. Although very unique, I don't think that it will become a classic, and it also didn't leave me saying "wow" when it was over. However, for those of you who know me understand that I tend to get picky when I review the books that I've read, and as usual, it shou...more *SPOILERS FOR BLINDESS AND THE ROAD*

I thought that Blindness was a great book. However, like The Road, I can't seem to give it 5 stars; nor can I put it on my top 10 list of favorite books. Although very unique, I don't think that it will become a classic, and it also didn't leave me saying "wow" when it was over. However, for those of you who know me understand that I tend to get picky when I review the books that I've read, and as usual, it shouldn't detract anyone from reading this fine novel. I would recommend it to everyone whom I know.

With that said, I found the book to be incredibly distrubing. The battle of the good versus evil in humans is prevalent, even when the nation is facing its most dire times. The primitive aspects of humans was also shocking, because the novel portrayed us as animals at various times. But what would happen if everyone went blind? How we would we manage as a society? The point that Saramago makes is that we likely wouldn't, althought he does allude at times to some semblence of organization in this choatic society and he makes more than one reference to the need for a governing body to take the lead in holding that society together.

Someone made the comment in one of the threads that I read that the interned blind citizens reminded her of how we treated the displaced during hurricane Katrina. When examined in that context, it made the book so much more realistic and led me to feel uncertain about whether I would have the will to survive under those circumstances. How does one keep faith or hope? How does one avoid going mad under such inhumane conditions? I don't know, and God knows, I hope that I never find out.

The doctor's wife is the heroine of the story, because she is the only one who can see. Because of this, she is forced to make certain choices and she is burdened by what she witnesses around her. I thought that her character was well-crafted and touched the range of emotions that most would have felt if her position, but would each of us been as brave? Would some of us have abused the advantage that we had over everyone else?

We take so much for granted in this society from working bathrooms to the generous amounts of food and water that we consume on a daily basis. It was amazing to read what life would be like if our infrastructure collapsed, and it made me think of the fact that there are still people in this modern world who don't have these necessities available to them. No, this read is not an uplifting one, and unlike The Road, I didn't feel that there was a sign of hope at the end.

The first 2/3 of the book is a roller coaster ride, and then the last 1/3 slows down a bit until its conclusion. As usual, I was a tad bit disappointed with the ending, but I guess the only other options were the end of the world or the reestablishment of a society filled with blind people. It would have been interesting, I think, to get some insight into the latter, which would have given the book more of a life go on approach even when the worst had happened. Instead, I only imagined that everything would need to be cleaned-up and reorganized, but then life would then get back to normal. But would it? Would it change the way these people behaved toward each other after what they had experienced? Some would change I'm sure, but many would likely remain the same, too. Therefore, the message of the author (assuming he had one) gets a little cloudy here.(less)

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