Blindness in The Alternative Worlds

Mar 28, 2008 Brad rated it did not like it

Shelves: most-hated

Not at all disturbing, not at all compelling and not at all interesting, Jose Saramago's Blindness only succeeds in frustrating readers who take a moment to let their imagination beyond the page. Yes, Saramago's story is a clever idea, and, yes, he creates an intentional allegory to force us to think about the nature of humanity, but his ideas are clearly those of a privileged white male in a privileged European nation. Not only do his portrayals of women and their men fall short of the mark, bu ...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Nicky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopia, speculative-fiction

The idea of being blind scares me quite a bit. Not as much as cancer, maybe, but it's up there. Unfortunately, it's quite likely that I will. Which made reading this very uncomfortable for me, because although I know it won't happen like this for me, still... Anyway, Blindness is a very evocative book: the breathless style, which I now know is typical of Saramago's work, suits the story very well, and so does the namelessness of all the protagonists. All of it serves to create that formless blan ...more

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Mar 08, 2014 Figgy marked it as owned-but-not-read

Shelves: buddy-read, buddy-read-aly

The paragraphs in this thing are massive...

Opening to a random page gave me a paragraph that was 13.5 PAGES long.

As excited as I am about this book, I'm weary of it now. ...more

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Sep 30, 2008 Sandi rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2008, literature, post-apocalyptic-dystopian

I give "Blindness" four stars simply for the artistry of its creation. The story itself is unbelievably depressing until the very end. But, it's so poetic and dreamlike. It's rich in symbolism. I can't say that this is one of the very best books I've ever read, but it is very good. ...more

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May 14, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: not-my-cup-of-tea, literary-pretentious, translated, did-not-finish, from-library

Saramago's style is just totally unreadable. I generously gave the book two chapters, skipped ahead to the middle and end, and discovered that it's like this throughout the entire book: run-on sentences, dialogue offset only by commas and never separated by paragraphs, nary a quotation mark to be seen. Now, I don't mind when an author subverts a few grammatical rules to make a point or enhance his or her style. Totally disregarding them, on the other hand, is just sadistic.

Since this is a transl ...more

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