From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

Blindness

José Saramago

Start date: October 1, 2016

Finish date: October 15, 2016

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

Discussion leader: Gertie

Why we're reading this: Book discussion for mid-October, read by October 15th. Interim discussion in the meantime, discussion fou…more
[close] Book discussion for mid-October, read by October 15th. Interim discussion in the meantime, discussion found here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

TEXT BELOW PROVIDED BY A MEMBER OF THE GROUP: 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.

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What Members Thought

Mar 03, 2009 Christy rated it really liked it

Shelves: dystopian, books-for-teaching, world-lit

Blindness is also this, to live in a world where all hope is gone. (188)

Jose Saramago's Blindness describes what happens when, for no clear reason, everyone goes blind. This blindness reaches all but one character in the novel and is apparently spread through contact. In response to the spreading blindness, the government quarantines those who have already gone blind as well as those who have been exposed to the blind. The novel follows one particular group that has been quarantined in an abandoned mental institution, where they have no one to help them (except one woman who lied about being blind to stay with her husband and who cannot let the others know that she can see for fear of being abused or made a slave) and only sporadic and insufficient deliveries of food. With no clear leadership, no way to fix things or clean their surroundings, and no supplies with which to take care of themselves and the institution, the place quickly becomes a disgusting mess that is run by whoever can control the food.

Blindness is bleak, depressing, and even, at times, horrific. It forces the reader to experience the world of the characters (all but one of whom have mysteriously gone blind) as they deal with their captivity and their blindness. It is a difficult book to read--partly because of its style, which reinforces in its long paragraphs and unclear delineation of dialogue the claustrophobia and confusion of the situation, and partly because of its content, which includes blood, shit, death (from starvation, illness, injury, and murder), and rape.

In the world of the novel, humanity is but a thin layer of decency and civility laid over untold depths of savagery. And this decency is, it seems, enforced solely by the knowledge that, in the normal world, you are always seen by others and held accountable. In a world where everyone is blind, however, no one can see you shit in the hallway, steal other people's food, or even kill. No one knows who you are. In this world of blindness to human identity, anything goes. As one character says, "Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are . . . People, too, no one will be there to see them" (114). If this is true, then what people really are is selfish, violent, and, ultimately, alone.

In the end, I kept reading this book, which was so hard and so painful, not just because of my own compulsion to finish a book I've begun, not just because it is masterfully written and crafted, but because I was holding out hope for hope. I was waiting for the book to provide some glimmer of hope in all of its horror. But this is the best it can provide in the way of hope:

The only miracle we can perform is to go on living, said the woman, to preserve the fragility of life from day to day, as if it were blind and did not know where to go, and perhaps it is like that, perhaps it really does not know, it placed itself in our hands, after giving us intelligence, and this is what we have made of it. (266)

And here is my biggest (and really my only) problem with Blindness. It is a book that is about what it means to be human, about what makes life worth living, and about what has gone wrong in the world; however, it is a book that, in my opinion, thinks too little of people and the possibilities that still exist for decency, consideration of others, and love.

In the end, this book, well-written as it is, is just too cynical for me. ...more

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Nov 02, 2008 🥀 Rose 🥀 rated it liked it

Shelves: drama-fiction, dystopian-speculative-fiction

Let me start off by saying I am not entirely sure I would recommend this book. The book is a bit of a downer and is almost entirely a book that is one big metaphor using blindness. This is a story about the world all turning blind with the exception of one woman which the story is told thru her eyes. It is how we only see what we want to see or love is blind and uses various situations to drive this point home. The narrative is hard to get used to at first, but you quickly adjust. It disorients ...more

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May 02, 2009 Hectaizani rated it liked it

Read this for the Pfluegerville Book Club's April meeting. It was my suggestion as I'd heard so many good things about the book including its status as a modern classic and the movie preview looked good.

I found the constant run-on sentences very distracting, and also the author's choice to not use names. I believe that was to show how much society devolved and depersonalized, yet I would think that one's name would become more important, not less if suddenly the context of vision was removed.
...more

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May 06, 2012 Aaron rated it really liked it

Shelves: apocalyptic

I enjoyed the book! No chapter numbers and no chapter names helped this book give me a sense of disorientation. The occasional philosophical quip - the nuggets of gold - wind their way through this book, translated from the Portugese. A good solid read. I found this book through having come across the movie a few years ago...and I am glad to have followed through with reading the book. Some minor changes, but overall, consistent.

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