Seeing is believing…

The last time I read Blindness and then Seeing, I made the mistake of reading the second volume right after the first. The merciless vehemence of Blindness had too strong a resonance and made me literally blind for the underhanded elegance and wit of Seeing.

I avoided this mistake this time and let some months pass between the two books and I have to say that on this new visit to the unnamed country, where the people have no names, where the spoken word merges with the text and where no paragraph marks give the fevered eye of the reader a rest, I probably liked the second volume even better than the first.

Imagine there’s an election and no one’s going to vote.

That’s the premise. In a local election in the capital, over three-quarters of voters turn in a blank, i.e. white, ballot. Along the lines of the pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at last, many disenchanted with politics seem to have simply had enough and therefore refused to vote for any of the three parties (The Right, The Left, The Centre). The government is at a loss. They interpret the election results as an act of revolt, suspect a conspiracy, speak of torpedoing the democratic order and react with partly grotesque and absurd measures. Although every single voter has the legal right not to vote the People in Power are clearly not willing to rectify the obvious loss of confidence by voters.

Exaggerations are good illustrations!

The characters in this book are heavily overdrawn. Almost all politicians and other state officials are corrupt to the core, from the smallest election officer to various ministers to the head of state and then down again to the military, police and secret services. Almost nobody tries to solve the real problems, but is kowtowing to superiors and dishing it out to subordinates. Those are cardboard characters, on the edge of caricatures, stereotypical to the n-th degree. But under Saramago’s magical pen, a first-rate political satire is created, where you just can’t help but love it & laugh about it and say: Yes, it’s the same in my country, in my district or city.

The end of the world as we know it‽

Saramago himself was a convinced and unorthodox leftist all his life, but this can only be felt to a very limited extent when reading, and in any case, his target is not a particular political camp. He shows here in a skilful way and as a cautionary example how a somewhat functioning society can collapse in the event of an unforeseen danger. In the first volume it is the white blindness that suddenly overcomes the people as a contagious pandemic and brings civilisation to the brink of destruction. In Seeing it is the people themselves who almost cause the collapse of democracy, because the politicians are too corrupt and paranoid to approach their voters.

Any similarities to today’s pandemics, unrest, corrupt systems and possible consequences to societies are, as always, purely coincidental.


n  n
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I read this book shortly after having completed Blindness. Seeing is a sequel to Blindness.

At first there appears to be little to explicitly link the two books. This book's premise is a subconscious revolution whereby the inhabitants of a city start to behave in a curiously collective manner - 83% of them cast a blank ballot at a general election. This inevitably creates confusion and panic within the government.

Like Blindness, part of my pleasure in this book was due to Saramago's unusual and distinctive narrative style. Again, there are no quotation marks for dialogue, and many long sentences which frequently have a stream of consciousness quality. Characters are never identified by their proper names. Despite this the book is easy to follow.

It took me about 100 pages to really get into this book. It's at around the 100 page mark that the book shifts from being focussed on the government's reaction to the blank votes, to a story involving the main characters from Blindness and some undercover policemen. The book became more absorbing and compelling from this moment.

Saramago poses profound questions whilst providing plenty of his deadpan, wry humour mainly at the expense of hierarchy and bureaucracy. The book holds up a mirror to the modern democratic process; the farcical nature of hierarchy; political spin; and the corruption that inevitably accompanies power. The book becomes more unsettling and disturbing as it reaches its conclusion. That said, there is also a positive message around personal choice and redemption. By the end there is much to ponder, and I think the book would make an excellent choice for a book group to discuss. This is a challenging and original political and sociological satire. Well worth reading.

4/5

"Υπάρχει μια ερώτηση που θα ήθελα να σας κάνω, δεν είμαι σίγουρη αν τολμώ, Ρωτήστε, μη διστάζετε, Γιατί το κάνετε αυτό για μας, γιατί μας βοηθάτε, Απλώς και μόνο εξαιτίας μιας μικρής φράσης που συνάντησα σ'ένα βιβλίο, πριν από πολλά χρόνια, και που την είχα ξεχάσει, αλλά ξανάρθε στη μνήμη μου τις τελευταίες μέρες. Ποιας φράσης, Γεννιόμαστε και τη στιγμή εκείνη είναι σαν να κλείνουμε μια συμφωνία για όλη μας τη ζωή, αλλά μπορεί να φτάσει η μέρα που θα αναρωτηθούμε Ποιος το υπέγραψε αυτό για μένα."

Όμορφες λέξεις. Και ως όμορφες ορίζω τις λέξεις που σε βάζουν να σκεφτείς. Στα αγαπημένα του 2019.

کتاب های ژوزه ساراماگو خلاقیتی دارند که نفس آدم رو بند میاره . اگه کتاب کوری ساراماگو رو خونده باشین ( که پیشنهاد می کنم حتما قبل از خوندن این کتاب اونو بخونین ) باز هم توی این کتاب منتظر غافلگیری هستین . منتظرین تا نویسنده برگ برنده شو رو کنه . منتظرین تا باز هم یه اتفاق عجیب بیفته که هیچ وقت در هیچ کجای دنیا نیفتاده . کتاب از روز رای گیری شروع می شه . اولاش یه ذره آدم حوصله اش سر می ره . هی حس می کنه خب بعد . خب پس ک�� جادوی ساراماگو . ولی دیگه از اواسط کتاب دیوانه وار می بلعین صفحه ها . خیلی کتاب خوبیه . برای کتاب خون کردن کتاب به درد بخوریه . و برای اونایی که اهل کتاب هستن یک کتاب رویایی . البته بازم تاکید می کنم که اول کوری رو بخونین .

Oh, José Saramago -- I do not know whether to feel more hope or despair. Seeing was slow to get going, in part because, at first, there were really no characters. I suspect this was intentional, as the nameless people of the novel only emerge and become interesting as their consciences awaken and they become more than just the furniture of the political-military bureaucratic complex. About halfway through, the novel picks up and becomes the moving and compelling story of a man who becomes aware -- begins to see -- what's going on -- and his journey of confusion, conscience, courage, and humility as he figures out what can and must be done, and what he himself can and must do. José Saramago, I am grateful that you walked the earth and blessed us with your compassionate vision.

Set in an unnamed city, once again Jose Saramago creates an impossible sitiuation in order to write about the human condition. Jose Saramago was a humble genius, one of the rare few writers who could talk about the trival and mundane and make them seem so magical and important.

As usual, he sets out to explore and joust with preconceived universal truths and every day notions, and exposes them, flips them on their heads, re-affirms familiar and age-old truths because in his own words "But truths need to be repeated many times so that they don't, poor things, lapse into oblivion" and even recalls to my own memory something I read by the controversial novelist and critic John Gardner last year “What the best fiction does is make powerful affirmations of familiar truths...the trivial fiction which times filters out is that which either makes wrong affirmations or else makes affirmations in a squeaky little voice. If the shoe fits.

This time around in the nameless city, 83% of the population have cast blank votes in an otherwise well run, organised democratic nation, as shown at the beginning of the novel. This novel acts like an inverted Kafka piece; this time the bureaucracy and snivelling politicians are having the nightmare.

The idea explored here, and it is a novel of ideas, is what would happen if democracy failed? Casting a blank vote is a perfectly legal thing to do and since the novel has no secret eventually-revealed conspirator behind the blank votes (other than Saramago himself) it is quite clear that it is not important how the masses managed to simultaneously think and act upon the radical action of casting a blank vote. Saramago is concerned with the aftermath, the ramifications and gives him a unique canvass to paint his wise thoughts onto.

The first half of the novel is bitingly sarcastic as he spends entire chapters attacking goverment protocal, endless ill-defined jargon and just seems to have fun trivialising and mocking government hierarchy; the powers that be spend unusual amounts of time putting each other in place and correcting each other's words. This is something Saramago does in all his works that I have read thus far, he is fascinated with linguistics, I mean, how can people lay siege to a city that they are already in?

In Blindness, Saramago showed how ordinary people would resort to barbarism when everything failed, this time around it is the government (The Interior Minister and his sub-ordinates) who act inhumanely; spying, imprisonment, interrogation, and more which ends in them evacuating the city, thus leaving the amusingly named "Blankers" to their own ends. It goes like this, the city's inhabitants get by fine and the government behaves worse and worse.

In typical Saramago style (Style is imperfection says Orhan Pamuk in his novel My Name Is Red) he writes sentences that run on for large paragraphs, sometimes even entire pages, he only uses commas and full stops, the occasional parentheses,never an exclamtion mark as he is too gentle an author to do that. The characters are named by their job titles and position within the hierarchy.

"When we are born, when we enter this world," he explains, "it is as if we signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf, well, I asked myself that question"

Those are the words uttered by the hero of the novel, who starts off as a specially trained police inflitrator, who goes into the city to find out the cause of the mass blank voting, everyone is baffled and desperate, and they decide to blame the heroine from Saramago's novel Blindness (This is a loose sequel of sorts, don't be fooled) who kept her sight while everyone else went blind. It is only after some time that our hero-the superintendent ponders and utters those words quoted above that he decides to do the right thing and brings all the information he has collected about the case and the government's plan to scape-goat the woman from the previous disaster to the media who help expose their plans.

There isn't really a resolution to the story in any conventional story-telling fashion, and it's worth noting that the original titles for this novel and blindness translated literally into english would be "An Essay On Blindness and An Essay On Seeing"

I'd recommend this novel to anyone who loves language, disgressions on just about all the usual worldly topics that Saramago talks about, and all the metaphysical and philosophical questions that he asks and ponders so well. His comments on religion, faith and gods are always a treat to read, so insightful historically and joyously, pointedly funny.

خوانش: 1400.10.18

José Saramago’dan okuduğum 3. kitap ve tüm okuduklarım da çok etkileyiciydi. Görmek kitabını okumadan önce mutlaka Körlük kitabını okumuş olmanız gerekiyor. Çünkü büyük bir bölümünde orada geçen olaylarla ve karakterlerle bağlantısı var.
Beyaz oy pusulası salgını var bu kez de. Yine Saramago iktidarı, yöneticileri, halkı, emniyet teşkilatını bir ülke içinde gerçekleşen olağandışı bir durumda ayrıntılı bir kurguyla karşımıza çıkarıyor. Bilmek görmek demektir cümlesi kitabı bitirdiğinizde çok daha anlamlı olacak sizin için. Distopya diyemiyorum çünkü maalesef ülkemizde de çok benzer olayları yaşıyoruz, şahit oluyoruz. Mutlaka okuyun derim

In the capital of a Portugal-like country, the very city infected, four years ago, with the blindness disease, it is election day. The representatives of the three main parties, p.i.t.m. (the party in the middle), p.o.t.r. (the party on the right) and p.o.t.l. (the party on the left) are waiting impatiently for the citizens to come and vote, for a heavy rain seems to keep everybody inside their homes. However, when all morning and afternoon pass without anybody showing up, the organizers start to worry, until 4 o’clock p.m. when everybody comes at once – a little strange, maybe, but it looks like a return to normality. And another surprise is in waiting when the votes are counted: almost all (more than 70% anyway) are blank, as though the voters couldn’t or wouldn’t be bothered to read what it was written on the ballot paper. The authorities decide to repeat the vote, with worse results: this time more than 80% of the votes are blank.

This is the initiating event of the story told by José Saramago’s in another of his disturbing novels: Seeing. Everybody who had read it, together with Wikipedia ☺, keep informing us that this is a sequel of his famous other novel, Blindness, stressing that they should be read in this order. I happened to do so, but I am not convinced that the order is really important (if you are not obsessed with chronology, that is), not as important as to read them both, anyway, because they seem to me mirror stories, with the same theme developed in their rising action: the eternal divorce between power and reason, between authority and humanity and arriving at the same conclusion in the falling action: blindness is not a medical condition but a social one, and the few who can still see are doomed a priori, since they are unable to escape the fate that had been written for them:

Superintendent, Yes, There’s a question I’d like to ask, but I’m not sure I dare, Ask it, please, Why are you doing this for us, why are you helping us, Because of something I read in a book, years ago now, and which I had forgotten, but which has come back to me in the last few days, What was that, We are born, and at that moment, it is as if we had signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf…

Furthermore, in a  review The Guardian published in 2006, , Ursula K Le Guin includes a quotation from José Saramago’s speech after accepting the Nobel prize, quotation that could very well apply to both novels: "The apprentice thought, 'we are blind', and he sat down and wrote Blindness to remind those who might read it that we pervert reason when we humiliate life, that human dignity is insulted every day by the powerful of our world, that the universal lie has replaced the plural truths, that man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures."

On the other hand, the similarities between the two books are often concealed by (sometimes) perfect oppositions. Indeed, the blind are replaced by seers (literally and figuratively), the lawless by lawmen, the anarchy by democracy, the insane asylum by the sane city and the blind eye by the blank paper. Even the denouements seem in antithesis: a happy end for the first novel and a tragic one for the second. However, all these contrasts serve the same purpose: to prove that it doesn’t matter how and what you are, the result is always the same: the peaceful, decent people are always the victims, silent lambs to be slapped by the powerful every time they try to step aside the way to the slaughter house, the few who dare to fight, like the detective or the ophthalmologist’s wife, are always reduced to silence, and at the end of the day to be blind or not is irrelevant, it is, as I’ve already said, only a medical condition, for what is worth seeing in a world that mocks your eyes you every day with lies and terror, in which civil rights are only symbolic and never irrevocable?

… you will understand, too late, that rights only exist fully in the words in which they are expressed and on the piece of paper on which they are recorded, whether in the form of a constitution, a law or a regulation, you will understand and, one hopes, be convinced, that their wrong or unthinking application will convulse the most firmly established society, you will understand, at last, that simple common sense tells us to take them as a mere symbol of what could be, but never as a possible, concrete reality. Casting a blank vote is your irrevocable right, and no one will ever deny you that right, but, just as we tell children not to play with matches, so we warn whole peoples of the dangers of playing with dynamite.

Thus, every single contrast seems to fade away, unfortunately not in that coincidentia oppositorum, the ancient philosophy dreamt of as a step towards transcendence, but in the chaotic way that mixes values and is a step towards hell. For what is the difference between the bunch of rapists and terrorists in Blindness and the mighty government in Seeing that bombs the city and punishes its citizens because

…the city, after all, is no longer part of the known world, it’s a pot full of putrefying food and maggots, an island set adrift in a sea not its own, a dangerous source of infection…

And what is the difference between the blind people and the people who can see but behave like when they were blind, accepting their fate with dignity, it’s true, but also with resignation?

The demonstration did not live up to their expectations. The people arrived and filled the square, they stood for half an hour staring in silence at the closed-up palace, then they dispersed, and, some walking, others in buses, still others cadging lifts from supportive strangers, they all went home.

There is one true constant (in the sense that he isn’t a mirror image, but the same image in both novels): the dog named Constant (the only name written with a capital letter in the book, actually, the only name given to a character in the book), the dog of tears, a modern Cerberus that in the end hops into the boat of Caron with his mistress, after witnessing all that it was to witness, after howling all that it was to howl about. The delicate symmetry of the narrative is thus achieved: the motto from “The Book of Voices” (where else from?) puts the dog on the scene long before his actual appearance (“Let’s howl, said the dog”) and the final scene, in which his long howl is suddenly interrupted by the shot, lets him out of it. Significantly, and to firmly close the circle between the two books (in order not to see anymore where one begins and the other ends), the world has become once again not only blind, but also deaf and willingly so:

Then a blind man asked, Did you hear something, Three shots, replied another blind man, But there was a dog howling too, It’s stopped now, that must have been the third shot, Good, I hate to hear dogs howl.

Του βάζω συγκρατημένα 4/5 και αυτό γιατί πιστεύω πως κρύβει πολύ περισσότερα πράγματα απο αυτά που κατάλαβα. Η πρώτη μου επαφή με τον Σαραμαγκού μπορώ να πω πως στέφθηκε με επιτυχία και παρόλο που η γραφή στην αρχή με ξένισε λίγο, μετά έγινε τόσο απαραίτητη και ουσιαστική για την αφήγηση που αν είχε γίνει με διαφορετικό τρόπο το αποτέλεσμα θα ήταν πολύ διαφορετικό. Δεν περίμενα ότι θα έχει το χιούμορ του, ούτε πως θα δίνονταν έμφαση σε περισσότερους πρωταγωνιστές που βλέπουν διαφορετικά την κρίση που επικρατεί, ως κινητήριος δύναμη της ιστορίας.
Ναι, μάλλον θα αγοράσω ότι έχει βγει απο Σαραμανγκού.

Começo a perceber que para mim é difícil não adorar um livro de Saramago. Não consigo deixar de me impressionar com as magnificas metáforas com que, em cada livro que publicou, "torna constantemente compreensível uma realidade fugidia", como disse a academia Nobel. De certa forma, todos os livros dele são ensaios sobre a lucidez. Neste em particular, uma sequela de n  Ensaio Sobre a Cegueiran, emprega novamente uma elaborada e complexa parábola numa crítica ao sistema democrático contemporâneo e às muitas falhas de uma instituição que afirma servir o povo quando na verdade (na opinião do escritor) dele se serve.

A premissa do enredo é simples: e se um dia a esmagadora maioria da população de uma cidade, revoltando-se contra as insuficiências de um sistema em que não confia, espontaneamente decidisse votar em branco? É isto que acontece nesta cidade sem nome, onde as eleições municipais recolhem cerca de 70% de votos em branco, com uma abstenção praticamente inexistente. Quando as eleições se repetem, depois de o governo repreender semelhante falta de civismo, os votos em branco tornam-se mais de 80%. Desencadeia-se o mote para todo o género de situações sórdidas: o governo busca punir a população abandonando-a à sua sorte, saindo da cidade com todas as autoridades policiais e barricando-a de forma a que ninguém possa sair; o governo secretamente orquestra atentados terroristas que buscam aterrorizar a população e atirá-la novamente aos braços do governo; o governo mata, o governo urde.

Neste contexto, o governo ordena uma investigação policial, infiltrando três polícias na cidade sem polícia para que investiguem uma misteriosa mulher, que quatro anos antes tinha sido a única pessoa que tinha ficado imune à epidemia de cegueira que devastou o país (ver Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira). O governo, na pessoa de um maquiavélico ministro do interior, procura atribuir-lhe as culpas da insurreição espontânea da população. No entanto, o comissário líder da investigação conclui em fim que a mulher é inocente, e que o governo busca simplesmente um bode expiatório. Esta conclusão acaba por ser confirmada pelo ministro do interior numa chamada telefónica em que lhe ordena que plante provas se necessário for para que a mulher seja considerada culpada. O comissário nega-se a tal tarefa, e expõe os resultados da sua investigação a um jornal que habilmente logra escapar à censura promovida pelo governo. O livro termina com a verdade exposta à população, que fotocopia o artigo e o divulga mesmo após a apreensão dos jornais onde figura o artigo dissidente. Vislumbra-se um brilho de esperança no horizonte, esperança num sistema melhor construído por esses jovens que espalham a verdade pela cidade enfiando fotocópias do artigo em caixas de correio - infelizmente, nem o comissário nem a mulher verão esse futuro (se alguma vez chegar), uma vez que acabam mortos por um assassino enviado pelo ministro do interior. Este, por sua vez, é logo a seguir sumariamente despedido pelo escândalo que se gerou em torno da situação.

Se alguma crítica pode ser feita a este livro, é que é difícil de acreditar que a nação que só quatro anos antes matou, violou e torturou numa orgia de violência quando uma epidemia de cegueira se abateu sobre a população agora tenha reunido o espírito cívico e a solidariedade requeridas a uma insurreição espontânea contra o governo. Por esta razão, brilhante como este livro é, talvez não devesse ter sido uma sequela de n  Ensaio Sobre a Cegueiran - são mundos diferentes. Há que reconhecer, contudo, que é uma brilhante sátira das democracias nos dias de hoje, em que os governos procuram servir interesses particulares em vez do bem comum do povo que o elegeu. Existe talvez alguma vontade de acreditar que isto são exageros mirabolantes e ridículos e que semelhantes coisas não acontecem nos dias de hoje em países de primeiro mundo; mas basta olhar as manchetes dos jornais e para casos como o roubo de armas de Tancos ou o chorrilho de encobrimentos orquestrados pela administração Trump nos E.U.A. para ver que estas absurdidades são infelizmente muito realistas. O que Saramago faz é um apelo à lucidez, lucidez para ver as falhas de um sistema que involuntariamente subscrevemos e lucidez para lutar pela construção de um melhor. Termino com uma das minhas citações favoritas deste livro:

Nascemos, e nesse momento é como se tivéssemos formado um pacto para toda a vida, mas o dia pode chegar em que nos perguntemos Quem assinou isto por mim

Absolutamente maravilhoso. O melhor de 2024, uma obra seminal numa escrita difícil onde o ritmo e concentração do leitor é imprescindível para o acompanhamento e compreensão de um texto onde Saramago nos apresenta uma história fascinante, fruto de uma imaginação brilhante e um espírito tão irónico e mordaz, quanto subtil e bondoso.
Todos os espíritos livres e geniais repudiam os lugares comuns, são críticos inflexíveis do politicamente correto e observadores atentos da mundividência e do quotidiano. São como Saramago, são estruturalmente anarquistas.