I didn’t read Blindness for years, even though I knew I’d like it very much. When I heard people talking about it, I felt jealous, but still, something kept me away from it. I finally read it a couple of summers ago. And I understood why I ditched it for so long, albeit unconsciously. Blindness took my breath away, and it scared me a lot. I loved it!
I always have an unusual relationship with books, or rather good books, albeit a little scary. There was a similar relationship with Blindness. I was so concentrated on the book that it became my reality. I stopped offering help at the last moment when I thought everyone was blind but me. Maybe this is entirely my madness; I’m not so sure of it. However, the fact that Blindness affects people to such an extent is altogether due to the success of Jose Saramago.
I’ve become friends with the characters and suffered with them throughout the book. My hands were shaking while reading the story. Like the doctor’s wife, I wished I were blind so that I hadn’t read the book. I can easily say that I’ve never read such a powerful, striking novel like Blindness. If you haven’t read this yet, buy it online and start reading. Even if you don’t like it, which is very unlikely, you will have met Jose Saramago.
Blindness
No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order.
Discover a chillingly powerful and prescient dystopian vision from one of Europe’s greatest writers.
A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks.
It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with a supposedly civilised society are snapped.
This is not anarchy, this is blindness.
Jose Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE, was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
