Blindness in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jun 05, 2008 Tara rated it it was amazing

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

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 nothing but white ligh 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. ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

May 25, 2020 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, fiction, euro-fiction, classics, portugal

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. CW: sexual assault; pandemic; death. This review references some of these events.

Listening to this during a pandemic was quite the experience. I would never have chosen to do so on my own, but it's for a book club, so I decided to go ahead with it despite my concerns. It was ok. There were times when I had to put it down for my own mental health, but mostly sudden white blindness and the specific events of the book were different enough from my COVID19 experience that they were not particularly CW: sexual assault; pandemic; death. This review references some of these events.

Listening to this during a pandemic was quite the experience. I would never have chosen to do so on my own, but it's for a book club, so I decided to go ahead with it despite my concerns. It was ok. There were times when I had to put it down for my own mental health, but mostly sudden white blindness and the specific events of the book were different enough from my COVID19 experience that they were not particularly triggery. The story follows a group of people suddenly stricken with white blindness, which soon becomes a pandemic that breaks down society. The group of main characters is sent to a quarantine site, where conditions devolve into the appalling, and then when they manage to get out (no spoilers), society has disintegrated in most ways and they have to fend for themselves, but they decide to do so as a group. I appreciated Saramago's main point - that the most beautiful world is created out of suffering - and appreciated the audiobook narration, which was good, something that I rarely say for fiction audiobooks. I did read that Saramago, whose other books I've not yet read, tended to use a lot of run-on sentences and not mark dialogue in this and some of his other books, which could make them hard to read, so listening might have actually been the better option for me (and many people) on this one, leaving the narrator to figure out how to interpret sentences and where to put pauses.

There is one major reason, however, I gave this book three rather than four stars. Somewhere in the middle, between hours four and five of the audio, there is a gang rape scene, involving numerous women, that last for almost the entire hour on audio. It is on-the-page, and was incredibly difficult for me to listen to, and I am not a survivor. I would urge extreme restraint for anyone who is or for whom this is otherwise a triggery topic. Maybe just skip that whole passage, which you could easily do and not miss much of the underlying idea. The whole scene gave me much pause, as I found myself wondering if I'd ever read a fiction book written by a woman that included such a long and detailed rape scene (and concluded I had not, though I'm sure maybe some exist? Maybe?). And for what? It was visceral, but I'm not sure I needed that additional scene, in such length and detail, to get the point. The conditions were already horrid, and even the reference to such a scene, taking place off-page, would have been bone-chilling. I'm not at all sure that it was necessary, and I came away irritated that I had listened to it - I'll never be able to unhear it. ...more

Like · see review

Sep 17, 2007 Kristen rated it really liked it

A powerful book chronicling an obscure communicable blindness of cataclysmic proportions. After coupling this with The Road, I'd best move onto some lighter reading or I just may take the bridge. I was thrilled to learn that a movie adaption will be released in the fall of 08. Can't wait. ...more

Like · see review