Blindness

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Average customer rating 4.4 (13 comments)

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When I first started to read this novel, I had a hard time getting into the writing structure. There just seemed to be a lot of adjectives, I didn’t know who was talking and there were no quotation marks around speech, things that I wasn’t sure I could handle for 326 pages but after getting into the story, I couldn’t put it down. The story reminds me of the 2005 Superdome incident with Hurricane Katrina only this book was written in 1995, both had major incidents where the government intervened yet were so unprepared and about how some people acted. To have the ophthalmologist’s wife hide among all the infected individuals witnessing what was happening and to keep quiet about it, I don’t know how she did it or how she stayed well so long. They had that gang mentality, to stay alive and stay together which I started to feel and gather within myself and I wanted them to succeed. Some of the book wasn’t pleasant but if you think about what they thought they were up against, it was a hard life they were living. A beautiful scene was when the three naked women were out washing clothes on the balcony during the rain storm. Exposed to the world, these women cried as they washed clothes, each woman uttering adjectives describing the other women as they washed - very emotional and powerful scene. It really was a moving book and put things into perspective for me.

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I've read a few books by the late Portuguese Nobel winner Jose Saramago, but this is by far the best. He's sometimes described as a fabulist and compared to Calvino, Eco and Murakami. This novel, about an unnamed city, struck by a plague of blindness, feels something like J.G. Ballard rewriting Camus's "The Plague." It is both a powerful, resonant allegory and a visceral novel about regular people in extraordinary circumstances. It was made into a film several years ago. Followed by "Seeing."

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It is a good book because it opens your mind through ideas and make you think about them.This book learns you to look positive to everything so your life become better.It's true that we are not living in a paradise but understanding that why some people or you are doing something wrong will make your world like paradise. With this book I understand that our looking and our judgments make our world worse and worse consequently we can make it better ourselves by looking good,thinking good and judging good.

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"Blindness," by Jose Saramago, can cross cultures, and was an amazing "personal" experience. A most different concept with printed material. I found this book hard (emotionally) to read, but harder (mentally and physically) to put down. I read it back-to-back twice. It wasn't difficult to not imagine all the characters "alive" and identify with the experiences of blindness and a society-out-of-balance. I suppose this could possibly happen physically, but it certainly does in the mind, and in alternate realities in society at large. There's no need to close ones eyes, just look around. This was an amazing "read."

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The scales fell from my eyes. Amazing look at the fragility of our modern existence.

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I loved this book as it was a page turner, quick read. Written by a Nobel Prize winner, Blindness focuses on the vulnerability of man in a time of crisis. Would chaos rule if an epidemic of blindness were to happen? Yes according to Saramago. I tend to think we would help rather than harm each other. Regardless, I was spellbound by the intense action and unique characters that had to bond rather quickly in order to survive this harrowing nightmarish existence. I recommend. It is also available on DVD as a motion picture released in 2008. kk

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Haunting...I hope to read this allegory again. Shattering morality tale format.This story reminded me of Lord of the Flies,but takes place in the present.A pandemic of contagious white blindness leads the first people to be identified to be quarantined in a filthy, abandoned insane asylum seemingly forever.As the holding tank fills,the more insane and hellishly degrading the situation becomes.Not for the feint of heart! The story descends into barbarism, violence (including from the military caretakers),paranoia, and starvation. The initial 7 internees (the 7th is a seer) make a ramshackle escape to reveal a new set of challenges and hopes. Not to be missed! Fascinating.

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Perhaps I've watched too many "Twilight Zone" marathons. Perhaps I just like consistent punctuation. I definitely don't need the author to hit me over the head with the obvious problems (particularly physical situations involving the bowels) that a sudden and unexplained blindness epidemic would unleash on the public. Whatever the case, I'm curious why this particular novel received such acclaim. The plot is certainly unique in that only one character is unaffected by the "plague," and a lot of the prose is terrific. My time wasn't wasted readng the book; I just expected quite a bit more from such a respected author, and the novel that received so many awards. This is one of those times I'll probably see the movie; perhaps it will help me envision the book differently in retrospect.

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Blindness is an example of ray gun science fiction ("What if there were an awesome ray gun?!"), that is, the story's reason for existing is to answer the "what if?" In science fiction, the impetus of this subgenre is often an invention, a new discovery, or contact with aliens. Saramago's device is a sudden, contagious blindness of unknown etiology and mechanism. This is fine so far as it goes. McCarthy's The Road relies on a similar narrative strategy ("What if there were a cataclysmic event?") In this case, the technique allows the author to imagine a cascade of social and cultural events that would follow from the original event (again, similar to The Road). This is fine so far as it goes. Saramago does a good job of envisioning the increasingly dire circumstances of the protagonists, and the plot is sufficiently engrossing. However, Blindness shares several of The Road's flaws: There is minimal punctuation (which in this case, at least provides the reader with a parallel visual impairment), the characters' voices and personalities are largely interchangeable, and the resolution, while different in kind from McCarthy's, provokes a similar disappointment--the return to the story's "home" is too tidy and oversimplified, and ultimately demonstrates the author's failure of creativity, boldness, or both. Call it a 3/5 star read: Not bad, but not especially memorable, either.

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Saramago's frightening work of a world caught in white blindness is graphic to a point where the reader feels uncomfartably trapped in the confines of its pages. The work is ultimately brilliant in its use of one women's healthy eyes to uncover the horror of her companions' whited out world. "Blindness" is unforgettable read that explores variations in human character critically and realistically. Saramago relies only on the period and comma, but I found his work easily read. Just be prepared for no quotation marks and hardly any clues as to who is speaking (although they are there when necessary). Run-on are also prevalent throughout. It's his style and the flow is easily followed.

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A remarkable text demonstrating the effects of our placement of vision as the most informative sense of them all. We read, watch, drive, pick mates, etc. all with vision, and Saramago explores the possibility of vision being lost within everyone, thus equalizing society, in a very strange way. A very powerful read that is sure to be equally as memorable.

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The entire point of the novel revolves around the woman who can see. Her role is so much graver than the others. She sees the filth they have experieced. They only sense it. What is she to do with this knowledge. She has no idea how to manage this reposnisibility. How many can so identify wih this experiecne?

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great book