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

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Aug 21, 2010 Jeff Scott rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, surreal, bleak, stream-of-consciousness, portuguese-fiction, to-own

Blindness

A man driving his car stops at a red light, at that moment he becomes blind, a white blindness. The blindness spreads leading the government to quarantine those blind or exposed. What happens next comes a downward spiral where the characters not only lose their sight but much more.

Saramago is a god and in almost every story he plays with us mere mortals in order to find our true nature. In Blindness, we see how blind we can become to our own humanity and decency. The situations are horr Blindness

A man driving his car stops at a red light, at that moment he becomes blind, a white blindness. The blindness spreads leading the government to quarantine those blind or exposed. What happens next comes a downward spiral where the characters not only lose their sight but much more.

Saramago is a god and in almost every story he plays with us mere mortals in order to find our true nature. In Blindness, we see how blind we can become to our own humanity and decency. The situations are horrible and bleak. The book also reminded me of Lord of the Flies, but instead of lack of parents, the lack of sight results in savagery. I had trouble believing that the loss of sight would result in such terrible acts, but that's a distraction on my part, the blindness is simply a vehicle for Saramago's commentary. What we do when we are blind may be what we do in the dark, when no one is looking and by being blind do we reveal who we really are, our true nature?

"He had even reached the point of thinking that the darkness in which the blind live was nothing other than the simple absence of light, that what we call blindness was something that simply covered the appearance of beings and things, leaving them intact behind their black veil." chap 1

"Then, as if he had just discovered something that he should have known a long time ago, he murmured sadly, This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice."chap2

"we're so re- mote from the world that any day now, we shall no longer know who we are, or even remember our names, and besides, what use would names be to us, no dog recognises another dog or knows the others by the names they have been given, a dog is identified by its scent and that is how it identifies others, here we are like another breed of dogs, we know each other's bark or speech, as for the rest, features, colour of eyes or hair, they are of no importance, it is as if they did not exist" chap 3

"The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality" chap4

"whether there exists a direct rela- tionship between the eyes and feelings, or whether the sense of responsibility is the natural consequence of clear vision, but when we are in great distress and plagued by pain and anguish that is when the animal side of our nature becomes most appar- ent."chap11

"when we were interned, we went down all the steps of indignity, all of them, until we reached total degradation, the same might hap- pen here albeit in a different way, there we still had the excuse that the degradation belonged to someone else, not now, now we are all equal regarding good and evil, please, don't ask me what good and what evil are, we knew what it was each time we had to act when blindness was an exception, what is right and what is wrong are simply different ways of understanding our relationships with the others, not that which we have with our- selves, one should not trust the latter," chap12

"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." ...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Katie rated it it was amazing

Awesome. Disturbing. Very, very cool stuff.

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Oct 04, 2008 Cindy rated it did not like it

Shelves: didnt-live-up-to-the-hype, dnf

I'm having a very hard time reading this book. Due to the lack of punctuation and the long rambling sentences that go on and on, I can't pay attention to the blasted thing. I really want to read this book but I just might have to give it up as a lost cause. ...more

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Dec 23, 2007 Judy rated it did not like it

Shelves: stopped-reading

I didn't *read* this book; I started it. It seems very good, and that's the problem - it is a scary, intense story, and too intense for me at the time. Maybe later... ...more

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