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Loading... Ensayo sobre la ceguera (original 1995; edition 2004)by José Saramago
Work detailsBlindness by José Saramago (1995)
 soffitta1 | May 19, 2013 |  A harrowing book, something like a cross between McCarthy's "The Road" and Isabelle Alende's "The House of Spirits", with maybe a dash of China Mieville's "The City and the City". Like all good dystopian fiction, it takes the collapse of civillisation as its background, and uses the particular details -- characters, situations, setting -- to ask some fairly harsh questions about what it means to be human. At what point do you stop being human? How far can you descend into savagery and still come back as one of us? And the darker question -- at which point would you give up? Saramago's prose takes a bit of adjusting to -- like McCarthy, he doesn't use quote marks, and his punctuation is a bit idiosyncratic. But it didn't annoy me as much as McCarthy's did -- this is a book about blindness, about losing sight (and self), so I felt the blurring between utterances, the whole 'who said what' felt like an accurate reflection of what was going on. Lots of commas and fullstops, but I think that may have been the only marks used. Lots of questions with no question marks -- again, it fits. These are people asking questions that they don't expect to have answered, so it works to have them written down that way. There are some pretty horrible things depicted, but the magical realism feel to it all allows the horrors to be spoken of but not wallowed in, if that makes sense. The narrator's voice touches on thngs like rape and murder and pillage gently, even compassionately. Not making light of them; or avoiding mentioning them. But not making a fetish out of them either, which is a nice change. You see (a word that gets a lot of weight added to it) because it is right that thgs be witnessed. But you are kept at a slight distance from it all -- the characters being protected from the readers, or the readers protected from the characters, perhaps -- it's a very interesting and skillful technique. It's not an easy book, or a nice one. But it's also not brutal or horrible, although it considers brutal and horrible things. The reason people read (and should read) dystopian fiction is because it makes us confront the darker sides of humanity, makes us ask ourselves the questions that we don't want to face. This book is a surprisingly effective, almost beautiful example of good dystopian fiction. Well (if a bit strangely) written, and very humane, as well as human. Not a comfortable read, but an important one. (  )2  joannasephine | Apr 26, 2013 | Harrowing novel about what happens when an epidemic of blindness is spreading in society. People are forced both against each other and together, and both cruelty and dignity feature prominently. (  ) ohernaes | Apr 23, 2013 | What if you notice that you got blind from one moment to another? And everybody you get in touch with gets blind a short time later? That’s the situation the protagonists of Saramago’s Die Stadt der Blinden have to face. The blindness is special, because it’s not a usual darkness, but some kind of white, milky ocean. The reader follows the group of the first blind people on their way: From the moment they were “infected” to the lunatic asylum where they’re put in quarantine and beyond. The novel is an obvious adaptation of Albert Camus’ La peste and it deals with similar topics but in a different form: the absurdity of the plague, the helplessness, the loss of humanity and brutalization of society, and the battle to survive. One main implicit question is: What would you do in that situation? What would you be capable of? Saramago doesn’t give us names or locations and this makes his narration a universally true parable. Die Stadt der Blinden is an extremely intense read. For me it was also very emotional, as the dehumanization and brutalization that took place are sometimes hard to bear. The universal helplessness is haunting. Saramago’s writing style is intriguing and there is much to discover between the lines. Recommendation. (  )1 PersephonesLibrary | Apr 13, 2013 | Just finished this today, not sure what I think. Saramago's treatment of women characters seems facile to me, objectifying. Also, maybe the use of the state of blindness as a metaphor for anything is kind of creepy. I need to think more about this. Anybody read it? (  ) anderlawlor | Apr 9, 2013 | no reviews | add a review
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It doesn't take long for the cultured veneer to disappear, especially when forced to beg for food and with sanitation all but impossible. I don't know if it's worse, reading about the base actions of those inside who, despite being in the same boat, still jostle for position. It is a true depiction of life in a state of emergency, both the blind and sighted people act in ways I can predict, it doesn't take much imagination, certainly not if we look to our own history.
There is one who has to make a difficult choice, the wife of the doctor. She, for reasons unknown, hasn't been affected so far. She will need a strong character to stay on the path of humanity, rather than to run or take advantage of the blindness of others.
I could hardly put the book down, I was gripped from page one, I even dreamed about it. I thought the writing style enhanced the panic and confusion, though I had to sometimes go back a bit to work out who the narrative was following. Highly recommended. (