Blindness

by José Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero (Translator)

book data

15,344 ratings, 4.01 average rating, 2,610 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		39%
4		34%
3		18%
2		5%
1		2%

edit

published

August 11th 2008 (first published 1995) by Harcourt

binding

Paperback, 327 pages

literary awards

1998 Nobel Prize for Literature

isbn

0156035588 (isbn13: 9780156035583)

description

In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of bein...more

[close] In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he "were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea." A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor's office. Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum--guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape. So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege, written with a dearth of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. At first this may seem challenging, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.

In this community of blind people there is still one set of functioning eyes: the doctor's wife has affected blindness in order to accompany her husband to the asylum. As the number of victims grows and the asylum becomes overcrowded, systems begin to break down: toilets back up, food deliveries become sporadic; there is no medical treatment for the sick and no proper way to bury the dead. Inevitably, social conventions begin to crumble as well, with one group of blind inmates taking control of the dwindling food supply and using it to exploit the others. Through it all, the doctor's wife does her best to protect her little band of blind charges, eventually leading them out of the hospital and back into the horribly changed landscape of the city.

Blindness is in many ways a horrific novel, detailing as it does the total breakdown in society that follows upon this most unnatural disaster. Saramago takes his characters to the very edge of humanity and then pushes them over the precipice. His people learn to live in inexpressible filth, they commit acts of both unspeakable violence and amazing generosity that would have been unimaginable to them before the tragedy. The very structure of society itself alters to suit the circumstances as once-civilized, urban dwellers become ragged nomads traveling by touch from building to building in search of food. The devil is in the details, and Saramago has imagined for us in all its devastation a hell where those who went blind in the streets can never find their homes again, where people are reduced to eating chickens raw and packs of dogs roam the excrement-covered sidewalks scavenging from corpses.

And yet in the midst of all this horror Saramago has written passages of unsurpassed beauty. Upon being told she is beautiful by three of her charges, women who have never seen her, "the doctor's wife is reduced to tears because of a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, mere grammatical categories, mere labels, just like the two women, the others, indefinite pronouns, they too are crying, they embrace the woman of the whole sentence, three graces beneath the falling rain." In this one woman Saramago has created an enduring, fully developed character who serves both as the eyes and ears of the reader and as the conscience of the race. And in Blindness he has written a profound, ultimately transcendent meditation on what it means to be human. --Alix Wilber

[close]

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | compare prices…

new topic
discuss this book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Reading from the ...: What is your favorite film adaption of a novel?	60	73	6 minutes ago
The Next Best Boo...: OFFICIAL SUMMER CHALLENGE 2009	3877	4525	19 minutes ago
The Next Best Boo...: What are you reading?	13080	11053	1 hour, 0 min ago

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 22,370)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only

06/18/07

William rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

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

Like this review? yes (38 people liked it)

4 comments

02/16/09

... rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

Read in March, 2009

The basic premise of the book is that one person goes blind. The blindness is contagious. It is a complete mystery as to how it is transferred or where it stems from. Yet there is one person in the story that is somehow immune to it all (interestingly enough this person is not the narrator). There is so much going on, that it is impossible to really write what I think about all of it, so I will try narrowing it down to a couple of things…for brevity’s sake.

In a life-long effort...more

Like this review? yes (22 people liked it)

30 comments

07/17/08

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

Like this review? yes (13 people liked it)

4 comments

05/29/07

Sammy rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: 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

Like this review? yes (12 people liked it)

add a comment

04/23/07

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

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

2 comments

05/24/08

Shannon rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

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

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

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

13 comments

08/26/07

Marieke rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

Has a copy to sell/swap — 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)

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

6 comments

12/26/07

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.

(less)

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

1 comment

01/28/08

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)

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

11 comments

07/11/07

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

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

7 comments

07/29/08

Becky rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: 5-star, dystopias, fiction, loaned-out, owned, owned-read, recommended-to-me, reviewed

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

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

5 comments

02/07/09

Erie 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

(less)

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

31 comments

05/07/08

Logan rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: dystopic-fiction, essential-books-for-a-library, fiction

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

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

add a comment

10/07/07

margueya 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.
(less)

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

5 comments

06/25/07

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

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

8 comments

05/17/09

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)

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

2 comments

11/11/08

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.

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

add a comment

07/28/08

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)

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

add a comment

06/05/08

Tara rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: peaked-my-interest, thoroughly-enjoyed-it

Read in July, 2008

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

I decided to read this book after one of the men in my book club told me about it. I thought the plot was extremely fascinating so I figured it was worth a read. I wasn't disappointed.

Blindess is about the sudden white-blindness a city descends into and the madness and inhumanity that follows. Only one person out of the hundreds can see, the wife of a doctor. The doctor is also one of the victims of the sudeen white blindness. It's a white blindness because the victims see nothi...more I decided to read this book after one of the men in my book club told me about it. I thought the plot was extremely fascinating so I figured it was worth a read. I wasn't disappointed.

Blindess is about the sudden white-blindness a city descends into and the madness and inhumanity that follows. Only one person out of the hundreds can see, the wife of a doctor. The doctor is also one of the victims of the sudeen white blindness. It's a white blindness because the victims see nothing but white light when they go blind (as opposed to sudden blackness or darkness). There is no explanation for the sudden onset of this blindness and there appears to be no cure. One minute, you can see and the next, you can't.

The story focuses on the wife who can see, the doctor, another husband/wife couple, a young woman who wears dark glasses, an old man with an eye patch, a little boy and a dog who befriends the "seeing" wife. In the early days of the blindness, the government locks away all of the victims, hoping that the "epidemic" can be contained. Blind victims are sent to the empty mental hospital and kept there with little food, water and clean bedding. The Government has placed soldiers, with orders to kill, around the perimeter of the hospital, and those soldiers follow orders closely.

As the hospital fills with the blind, a society of terror and torture develops, when a handful of blind internees decides to horde the meager food rations and make the other blind internees pay for small portions. First the payments are made with valuables the internees brought with them, then, the payments are made with the women. The small group of men demand that the women serve as payment for the meager food supplies. The doctor's wife, devises a plan to stop the atrocities the other women in the building suffer at the hands of these men (monsters more like) and sneaks in with a group of women from another ward. She quickly kills the leader and fighting ensues, with several more men dying while the women escape the brutality of rape and humiliation. Then, the fighting goes outside, where all is still. The Government has finally fallen to the same fate as its citizens, it has gone blind.

The doctor's wife leads the group out of the hospital and manages to get them safely to the home her and her husband shared before being sent to the hospital for quarantine. She figures out ways to feed the blind group with her, all while crying into the matted fur of the dog, who met up with them as they walked the streets. Then, one day, things begin to change. Slowly, people begin to regain their sight. The sight comes on as unexpectedly as the blindness and the whole time, the doctor's wife has been the only person to witness the descent and subsequent ascent of humanity.

This book is written without names and without quotation marks. That was one thing that irritated me. I had a time figuring out who was talking as there were no quotations to show that a person was talking and when numerous characters talked, their speeches ran together and it was easy to get lost in who was talking. Other than that minor grammatical nuisance, I found this story very enjoyable and chilling. It was an excellent "what if" type of story, examining what people would become if they lost "way" and by losing the way, were given the freedom to do whatever they wanted. It showed how illness and the unexplained, can lead to fear, loathing and rash judgments by those in power. It also showed how truly powerful love is and possibly, that through blindness can we truly see who our allies and enemies are. There is a sequel to this book and I'm looking forward to reading it. It is called "Seeing" and picks up 4 years after society has regained its eyesight. This is not the kind of book that should be read quickly, but rather slowly so it can truly be absorbed. It is a good book and I really enjoyed it.(less)

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

3 comments

05/16/08

bobherzog zog rated it:

(review of isbn 0156007757)

bookshelves: novels

Read in May, 2008

I don't know why I'm giving this book 4 stars, but for some reason I respected it.

The story is depressing, the characters aren't that unique or compelling (this is done on purpose, I believe, you know the everyman Hitchcockian thing), and the dialogue is awkward (he tries to offset this by keeping the dialogue within the prose, with no quotation marks, trying to give it a less concrete feel). I know he wants it to have an anytime-anyplace feeling, but that doesn't excuse some of the...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment