Intriguing “Blindness”

This post makes me want to read this book.

Have any of you read it?

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16 comments

  1. I’ve read Blindness and a few other things by Saramago. The blurb from LeGuin (I didn’t read the whole article) is, in my opinion, completely accurate. He is a writer of tremendous power, Blindness is indeed a frightening book, and his prose is hard to get through (not because he uses hard words but because of the atypical punctuation).
    After I read it, Blindness stayed with me for a long time. I still think about it once in a while.
    I don’t know how much you’ve learned about the book but it is about a whole city that goes blind… but not all at once.
    His new book is called “Seeing” (it’s about an election for which no one shows up to vote) and though it isn’t related, Saramago himself has talked about some connections.

  4. It sounds like an absolutely frightening book.. I think I will go pick it up from the library this evening! Thanks for the recommendation Eric, and your comments Jim.

  5. Yeah, good recommendation and comments. Sounds like something worth reading, the reviews I’m talking about. The list of books to read is too long already, but there’s always time for a good review or two.
    Still waiting…

  6. Still waiting…
    That phrase is pregnant with portent, rife with recrimination, angsty with feelings of, um, angst.
    I’m not Jewish or Catholic, but I can still feel guilty for no discernible reason. What am I missing?

  8. Okay… here’s my review.
    Blindness is a book by a Portugese man named Jose Saramago. He’s a very famous novelist who wrote some other books both before and since this one. The year after he wrote this book, he won the Nobel Prize for literature.
    In the book someone goes blind. Then others go blind. Eventually lots and lots of people go blind. They wander around. Things happen, some good, lots bad. Most of the bad stuff is caused by the way people treat each other and not by the blindness.
    Jose sure can write even though he seems to really dislike quotation marks.

  9. Well, thanks a lot. You’ve just ruined everything. No use reading the book now. Nosiree.
    Say, did it have any flesh-eating carp in it?
    Oh, and could the blind people see anything?

  10. Got it from the library last night and am halfway through it already. It is a scary book in so many ways…
    So who else is reading it, huh huh? (I need some company in the dark night)

  11. I wish I could say I was with you, Ern, but I’m neck deep in “Quicksilver” and this one’s just going to have to wait for a while.
    You do have a night light, don’t you? 😉

  15. Hmm, I must read this book now seeing as how I am myself blind.
    Darn…it’s not on Audible.com.
    Oh well. Reading the description though made me think of a thought that I and others who are blind sometimes discuss…what would you do if our rolls were reversed?
    You are blind and I am sighted…think about it…

  16. Actually, Reagan, I’ve spent some time thinking about this very thing in the couple of months since our dog lost her eyesight. I can’t help wondering how she feels and what she’s thinking about her situation, and that often leads me to wonder what I’d do if it happened to me.
    I haven’t come to any conclusions, however.

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