Blindness

Rating:
Summary: A well written but unedifying work
Review: I was recommended to read this book. I looked forward to it and enjoyed the first chapters. Once my interest was caught, I became disappointed time and time again at the moral decline in the book. As many readers, I have a vivid imagination and felt assaulted by the acts committed in my mind by the characters. Literature entertains and teaches us, but it should not be at the cost of obscene desensitization to the reader. I would have liked to give this book a higher rating, but I was left more harmed than benefitted upon reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Am I blind?
Review: I'm very glad to be done with this book, though I'm not quite sure that I'm glad to have read it. Some people hold this novel up as some kind of a modern-day classic, on par with Camus and Dante, but I don't really see it. (Am I blind?)

True, Saramago pulled a neat narrative trick with the absence of quotation marks, which forces the reader to stumble through the novel like one who's lost his sight. Many found this device annoying, but I got used to it rather quickly. Another trick that added to the feeling of blindness was the minimal amount of visual description in the novel. Clever, sure, but this also left the novel feeling lifeless and, well, nondescript. And speaking of nondescript, many of the characters in the book were never fully fleshed out. Again, this is something that Saramago probably did on purpose to instill a feeling of blindness, but at a huge sacrifice. We're never told enough about the characters in the novel to care strongly about them on an individual basis. One notable exception is the doctor's wife, but there are six other main characters in the novel that, by the end, the reader doesn't know a whole lot about.

The novel starts off slowly, then builds momentum when the blind are forced into a mental institution together. Pretty much the entire time they were in the institution, about half the novel, I was enthralled. However, when they leave the institution to roam the city they begin with this morose, fatalistic philosophizing that ends up putting a real drain on things. At this point, the novel desperately needed some humor, even if it was pitch black. Again, I know why Saramago built the novel in this way, and yes it fits and makes sense, but it's hard to take page after page after page of this. It's not so much the apocalyptic filth that I had the problem with; rather it was the mortal insights that they kept spouting ad nauseam.

I do think this novel has merit. It is insightful and entertaining, to a point. I encourage interested parties to read it for themselves - chances are you'll like it more than I did. Many think "Blindness" is an important piece of literature. I only wish I felt the same way.

Rating:
Summary: Different, and amazing
Review: This book is a tough read, and it is important to know that going in. Saramango uses long sentences, long paragraphs, and ignores punctuation (especially quotation marks). There were times when I had to go back and re-read passages because I completely lost who was talking.

With all of the difficulty...this is probably the most amazing book I have read in a long time. The story is original. The characters are strong, vibrant, and alive. It made me think about human nature, about our society, and about how shaky civiliation really is. (akin to Lord of the Rings) I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to read something new, and different. The nobel prize Saramango won was well deserved, and if you read this book you will see why.

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: This book floored me. It seems as though it was sent from another galaxy. I've never read anything like this before in my long life of reading. I was left gasping, weeping, terribly moved. I don't think I will ever forget these nameless characters in this nameless country. You must read this book. And that, I think, is all I can say about it.

Rating:
Summary: review of 'blindness' by jose saramago
Review: A mysterious epidemic of 'white blindness' hits a city and the blind are quarantined in an empty asylum. As more victims crowd the wards, the asylum is reduced to a hell ranking of vomit and diarrohea as sanitation and hygiene become problematic. To worsen things, a group of evil thugs takes advantage of their power and abuses the food rationing system, demanding both valuables and sex. In this suffering hell, there is only one person who can see...

Centred around a doctor and his wife, a girl with dark glasses, a motherless boy, a man with a black patch over one eye, and a few other characters, 'Blindness' is a powerful portrayal of humanity in its extreme potentials. It portrays selfish greed and injustice, as well as compassion, love, and a will to survive.

This book is a relatively easy read, except that one has to get used to Saramago's unpunctuated running lines. It is strongly recommended for all readers, but not recommended for readers looking for reading leisure.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Blindness is the only book I've read from Saramago. What a terrific book. It moved me. It's a great psychological novel about humanity and everything realted to it. Of course I've read the translated version of the book in Persian language, but it was a very good translation done by Mrs. Minoo Moshiri. However, Saramago creates a world where outbreak of a weird blindness causes people to alter from human to animals. Well, imagine what would happen to a society when intellect and what makes us human goes blind. In fact, Saramago describes the blindness of the mind not the eyes, but in a most terrific way. He challenges every aspect of human being. You can apparently feel the srory in the real world. Yes it's a metaphore. We can feel the story around us, in a world we live. The real world. See how religion, politic, society, technology and everything are making us bilnd. There's a tiny issue in the book which was great: We're supposed to approach the eternal truth by religion, but instead, we're moving away from it. Everything in religion is keeping us away from the truth. Wanna feel the truth? Be human.

Rating:
Summary: A Haunting, Disturbing Descent into Hell
Review: Saramago's dystopian parable of an epidemic of blindness is both chilling and eerily plausible. Like Golding's "Lord of the Flies" the lesson is that civilization is only skin-deep, and that if any of the delicate prerequisites -- even sight -- is removed, the facade quickly collapses.

Saramago purposely assigns no names to his characters or their locale, giving the story a mythic quality. However, their debasements are so total and so vividly depicted that this cannot be recommended to anyone with a weak stomach.

Not a very cheerful or optimistic book; but one which may haunt you for a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Blindness, scary thought...
Review: "Blindness" was my second book of Saramago, the first one "The gospel according to Jesus Christ" was excellent, this time it was so much easier, I now understand better his writing style, which is so unique, no punctuations, long paragraphs among other things.

"Blindness", which I read in Spanish ("Ensayo sobre la ceguera") was amazing and disturbing at the same time, I could not imagine everyone going blind, it's a scary thought, I used to think while reading the book that I could no have done it or survived it. This book definitely proves that the survival human instinct is so powerful.

With everyone gone blind the world would never be the same, there's no structure anymore, no order, no hygiene, no water or electricity, in fact no nothing... The first group of blinds are quarantine in a mental institution, that is when the author explained in a shocking way the horror they were living, at this point there where times that I just could not continue reading, especially when the women were raped, Saramago detailed it in a way that I could feel their pain... In a society of blind, a group was "blessed": they had the "The doctor's wife". She miraculously was the only who could see, but sadly she said at some point that she would have prefer to be like the others, to have no sight, because of what she was seeing.

When finally they escape from the mental institution they try to find food and their houses. After "The doctor's wife" found a storage at some supermarket she managed to lead them to her apartment that thankfully hasn't been touch. After everything they've been through, finally they can bath and eat peacefully.

I wasn't surprise at all with the ending, actually it was very predictable. I highly recommend this book; it gives us a perfect view of how human beings react to extremes situations, my only complaint is that I expected some explaining of the blind epidemic, and it never happened, but in spite of that the book is excellent, it takes you in a great journey and gives you two choices; 1- you could learn to really see, there are people that see but are really blind, and 2- you could just ignore everything and live your live as if you've never read "Blindness" and continue been a blind that see.

Rating:
Summary: Undoubtedly one of the greatest books of all time!
Review: Hilarious, spellbinding, shocking, and unfortunately easy to believe that man could act in such a manner. Saramago is a genius!

Rating:
Summary: Spend your money elsewhere
Review: The premise of this book was SO good (and this is the only reason it gets 2 stars) that I think I was even more disappointed when it turned out to be a really bad read. Amazon lets you read a few pages so take advantage of that!

The author uses run on sentences that go on forever, and the only punctuation he seems to use is commas. And what REALLY bothered me was that he didn't give the characters real names, and when they were speaking it was terribly difficult to tell who was talking. I don't think he even used quotation marks for the dialogue. Very frustrating.

But worst of all, the author is fixated on human excrement throughout the entire story. I almost stopped reading it a few times because of the unnecessary images he was displaying. It was very disturbing.

If you are looking for a "feel good" novel, this is certainly the farthest from it. I was left feeling rather disgusted and did not find the end to justify that feeling. Skip it.