Blindness (Harvest Book)
by Jose Saramago
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Book Reviews of Blindness (Harvest Book)
Book Review: blindness
Summary: 4 Stars
Blindnessby José Saramago
Harvill Press, Great Britain
326 pages
reviewed by Meredith Anderson
José Saramago's novel, Blindness, is unafraid of facing the truths about human nature and where such inane behavior may lead us. Because the novel is one of such power, it has been awarded "A New York Times Notable Book of the Year" and "A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year". The book has soared above many others to an international level. The novel is an influential and disconcerting allegory illustrating what could occur if one loses sight of what is truly meaningful. The characters lose sight and discover that greed takes over and civilization seizes. In reality, people may take life for granted.
The story begins when one man, later known as the first blind man, is hit with "white blindness" while driving in his car. Soon, he and others that have contracted the disease are believed to be contagious and confined to a deserted asylum within the city. Because the author doesn't focus on names, the reader is able to know more about the personality of each character - get to know what they look like and who they are. People begin pouring through the doors of the mental hospital and no one can keep track of how many have been quarantined. The ultimate horror has now occurred:
"...within a second, the hallway was once more the raging whirlpool
it had been at its worst, then, in a sudden and desperate impulse, the
human mass swerved towards the wing on the left, carrying all before
it, the resistance of the contaminated broken, many of them no longer
merely contaminated, others, running like madmen, were still trying to
escape their black destiny." (112).
Some people begin to take advantage of the fact that others are blind. These thieves steal all of the food and demand a woman per amount of food. There is one woman, however, who sees it all - the gruesome acts that occur in the asylum - the killing, assault, pain, and suffering. As soon as the unidentified country is hit with the epidemic and everyone goes blind, the woman guides seven strangers from the building into the barren streets of the city. The city is in total chaos due to the fact that no laws are abided by or enforced. In this nightmarish portrayal of a country gone blind, images of rotting corpses and repulsive acts of behavior mirror the decomposition of human nature.
Blindness taught me a lot about the understanding of life and human nature. Everyone is taking life, civilization, and love for granted. Society is suffering from our blindness towards feelings and laws. We see laws as something bad, whereas they keep order within our society. The style in which it was written and the hidden motifs are what make this book so miraculous. It displays how human behavior is leading us towards death and destruction. Humanity is in danger of vanishing both literally and figuratively. The story acts as a reminder that there are many different forms of blindness - love, pain, fear, and greed. The book teaches much about the cost of human dignity and the value of life. One observation, contracted by the ophthalmologist, describes an understanding about human nature: "Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are."
Blindness is a novel to be read. The lessons within the book's binding are unforgettable. José Saramago has discovered what it takes to comprehend the true meaning of life and through his story, he has given me this understanding. I felt as though I was blind, trying to figure out who was speaking and what was occurring. Through his words and writing style, Saramago takes the reader into the book, as though he were one of the characters.
Book Review: A Miracle within a Catastrophe
Summary: 5 Stars
Blindness a literary masterpiece written by Jose Saramago truly shows to the reader its portrayal of human beings as pure naive beings and wild animals. He uses his great descriptive techniques to prove in this novel the downfall in society and in human behavior. Once an epidemic has struck the entire world, all of society is at risk. This whole epidemic begins when one man is struck blind while driving his car, a next when stealing a car, the next when sitting at home, and so begins this epidemic of white blindness. After the outbreak people are in an uproar, this outbreak is unstoppable. As a result of this outbreak, health officials demand the containment of the disease; so they dispose the blind into an asylum on the outskirts of a city. It is through these harsh times, the blind truly do witness the evil spirits in those around them. Saramago's work becomes a masterpiece to the reading world. When reading Blindness its as if you knew exactly how the characters were feeling. When there hearts were racing yours were racing too. Its as if your senses became stronger as there's did, when they became to adapt to their blindness.If I had not been required to read this book, I would have missed out on a very profound and shattering work. I was intrigued when reading Saramagos' depiction of society and how it endures while undergoing a catastrophic disaster. In his book, he used every type of character; the strong, the weak, the enduring, the evil, the good, the one with heart, the leader, the follower, and many more. It was his ability to incorporate all qualities in his characters, which allowed me to remain involved in his book. There were no down parts in his novel; it was a compelling novel, where the excitement remained until the very last line.
Saramago's book not only left a mark on the readers but on the public. The New Yorker says "Saramago's surreal allegory explores the ability of the human spirit to prevail in even the most absurdly unjust of conditions, yet he reinvents the familiar struggle with the stylistic eccentricity of a master." Due to his ability to write such an astounding book, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. This book was named a miracle within a disaster; the miracle, being the ability for the blind to survive, and endure, under the evils of others and the power of corruption.
From the very beginning of the novel, the main characters; the doctor and his wife use their leadership skills to help the new arriving blind people to adapt to their new environment. While living in the asylum they learn to live under the rule of the man on the loudspeaker. The man on the loudspeaker is an army commander whose army is keeping watch on the asylum. All goes to pieces when the entire world is struck blind. The group of blind people who remained with each other since the beginning ( with the doctor and his wife) must rely on each other to survive in the chaos of the real world. Through thick and thin, through starvation, and evil, they must prevail.
I would have to say this was one of the best books I have ever read; Saramago's technique of writing draws the reader into epidemic itself. I give him credit for ridiculing human being's nature to resort to evil. In his novel, he portrays to the reader how human beings resort back to evil ways to try and survive. He deserves more credit then he has received in this masterpiece. " Blindness is a powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses - and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. "According to the Village Voice, " Extraordinary nuanced and evocative ... This year's most propulsive, and most profound thriller." A masterpiece that should be read for decades to come.
Book Review: Blindness and Evil
Summary: 4 Stars
Jose Saramago is another of the Nobel Prize for Literature winners of whom I was blissfully unaware until I heard about Blindness, the novel that won him that prize. But now I can easily understand why this Portuguese writer was chosen for the award.
Much of Blindness, set in an unnamed major city of an unnamed country, has somewhat of a fairy tale feel to it. That feel comes from the way that government officials and the military react when faced with a sudden epidemic of "white blindness" that swiftly strikes the city. Although the government acts quickly to quarantine all of those who are struck by this sudden blindness, it soon becomes apparent to both the epidemic's victims and those who are trying to control its spread that it is only a matter of time before everyone in the city, if not the country, will be struck blind.
The reader experiences the horror of the disease and the quarantine of its earliest victims by becoming an intimate member of the first group to be blinded, an ophthalmologist, his wife, and several of the patients treated by the doctor the day that the epidemic began. The doctor's wife, for reasons which are never understood or explained, seems to be the only person in the city who does not ultimately lose her sight, and this is the advantage that allows her and her small group of six others to survive the horrors of quarantine. When the military personnel in charge of the quarantine facility decide to do little more than provide a little food on a sporadic basis and to make sure that no one escapes its walls, forcing the inmates to do whatever is necessary for their survival, Saramago reminds us that civilized society is a very fragile thing. The meek do not inherit the asylum.
The theme of Blindness, of course, is not one that is unique to this book or its author. The breakdown of society is a common theme in the various genres of literature and, unfortunately, also in the real world. I was immediately struck by how much Blindness reminded me of the 1955 MacKinlay Kantor novel, Andersonville, for instance. That one is based on the true story of what went on at the Andersonville, Georgia, Civil War prison that "housed" captured Union soldiers for several years. Just as happened at the quarantine facility in Saramago's book, a group of Andersonville thugs, many of who had been common criminals earlier in their lives, were allowed to dominate and mistreat the more civilized among them until one or two brave inmates decided that something had to be done. And who of us can easily forget the horrors we heard about in New Orleans, exaggerated though they may have been, during the early aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?
But Blindness is not a novel of despair. Rather, it offers hope that no matter the circumstances, the best of us will prevail, dignity will be maintained, and the human spirit will shine through.
Finally, I should mention the style in which this one is written. Don't pick it up expecting it to be an easy or quick read because there is very little punctuation and very few paragraphs per chapter. Because the author uses so little punctuation, the reader is not always sure exactly who is speaking, especially at the beginning of the book. As a reader, I felt much like the characters of the book must have felt when they were first thrown together in the chaos of blindness. But, like those characters, I began to recognize speech patterns and personalities that soon allowed me to make sense of the world in which I found myself. Blindness required a little extra from me as a reader, and that is part of its charm, part of what makes the book so unforgettable.
Book Review: White out
Summary: 5 Stars
"Blindness" seems to be Jose Saramago's most famous novel, indeed as much a media event as a work of literature. Anybody can write an end-of-the-world horror story (just ask Stephen King), but Saramago goes far beyond the expectations of anyone who approaches this book lured by the sensationalistic premise. That the characters have considerable depth and authenticity is even more amazing when you consider that Saramago gives them no names and reveals little about their personal histories. Nor does he even specify the city or country in which the novel takes place, which seems appropriate, for what is the use of formalities when everybody in the world is blind?
It all begins when a man sitting in traffic waiting for a red light to change is suddenly struck blind, whereupon several bystanders lead him to safety. His blindness happens to be "white," in that his sight is obliterated by complete whiteness as though he were submerged in a sea of milk. The ophthalmologist to whom his wife takes him can't find anything wrong with his eyes and therefore advises further tests. Later the ophthalmologist (from now on called simply the doctor) suddenly goes blind, as do several of the people with whom the original man came into close contact that day. This blindness is apparently the result of a contagious illness, and soon the Government decides to quarantine the infected in a disused mental hospital before the blindness becomes pandemic.
The hospital, probably not unlike leper colonies of old, is no better than a concentration camp, depriving the inmates of basic human rights and essentials and guarded by soldiers who are ordered to shoot anybody who tries to escape. Saramago focuses the action on a few of the unfortunate inmates--the doctor, his wife who is only feigning blindness to be with her husband, the original man (repeatedly called the "first blind man," a sort of Adamic quality) and his wife, an old man with an eyepatch, a girl who is a prostitute, and a little boy who whines for his mother.
Saramago masterfully turns the hospital into a sociological study, giving chaos the reigning hand as hundreds of people who can't see try, mostly unsuccessfully, to learn how to live with each other. A baser human element comes into play as well: Somebody sneaks in a gun, which inevitably leads to a tribalistic gang society in which the thugs confiscate all incoming food and dole it out to the other wards in exchange for money and sex; catastrophes, far from inspiring compassion and charity, only make some people more selfish in their panic. The doctor's wife, ostensibly the only person in the world left with her sight, becomes by default the caretaker of the little group, the reluctant Universal Mother, finding them food and guiding their way.
"Blindness" is a thrilling roller coaster ride of emotions and suspense, darkened with sickening and frightening images, but beneath its surface is a mordant and intelligent examination of humanity. There are also the more general themes of governmental oppression as a reaction to a national crisis, the devaluation of power and money when everybody is reduced to same miserable condition, and religion as a refuge for those who don't yet feel forsaken, although an eerie scene in a church late in the novel shows that even a pious man, believing he was made in God's image, may try to blind a God who blinds his people. This is the kind of novel that is commonly thought to be an extended metaphor, that begs to have its symbols identified and deciphered; but don't be blind to its pure enjoyability.
Book Review: Setting Lets Us See Through the Blind
Summary: 4 Stars
Jose Saramago's "Blindness" tells a story where all rules of the world today do not apply. The story starts off telling about a normal businessman who is taken over by a strange and horrifying illness; he is suddenly struck blind. The blindness begins to spread rapidly, from one person to another. It seems to doctors that there is no rhyme or reason to how the illness spreads. The only things that are known about the illness are the fact that instead of the victim seeing black, they see white. The blindness also seems to spread like the common cold, attacking anyone who comes into contact with the affected. The world names the virus as the "white blindness". Those who are affected with the illness are sent to an abandoned insane asylum where they are to live out the rest of their days with others who have been attacked with the blindness. This is where life as perceived today holds no bar on what happens. There is no law in this place, and people are free to do whatever they feel fit. Since they cannot see, the setting is very detailed and precise. The author uses many, many small and intricate details to help the reader see as if they were blind. When the victims are first retained in the small asylum, they are unaware of what is to happen to them, and even where they are. All that the reader is allowed to see is what the setting feels, smells, and tastes like. There is no daylight or any other sights that people are used to seeing. The setting presented to the reader and the victims is one of complete and utter despair. The cries and moans of the blind ring throughout the many rooms of the asylum. Smells are described as being old and musty; the long lost smells of an asylum that had been abandoned long ago. The blind grope their way through the halls of the asylum and explore what they now must accept as their home. The floors are cold and hard, there is a rope strung though the halls so that they might find their way back to their beds. The rooms are obviously made of tile because the cries and moans of the victims ring through the halls for an eternity. Years later, the asylum is in turmoil. Without the existence of law, the home of the blind is eventually taken over by evil, greedy blind men and women. There is an extreme heat that is felt by all who live in the asylum. Fire erupts and forces all the inhabitants to crawl across the heated floor to an escape. The smoke cannot be seen, but it is felt and smelled. It chokes the blind, and instead of seeing the smoke and fire, they are forced to feel it to avoid it. They escape to the outside world in which they used to live. The world, however, is not how they remembered it. It is eerily silent. There are no birds chirping, no children laughing, no noise at all except for wind whistling through the barren landscape. The world as they knew it had been transformed into a barren and desolate place. The blindness has taken over the community and killed everyone. These people who had lived in exile for years where all that remained. They learn to see the world by touch and smell. "Blindness" helps for all to see what the blind go through every day by not letting the reader see. The setting is presented through all senses except sight. This book is informative and very interesting. Everyone should read this book to see the world from a different point of view.