Blindness

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and pricking, push to the edge of human tolerance
Review: Blindness is José Saramago's compelling novel of humanity under siege. White blindness created mayhem that relentlessly befalls the entire city and its inhabitants within just a matter of hours. In a bustling intersection, a man sitting in his car waiting for the lights suddenly turns blind-a sea of impermeable and luminous milkiness instead of the plunging darkness one usually expects. A "Good Samaritan" pedestrian offers to park his car for him (and steals it later) and takes him home. The thief then receives his comeuppance and is struck blind. The wife of the first blind man takes him to the ophthalmologist on a cab. Within a day, the cab driver, the ophthalmologist, the patients at the eye clinic and those whom the first blind man comes in contact with turn blind.

The government responds to this unprecedented outbreak by sending the blind to a desolated mental asylum for quarantine. Under stern surveillance of soldiers, the internees have to abide by the regulations that push them to the edge of humanity-bury the dead among them, maintain strict isolation from the soldiers who bring in food thrice a say, remain indoor as any attempt to escape or any sign of a seditious movement will result in death. The ophthalmologist's wife seems to be the only one who has not succumbed to blindness. She becomes the eye of those who lost their eyesight. She becomes the one in whom the inmates find solace, comfort and encouragement that spur them on to living in the midst of great distress, pain, and anguish.

The book gets very difficult emotionally (in fact disturbing) as the mental asylum gets overcrowded and soldiers, who are seized by this formidable terror, overreacted and started opening fire at the inmates. While the army regrets having been forced to repress with weapons, the soldiers know that the commander seek to resolve the outbreak by physically wiping out the lot of the inmates. And the army has the effrontery to proclaim firing as an act for which the army is neither directly nor indirectly to blame. As food rations come sporadically and becomes meager, a group of blind hoodlums rob their fellow inmates of valuables in exchange for food.

At one point I am retching and completely grossed out. The quarantine system irreversibly deteriorates and collapses with it the hygiene and medications needed to treat diseases (as some inmates are stricken by influenza). Toilets clog and back-flush. Excrements pile and lay strewn on hallways. Smelling the fetid smell that comes from the lavatories in gusts makes the doctor's wife want to throw up. Her courage, which before has been so resolute, begins to crumble.

The novel cunningly and candidly exposes how frail human society can be. The entire banking system collapses, the traffic thwarted, the streets are strewn with corpses, the dogs tear off flesh from corpses... I put down the book and ask myself: how could human dignity be debased as such? Isn't it true that dignity has no price and life loses all meaning when one starts to make small concessions? Yet it sheds a ray of hope that one person's perseverance can make a difference.

Readers will find nameless characters in this novel (the first blind man, the first blind man's wife, the doctor, the doctor's wife, the thief, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with a squint, the old man with a black eye patch). The notion of name is not important in the book as the characters succumb to their blindness. All that remains are the voices and the memories of the past with which each person makes of his identity. I have to say that even they are nameless, they are not compromised in their depiction but are very etched and real characters. I think blindness forces the characters to come in grip with their fear, weakness, shame and demons that enslave them before they are stripped of eyesight.

Those who are not familiar with José Saramago's style might wish to practice a little patience with his embedded paragraphs and dialogues that are stripped of any punctuation marks. The prose can go on for pages without a break. In spite of the somehow difficult format, it constructs a sense of panic and tension as one read. It is for the very reason that this book is neither a quick read nor a page-turner. On a surface level, Blindness is a compelling tale of an unprecedented outbreak. In the core of the book stores a candid, relentless, but transcendental quintessence of humanity. 5.0 stars.

Rating:
Summary: An intense social commentary
Review: It is true the writing style is difficult to get over at first, but the way that the discourse is written almost makes you feel blind - like if you were to close your eyes and someone were reading it aloud, it would sound like you were just hearing the conversation between characters as though they were right infront of you, but you can't see them. I think the other comment about it not being realistic is a little un-thought out. Even with the technology today, we would still be scared to death of an epidemic of this kind, and would likely do all of things which Saramango depicts. I think this book takes a good look at human nature and what drives us - greed, pride, envy and lust. The ending left me satisfied too. Recommended

Rating:
Summary: To view abroad from within
Review: I read this novel while serving in Africa in the Peace Corps. The power it held for me was in part because of the circumstances in which I read it--a small village far from "civilization". Its message is powerful for its insights in the way that people, all people, can and do behave in extreme conditions; it was the similarities between what I was living at the time, what I had left behind in the US, and what Saramago had written that struck me. Good and Evil live in all societies and come in all forms and a "modern" or "developing" society makes no difference in the quantity or quality of each human trait. Read this novel if you want to understand "terrorism" in its most honest form--human vs. human. Read it to see how to combat terror as well-- human + human.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautifully Disquieting 'Must-Read'
Review: "Blindness" is a compelling, but disturbing tale of caution and admonition as well as a foreboding examination of human nature. Characters in this story are struck by an epidemic of blindness and are condemned to live together in an abandoned asylum. As the outbreak spreads and conditions inside and outside of the ward worsen, the characters (none of whom are ever given a name, only a description) must struggle with themselves, each other and forces beyond their control in order to survive. This stark novel is told in a style that gives it a poetic sense. Saramago negates the use of conventional punctuation and quotations and this can, at first, cause reading to seem a daunting task. Once you become used to the highly wrought, prose-like style however, it is evident that this gripping novel must be read to conclusion. I highly recommend "Blindness" to anyone wishing to delve into an account which exposes the frailty of humanity under privation.

Rating:
Summary: A Shattered Work
Review: I read the first sixty pages of Jose Saramago's book, Blindness, borrowed from a friend. But I have to admit I am annoyed by it, and can't finish it.

I hate the way Saramago mixes up his conversations between people into long sentences separated by commas. He makes it distractingly difficult to tell who said what. I suppose its all nice and nobel prizey as far as literary devices, but I find it annoying. There is some merit in this method, but worse is that the story is beriddled with elements that reveal the lack of insight of the author.

Why would everyone be left in the sanitorium to fend for themselves without help? This eighty-eight year old author has no clue about technology. If this plague had really happened there would be doctors in biohazard suites supervising the operation and entering and leaving through airlocks. They would have negative pressure containment so that no air left the buildings. None of these standard extreme precautions were taken despite the fact that people were so terrified of the disease that they would be willing to justify killing citizens leaving the building. And without doctors studying these people, how will they ever understand the disease? The whole basis of the situation is so out of touch that it is as though a child had concocted it.

But that's not all there is to Saramago's failings as a story teller. It started with the doctor going to bed with his wife after he becomes blind. It would strike any person who wasn't a moron, let alone a doctor, that he has contracted the blindness from his patient. After all, coincidence is completely not an option since this is a blindness that has never been seen before. Any doctor would have called a hospital, or the center for disease control. Instead he goes to bed, risking the health of his wife. He realizes this the next day, but that is too late for the behavior to pass as reasonable.

And for some reason Saramago has people entering the asylum decide that names mean nothing because they are blind. Everyone, without exception, starts to introduce themselves by their occupation, such as "hotel maid". Who decides they have no name because they have become blind? Is this reasonably, and uniformly, the reaction to trauma? Only an author looking for a literary device. Such obvious failures to properly depict human behaviour make it impossible for me to have any more confidence in the book.

It wouldn't be hard to rewrite this book and make it much better. I wonder if that would qualify me for a Nobel Prize for Literature? I'm sure not, but this book must surely not be one of Saramago's better works. The Boston Globe describes his book as "A shattering work by a literary master." I understand that review now: the work is shattered.

Rating:
Summary: As Good As It Gets
Review: Blindness is problably one of the best books ever written. A mesmerazing tale with profound characters; an unusual literary style used only to maximize the novel's brilliant point of view from which it is told. Comparable only to masterpieces such as "Lord of the Flies" or "1984", this novel is more complete than the first one (because it is filled with horror AND beauty), and more intruiguing than the second one (because the building suspense increseases in every chapter, without overlooking witty comments and heart breaking descriptions).

Rating:
Summary: Unusual and chaotic style
Review: Saramago is obviosuly a fantastic storyteller, but what struck me most was the style in which he wrote the book. As we descend farther and farther into blindness and as a result, chaos, the book's writing style becomes chaotic. The punctuation becomes unecessary and the syntax more abbreviated and to the point - somewhat like what beind blind must feel like.

The imagery is reduced to feelings and hearing - oflactory senses etc. and the visual descriptions are unecessary thereby forcing the reader to feel the utter despair and chaotic situation that exists. Names and places are reduced to meanigless; people are reffered to by past life descritptions, the "doctor"; "doctor's wife"; the "boy with the squint"; etc...

I think you'll find this book exciting without the cheap frills of a shock book. It will not only scare you but also truly empathize with the chaotic plague of the blind.

Rating:
Summary: I really liked this one...
Review: I've recommended this book to anyone in search of a book that's clever, inventive and very human. Saramago's choice to not use proper names or grammar was brilliant. The twisting plot kept my attention throughout the good and sometimes savage sides of being alive during extreme situations. This book is a true testament to the randomness of circumstance in the world.

Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read all year!
Review: As soon as I finished this book, I went to the bookstore and bought all the rest of Saramago's books. It's true that on first glance the book looks daunting, all long paragraphs that seem to have no dialogue, but Saramago's style of writing dialogue is interesting and once you get the hang of it, it's quite fun. I loved the storyline and I would disagree entirely with other reviewers who said it was slow or plot-less. A definite read, and I bet that you'll fall in love with Saramago too.

Rating:
Summary: At times a disturbing read but ...
Review: ... worth it !

This story of a society breaking down due to an epidemic of blindness is one of the more interesting books I've read this year.

Saramago takes us on a journey through a society where a highly contagious form of blindness (people suddenly see whiteness as opposed to darkness)transforms it completely to the point of rendering it unworkable. We see how these strangers (who remain nameless throughout the book), now isolated and blind, try to cope with their condition and each other.

Apart from a few passages of violence, I found this story fascinating, and Saramago's writing style innovative. No wonder he won the Nobel prize for literature.

Well worth it.