Rating: 
Summary: dafever has no clue
Review: You say you are portuguese-american but you show a total ignorance of portuguese culture. I think you should give it up, and try with a portuguese-american author like Salinger, King, or Sheldon. Readers might appreciate that you write about what you understand
Rating: 
Summary: The jury is still out
Review: At times Blindness is deep, eloquent, and brilliant, at other times it is pedantic, sloppy, and too graphic (the rape/orgy scenes in the mental asylum weren't really necessary to the story). I wonder if some of the weaknesses in Blindness are the translator's fault? IMO, Blindness is a good book, but it's not a great one -- I don't think it deserves a Pulitzer Prize. I'll read Blindness again IF another translation comes out. Can't really give Blindness a hearty recommendation that's why it gets only three stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: Saramago has created a world so frightening that I can't imagine living in it. But unfortunately I already do. I regongnized each of the characters as people I encounter on a daily basis. From the weak to strong, good to evil, emotional to the resolute. I am amazed that I have never before thought about our world in such confining terms. If you can stomach the punctuation I recommend this to everybody.
Rating: 
Summary: A clumsy allegory by a sheltered intellectual
Review: Mr. Saramago has written a rather clumsy attempt at allegory that suffers from the unoriginality of its premise (i.e., we are blind, not physically, but morally and ethically). The use of physical blindness for moral blindness is so obvious - and undramatic - that I kept reading the book believing that there must be something more to it. Unfortunately, there was not.It is too bad, as I found the premise itself - what would happen if suddenly everyone went blind - fascinating. I had always wanted "The Day of the Triffids" without the Triffids - a pure exploration of the consequences of society having to regroup minus a pretty fundamental sense. Exacerbating the matter, Saramago waffles between filling the narrative with realistic and precise detail of what goes on - much of it unnecessarily lurid - and backing away from such detail just when it would help the narrative most. For example: he spends a lot of time describing the raping of women in the asylum for the blind, but not a lot on how quickly society degenerates into depression and chaos. The problem is, Saramago cannot decide how much of a magical realist fable he wants "Blindness" to be, and so is uneven in the amount of effort he spends to make a given situation believable. Writers with more skill, like Mikhail Bulgakov, Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Bohumil Hrabal, have better juggled the two worlds of fable and realism, and it is impossible to read Saramago's "Blindness" without wishing it had been written by one of them.
Rating:
Summary: The new and old society
Review: Everyone agrees that this era has changed and evolved (or not at all) faster than any other era in the history of mankind. That's the key, history of our culture seen from our own point of view. How do we see us as a culture, as a species in a defined time and space? What are we?, Really. The Portuguese writer José Saramago (recently awarded the Literature Nobel Price) gives us a shocking review about ourselves, based on a hypothetical situation which makes the novel even more interesting. We guarantee that from the minute you open this book you will not let it down until you've finished it. It's amazing to see you in a mirror, not as an individual but as the human collective that has lived in this world for a while. It's our duty anyway to tell you that you might not like what you're going to see, even though it's completely accurate. If you don't believe it, check any universal history book you have. His narrative quality is unquestionable and it involves you like you were sewed to the fabric, to the comfortable blanket on which we all set the reading pleasures. You may not agree with me about the reflection of Humanity in this novel, and I would congratulate you dearly for the high hopes you've set on the race. But remember that this is not a matter of future events, it's about the exact way we have become what we are; as regretful as it is. Our intention (and we dare to say Saramago's too) is not to make a judgment about our history and the way we are, but to have the opportunity to see beyond this time or any time and have, a slight idea at least, of what we could be able to do, and more importantly, of what we've done. HI again from Venezuela everyone. Jesús Esparza-Terife
Rating:
Summary: not as good as Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Review: This is a good read. The epidemic of blindness could easily be substituted for any kind of severe crisis that cripples society as a whole. It serves to show what people will do in situations of anarchy. Most will behave in a selfish, although not intentionally evil way. A small proportion will drift to the poles of human existence --- to commit dreadfully evil acts, or acts of uncommon kindness. The writing style is very interesting. Saramago is able to avoid using any real names of any characters, and yet I never got tired of hearing the characters referred to as "the first blind man's wife" continually through the book. Well worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: Vaguely deep but not very moving ...
Review: Confession: I read this book because I am Portuguese-American and I thought this might be a good opportunity to read a Portuguese author for the first time. To address a previous reviewer ("How in the world did this book win a Nobel Prize?") I want to point out that the Nobel Prize is frequently awarded to books that are allegorical, metaphorical and abstract. Saramago's work fits right in on the Nobel Prize shelf. The book is neither compelling nor exciting. I found the inhumanity theme not very realistic. I didn't believe that people would be inhumane that way. And at other times, I could believe that people would be so cooperative. There is no overt moral urgency, only the vague feeling that the words written on the pages are mearly scribblings on the surface of some deeply looming moral iceburg. On finishing the book (finally), I am left wondering what the epidemic blindness represented. Why the strange exception? Are we all blind to something obvious in our society? Have we lost the ability to see (or love) our fellow humans? Who among us is the one who can see? And why? Read this book for posterity, not for excitement or edification. If you want the edification of it, I'll tell you the story in 150 words.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: I have never read Jose Saramago before, but if "Blindness" is representative of his work, he certainly deserves the Nobel prize. A novel of the first order, and one that will be read for decades to come.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read
Review: Few books have been as enthralling as this work by Saramago. His view of our inherent human nature is accurately depicted by his magnificent storyline. It's hard to imagine an epidimic of this sorts actually taking place. Saramago not only makes it believable, but he also showcases the harsh reality of societal reaction to such an epidemic. A must-read for all.
Rating:
Summary: absorbing, beautifully ugly, overworked theme though...
Review: Camus with a more delicate touch perhaps, Lord of the Flies without the child-monster aspect, maybe a bit of Orwell's 1984...It reads like a short story, not a novel, perhaps best read at one sitting.....Worth reading for the deft descriptions that blossom unexpectedly every handful of pages or so....i am a bit tired of reading about the common ugliness of the human species....it is so apparent in our daily lives and distilled into the television and newspapers, that I tend to seek escape from this when i read....but there is enough craftsmanship in this to generate an apprecation for the author's talents.....his fairly detailed rendering of the female characters could generate some good class discussion....also the status of the blind accountant among the recently blinded....and although I didn't see anything particularly new in the details, the various examples given of attempting to organize groups from chaos (for good and evil ends, both) are interesting to compare and think about.
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