Blindness

Rating:
Summary: Me, too!! Both thumbs up!
Review: Blindness is, without doubt, the best novel I've read this year and it goes on the best of all time list.

Not only does Saramago tell a tale of morality on several levels he does so in a style all his own which, when combined with the subject matter, only serves to emphasize the point: We are all blind.

Rating:
Summary: Tense, taut, horrific.
Review: "Blindness" plunges into the greatest of fears...a dark humanity with little hope, love, or compassion. In this world of despair and helplessness, only the sighted doctor's wife can reinstate some purpose where none can be found amidst this diseased, inexplicable whiteness. Yet, I did not enjoy this book...quarter Science Fiction, three quarters Social Commentary. Though the prose proves suitable, it's nearly impossible to become engrossed in the painfully tedious sentences. (Don't even think about finishing this novel in one sitting.)

Rating:
Summary: I continue to think about this book.
Review: There are so many levels on which this book makes an impact. Saramago creates a Hobbsian state into which society is plunged - brutish and cold. The stark reality is countered by the beautiful souls he creates and the thread of living events he carries them through. The story is magnificently enhanced by his prose. Once you get into the meter and the punctuation, the words draw you through the story. I can't remember the last time I read a novel that represented a new form and so well accomplished. He truly deserved the Nobel.

Rating:
Summary: A multisensual experience, read it !
Review: Each new Saramagu carries with it, for me, great expectations as well as fear of disappointment. Blindness is nothing but genius. Being the best contemporary storyteller, Saramagu is thrilling more than Schulz, realistic as Joyce and with an infinite pinch of hallucinations, that would have made Marquez very proud. When the plot thickens through the oxymoronic white darkness, one cannot but adore the hands that wrote, and those who translated as well. When coming to think of Blindness concretely, it is funny to find our that I can only praise it, give a shallow shadow of the emotional joy and pleasure it gave me, rather than any academic report. If you know Saramagu, you don't need any recommendation, otherwise - I urge you to dive into this pure blind beauty of story well-written and uncommon love.

Rating:
Summary: I comment on the narrative style and imagery of the novel.
Review: "Blindness" is a fascinating novel. The premis is interesting and the plot plays out as it should, but what I find most interesting is the way in which Saramago leads the reader through the novel as if he/she were blind. The lack of character names and the non-punctuated dialogue make the narrative a bit difficult to follow, one has to grope around as if blind to keep up. And the inagery is wonderfully disgusting-smells and textures, sound. The imagery is appropriate given that the sensory experience described is from the perspective of a blind person; not much of it is visual. The novel paints a negative picture of human nature in general, but given the times this is appropriate. Definately a must read.

Rating:
Summary: A spectacular & marvellous work.
Review: Saramago's work, Blindness, is one of the best novels I've read in years. I have been all the poorer for not having discovered his masterful works prior to the Nobel Committee this year. His "imagining" of a world in which all, save one, go blind, and the consequences ... is at once a fascinating & intellectually challenging allegory, and very believable. I even found myself dreaming about being blind (I was listening on tape to the Helen Keller bio. at the same time, just by coincidence!!), with a creamy sheen to it rather than darkness. I am now going to launch off into his other books.

Rating:
Summary: Wisdom, intelligence, wit and genius
Review: The Nobel Committee got it right. This is a vivid, straightforward vision of human nature and of things as they would be if society lost its visual bearings and all that goes along with it. The writing is plain, its impact extraordinary, its view of humanity -- its flaws and heroism -- clearly seen. There is no ornamentation, the tense is incredibly present, the power obvious and lasting. A genius is at work, both in the story and in what it says about us.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have ever read!
Review: I am just about to end my reading on Saramago's "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira" (That's how Blindness is called in Portuguese). The book is much more than just another novel as the title could lead us to think. Like the portuguese title says, it is much more like a dissertation on Blindness, almost as a scientific exploration of what is the meaning of being blind. It leads us in this exploration by spreading the problems common to blindness to a whole population - A population of Blind People that cannot provide for each other, so, no water, no electricity, nothing, just the ever-present blindness. We never get to know how much people are affected (A town, a region, a country, the world?), but one thing that remains certain is that life would be unbereable and common concepts that we hold dear, like humanity, comprehension and charity are almost meaningless in this kind of society. In previous works Saramago plays with the concept of divinity (like in The Gospel According to Jesus Christ), in this one he plays with the concept of humanity, showing us that its meaning is very different depending on the situation we live on and is not a absolute unchangeable concept. READ IT! IT'S WORTH IT.

Rating:
Summary: Overtones from the Iliad
Review: When I began reading Saramago's "Blindness: A Novel," I expected to enjoy a very good book (previous readings of works by Saramago had been extremely interesting intellectual and esthetic experiences - not to mention the sheer pleasure of Saramago's writing in Portuguese). This book went beyond all my expectations.

Is it a realistic novel? A fantastic one? An essay? What is it, finally? Somehow, Saramago's work defies all easy categorizations. A host of questions are left open after one ends, with a pang, reading the novel. Who are really the blind? Why does a whole society go blind? What is really the meaning of their (or our) blindness?

Some readers have compared it to Camus's "The Plague." Although the thematic parallelism between the two works is a natural reason for such an observation, I consider "Blindness: A Novel" to go FAR BEYOND Camus's novel, not only in pure literary value, but also in depth of exploration of the human condition. In "The Plague," the philosophical theses of the author tend to become clear by the end of the novel. Saramago's work does not state final conclusions. He provides us with an experience that constantly mixes esthetical, ethical and phenomenological topics, and leaves us with all the questions open.

However, I perceived strong overtones of other works of art in "Blindness: A Novel". For instance, some of the "general tone" of the Iliad manages to make its way into Saramago's novel. The all-pervading suffering, possible individual beauty and goodness, constant struggling against events that we CANNOT SEE (be it the gods' actions in the Iliad, or the "natural" events in "Blindness: A Novel") are part of the connections. But even beyond those elements, something more basic and at the same time more difficult to describe connects the two works. Something I can only call the "background tones." It involves a general sadness, with dashes of sheer joy, a general tonality that one can perceive through one's reading and remembering of the work, a background tone that is very difficult to formalize.

Saramago makes explicit reference to the Iliad in the middle of his novel. I see his mention as a tribute to one of the main works he must have had in mind while writing this work.

Another author that comes to mind is Kafka. Yes, again Kafka. One could argue that there is nothing original in comparing our present-day authors to Kafka; nevertheless, I stick out my neck and state that in this novel, Saramago has presented us with one of the sharpest readings of Kafka available.

On the one hand, nothing is more similar to "blindness" as a state of being than bureaucratic behavior. Our century has been the age when bureaucracy took over the world, the age of clerks of all sorts daily blaming computers (or "the system" - meaning, of course, the computer system they work in) in order to shield their own stupid behavior.

I take the "blindness" in Saramago's book as another metaphor for bureaucracy, a particularly deep and sharp one.

But of course, Saramago's book is probably all that and much more. It is a book whose tone grows on you, continues to resound inside you after you end reading it. It is - the paradox of it! - one of those few books that can open your eyes to your condition as a human being. It can also open your eyes to your own society, our own late twentieth-century age.

Rating:
Summary: A searing, mesmerizing journey of how we function together
Review: "Blindness" by Jose Saramago does what few novels accomplish - delivers a monumnetally soul searching journey for 20th century man in an eloquent literary style. It is rare for a first chapter to provide an overture so succinct, suggesting the seeds of everything that is to follow, introduce a subtle and difficult writing style to tell a bizarre story, and still capture the reader's attention so securely that makes us feel as though we are on a locomotive ride to an inexorable end. Without names for his characters, and given that all but one character is blind, Saramago crafts a parable so vividly that while reading we suspend all contact with reality: his white-blind world is our world. This is great writing from a man who not only is a miraculous wordsmith but an infectious tale teller. A stunning achievement!