Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.

Goodness me. The horror. The terror. These two moist pulpy vibratile objects of anatomy, one on either side of the nose, 'the window to the soul', are steering wheels of the body, the basis of all order in the fragile human world, without which the purpose of evolutionary biology is moot. What would it be like if everyone was struck by an epidemic of blindness, sudden and inexplicable, you and I 'catching' blindness from one another? This novel explores the premise to the fullest possibility. Saramago sets the scene with a cast of half a dozen characters who are quarantined in an abandoned army barracks for the purpose of containing the epidemic. And then the chaos ensues.

This novel is as much an exploration of the horrendous possibilities created by the dysfunction of anatomy as it is of the limits of human resilience to resist consummate annihilation. After all the process of evolution has taught us very little; we adapt to external dangers but we fail when something goes amiss inside our bodies. We would live longer had it not been the case.

Our seven major characters go to great lengths to remain floating in a world wherein the social order has suffered a total breakdown. People lost their identity when they lost their eyesight. So the writer doesn't bother to name those phantom-like humans who can't see and be seen. They are first blind man, first blind man's wife, blind doctor, the doctor's wife, the boy with the squint, the girl with glasses, the old man with the black eyepatch. I admire Saramago's other stylistic inventions. Dialogue is not set in quotes; every first-person utterance starts with a capitalised alphabet to separate it from the narrating voice. Full stops come rarely. Paragraphs which run in length into multiple pages chain you to the text that you can't tear your eyes off. This is truly spellbinding.

I'm still reeling from the blind rapes (we don't need seeing eyes to feel the excitement of skin and flesh, the blind men made full use of this truth), half-eaten corpses stuck in abandoned cars and looted foodstores, and squelch of feet on human excrement littering the streets that I will need to clear my head and read something light.

But without doubt it's a brilliantly told story, a fascinating study into human failings, if you allow for the vicarious witnessing of the horror of human degradation to be called fascinating. In-between Saramago manages to create comedy out of tragedy. This is not a new phenomenon in literature but Saramago's treatment has been so light and deadpan that you could deny he ever meant to be ironically humorous in its telling.

In one scene from the quarantine a group of soldiers on duty entered the premises to bring foodboxes to the blind internees who had been ordered to stay out of sight for fear of passing on their blindness to healthy ones. But as chance would have it, the mealtime had passed and the hungry internees moved toward the entrance, crashing into one another with outstretched arms and unsteady steps in the manner of Egyptian mummies, to reach the foyer so that they could shout to demand food. Just at that moment soldiers entered the place and, on spotting a group of staggering and tottering blind men, howled in utter terror, dropped the boxes and their guns and fled the building to be away from the field of vision of the blind internees! This was a powerful and ironic instance of the seeing terrified of the blind and the hapless.

n  I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.n

March 2015

Edited 25th July 2015.

Just imagine that you are going about your daily life as you always do. It's a normal day; nothing out of the ordinary. But then, suddenly, without any forewarning, you go completely blind. One second seeing the world as you know it, the next experiencing a complete and unending whiteness.

Then imagine you go to the trusty health professionals so they can get to the bottom of it... the doctor doesn't know what's wrong with you, but you're confident he/she will figure it out and prescribe accordingly. And then the doctor goes blind. But not just him - everyone you have come into contact with is experiencing the same sudden white blindness. The condition spreads and takes hold within a few hours... soon this contagious blindness is spreading like wildfire and no one knows how to cure it.

This book is so frightening and so... realistic. Blindness is not an alien concept like monsters and ghosts, neither are contagious diseases. So imagine a disease that prompted sudden blindness; that spread from one person to another quicker than the common cold. This book feels like a story that could happen.

One of the main issues readers have with this - if they have any - is the writing style. It's written in huge blocks of text with little punctuation, no quotation marks, and many run-on sentences. It can get a little disorientating, but I guess that's the end of the world for you. I actually found it incredibly effective in creating the air of blind panic that Saramago clearly wanted to impart. People fumbling around in the whiteness, hoping no one around means them harm and being powerless to do anything about it if they did.

Someone once said: "You are who you are when no one is watching." And in this world, no one is watching. Fear reigns and some will choose to exploit the fear or succumb to it. I thought it was a frightening and believable portrait of the disintegration of society.

Very highly recommended.

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Puff... tela con la novela!! Me ha parecido brutal, muy buena!!

Iba a ciegas (nunca mejor dicho) y no me lo esperaba así, la verdad. Me ha tenido enganchada de principio a fin.

Obra de ficción en la que la población se va quedando ciega. Una "ceguera blanca" que se contagia rápidamente y se va extendiendo sin poderse evitar.
Y en un mundo donde nadie ve, cómo sobrevivir, cómo convivir, qué se puede hacer?? Y poco más se puede decir de la trama, hay que adentrarse.

La novela refleja esto, cómo se comportarían los humanos ante una situación tan límite, hasta dónde aguantaríamos, hasta dónde podríamos llegar. Afloran toda clase de reacciones y sentimientos posibles (el miedo, la solidaridad, el amor, la maldad, la violencia extrema, el odio, la rivalidad,...); en realidad, la pura y dura supervivencia en un mundo atroz y desolador.
La trama tiene capítulos donde se aborda lo peor del ser humano. Las descripciones de los lugares son tan explícitas que generan rechazo y repugnancia. La primera parte del libro es realmente agobiante e incómoda de leer para pasar a una segunda en la que todo es un poco más relajado y consigues respirar un poco de optimismo.

Y así contando parece una novela a rechazar. A mí me ha parecido brutal la forma en que el escritor te envuelve en este mundo nauseabundo y apocalíptico. Esos diálogos escritos todos seguidos, sin guiones, dentro del párrafo, teniendo que releer para ver quién dice qué (en nada te acostumbras) y hace que te pegues aun más a la trama. Esos personajes sin nombre que los conoces de sobra y no te interesa cómo se llaman sino cómo viven (el médico, la mujer del médico, la chica de las gafas oscuras, el niño estrábico,...) y que les pasará. "Los ciegos no necesitan nombre, yo soy esta voz que tengo, lo demás no es importante".

En fin, historia apocalíptica que saca lo peor y lo mejor del ser humano y te hace reflexionar en cómo reaccionaríamos ante una situación tan extrema; si en el fondo no somos más que animales, yo tengo fe en que no.
Novela que te puede fascinar o no. A mí sí.

"Si pudieras ver tú lo que yo estoy obligada a ver, querrías ser ciego".
"La ceguera también es esto, vivir en un mundo donde se ha acabado la esperanza".

Blindness is a great novel by Portuguese writer José Saramago that deals with human's individual and collective reactions when in the face of adversarial forces. With gorgeous prose, this thought-provoking book shows us how our world, ever so concerned and consumed by appearances, would deal with the loss of our most relied upon sense: vision. When it's every man by himself, when every man is free to do whatever he wants without the impending fear of recognition and judgement, we start to feel - I was going to say see - what the man's true nature is and the crumbling down of a civilization diseased with selfishness, intolerance and ambition, to name just few symptoms.

Saramago tells us the story of a mysterious mass plague of blindness that affects nearly everyone living in an unnamed place in a never specified time and the implications this epidemic has on people's lives. It all starts inexplicably when a man in his car suddenly starts seeing - or rather stops seeing anything but - a clear white brightness. He's blind. Depending upon a stranger's kindness to be able to go home in safety, we witness what appears to be the first sign of corruption and the first crack in society's impending breakdown when the infamous volunteer steals the blind man's car. Unfortunately for him, the white pest follows him and turns him into one of its victims as well.

Spreading fast, this collective blindness is now frightening the authorities and must be dealt with: a large group of blind people and possibly infected ones - those who had any contact with the first group - have now been put in quarantine until second order. Living conditions start to degrade as the isolated population grows bigger, there is no organization, basic medicine is a luxury not allowed in and hygiene is nowhere to be found. To complicate things further, an armed clique acquires control and power, forcing the subjugated to pay for food in any way they can. The scenes that follow are extremely unpleasant to read, but at the same time they're so realistic that you can't be mad at Saramago for writing such severe events packed with violence that include rapes and murders.

Contrasting with this dystopian desolation, there is some solidarity and compassion in the form of one character: the doctor's wife. The only one in the asylum who miraculously is still able to see, she takes care of her husband and of those who became her new family: the girl with the dark glasses, the boy with the squint, the old man with the black eye patch, the first blind man and the first blind man's wife - the characters' names are never mentioned, which is an interesting choice the author made. When we think of someone, when we hear their name, we always conjure an image in our head; a picture is formed before our eyes. Here we are with a bunch of people who no longer can rely on their sight so, in not giving them names, Saramago also puts us in the dark, forcing us to rely instead on personal characteristics and descriptions given to conjure these characters ourselves.

After an uprising, folks find out the asylum has been abandoned by the army who was until then responsible for it and they're able to leave. Realizing that what they went through in quarantine was only a detail in the huge landscape, now we follow our protagonists as they wander through the city in search of better conditions: water, food, clothes, a way to find their homes and their relatives.

Talking about Saramago's writing style, I should say that it may be a bit confusing at first due to the lack of punctuation; there are many long sentences and no quotation marks around dialogues. But in no time you'll get used to his simplistic style - not in any way devoid of meaning or deepness -, and you'll realize that it actually adds to this reading experience as you'll be going faster through the words; with fewer pauses and breaks, you'll find yourself feeling suffocated and almost breathless, which will only add to the book's atmosphere of urgency, anxiety and despair.

Film adaptation: there is a good film by Fernando Meirelles also called Blindness starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Gael García Bernal, released in 2008. While this adaptation isn't as graphic and visceral as Saramago's novel, it's still worth seeing. It is said that Saramago was in tears when the movie ended and said to director Meirelles: "Fernando, I am so happy to have seen this movie. I am as happy as I was the day I finished the book."

Rating: unfortunately, it seems the late José Saramago - the only Portuguese-language novelist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature - has yet to gain the world recognition he deserves. For his torturing novel, for his fearlessness in going deep and telling a brutal and violent story that makes us wonder, as Virginia Woolf greatly put it, "Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we attractive as a species?": 5 stars.

”The advantage enjoyed by these blind men was what might be called the illusion of light. In fact, it made no difference to them whether it was day or night, the first light of dawn or the evening twilight, the silent hours of early morning or the bustling din of noon, these blind people were for ever surrounded by a resplendent whiteness, like the sun shining through mist. For the latter, blindness did not mean being plunged into banal darkness, but living inside a luminous halo.”

n  n

We have all experienced blindness. Not that long ago I woke up in the middle of the night. There was no reassuring red glow of the digital clock by my bed nor the diffused yellow light from the streetlight making slat patterns across my floor . The dark was ink vat black, not gray or any other color on the spectrum, dark soul black.

n  n

My eyes ached from holding them open so wide trying to capture any stray light that could reassure me that the wonderful array of cones and rods in my eyes were still functioning. Any creak or thump took on so much more significance giving my active imagination ample incentive to flash an array of possible horrible scenarios. My heart rate climbs. I wondered if I’ve went blind. I think about the room full of books that will have no more significance to me than a pile of bricks or cement blocks, something I held reverence for that is now less than useless. I lay there in various stages of disbelief and reassurances until a sliver of light announced the dawn and my eyes, my beautiful eyes, luxuriated in those first rays of a new day. I could see.

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the most terrifying events to happen to humanity in the 20th century even eclipsing two horrific world wars. 50 million people worldwide died suffocating from fluid filled lungs. Doctors were baffled, unable to find a cure or slow down the symptoms to allow the human immune system to have a chance. The disease had no compassion or any sense of a person’s economic situation, rich, poor, young and old all died. The average life expectancy in the United States dropped by twelve years.

And then it just disappeared. As if a magic number of dead had been reached. Can you imagine the fear that any flu symptoms must have inspired in people for years after the event?

n  n
The Blind Eyes Looked Fine.

This book is about such an epidemic. An epidemic that spares no one. It begins with a man going blind while sitting in his car at a traffic light. He is brought to an opthamologist and his trip to see the doctor spreads this contagion at the speed of a prairie fire. The opthamologist is in the midst of researching this baffling disease when he goes blind as well. The government on the verge of panic rounds up all those infected in an attempt to contain the spread of the disease. The wife of the eye doctor packs his suitcase and even though she can still see packs her own clothes as well. When the government people come to get him she goes with him. They are taken to a vacant mental hospital. At first there are only a handful of people and then there are hundreds of people crammed into this facility. Soldiers are left to guard them and feed them. As more soldiers go blind fears become reality and in one such moment of desperation the soldiers fire into the crowd of blind people. The soldiers retreat and the blind are left with dead bodies to bury and spilled food to collect.

”Their hunger, however, had the strength only to take them three steps forward, reason intervened and warned them that for anybody imprudent enough to advance there was danger lurking in those lifeless bodies, above all, in that blood, who could tell what vapors, what emanations, what poisonous miasmas might not already be oozing forth from the open wounds of the corpses. They’re dead, they can’t do any harm, someone remarked, the intention was to reassure himself and others, but his words made matters worse, it was true that these blind internees were dead, that they could not move, see, could neither stir nor breath, but who can say that this white blindness is not some spiritual malaise, and if we assume this to be the case then the spirits of those blind casualties have never been as free as they are now, released from their bodies, and therefore free to do whatever they like, above all, to do evil, which as everyone knows, has always been the easiest thing to do.”

Any supernatural element, spirits or otherwise take a backseat to living breathing humans when it comes to perpetrating evil. A gang of men, empowered by a gun wielding leader, take control of the food. All of the internees are asked to bring all their valuables to be assessed and traded for food and water. I had to almost laugh at this point because these thugs are trapped in pre-blindness thinking. What value will jewelry or paper money have with people that can’t see? A good belt or a pair of shoes or a glass of water or a sandwich are the only things of any real value anymore. Well there is one other thing that will continue to have value.

Women.

The inmates have been split into groups by rooms. After the valuables have been exhausted as a bartering tool for food and water the thugs tell the groups that if they want to eat they need to send their women to them. Hunger is all consuming. When you are hungry you can not think about anything else other than finding food. Your body, as part of our survival instinct, makes you very uncomfortable. We can all say what we would be capable of doing and not capable of doing when we are sitting in a bar casually munching on free peanuts and pretzels between pints of beer. The fact of the matter is most of us have never felt real hunger. We have had moments where our stomachs rumble or experienced a headache due to a missed meal, but true hunger, not eating for days hunger we can only speculate about what that is like.

One man in the group sounding like some of the Republican candidates in this last election said:

”What did it matter if the women had to go there twice a month to give theses men what nature gave them to give.”

I think even the women had no idea what it really would mean to be raped. They have all had sex, no blushing virgins among them. They were hungry too and after some speculation decide that they need to do this not only to feed themselves, but also their men. It is way beyond anything they could even imagine. It was horrible and Jose Saramago pulls no punches. Being raped by one man is bad enough, but when being raped by several men a woman has become an object, not even an object of desire, but merely a receptacle for lust. Being attractive, or smart or any of the things that made men desire her, in the world before blindness, are suddenly immaterial. She is faceless, a base unit to be used and abused devoid of the uniqueness that identify all of us beyond being just a male or a female.

n  n


As the world goes blind the wife of the doctor is left unaffected. She continues to help where she can, but is reluctant to let everyone know she can see. She would be a slave to the group if they ever found out she could still see. She breaks out with a group of people all identified by their past professions or by some other identifying marker. We never do learn any of their names as if their identities have escaped them with their loss of vision.

There is a sweet scene when the doctor and his wife first arrive back at their home. ”The doctor put his hand into the inside pocket of his new jacket and brought out the keys. He held them in mid-air, waiting, his wife gently guided his hand towards the keyhole.”The world is in chaos as blind people stumble everywhere looking for food and shelter. It is truly a horrific vision of a world disintegrating and brings home to me just how vulnerable we all are to a pandemic event or the loss of the electrical grid or for those with more fanciful terrors a zombie apocalypse.

Will you kill someone to live?

n  n
Jose Saramago

Jose Saramago by keeping the wife of the doctor immune to the disease gives himself a conduit to describe events. Without her the novel would have been difficult to write and would have been more difficult for us to read. We need vision and if we don’t have it ourselves we certainly need someone to provide it for us. There are lots of great themes in the novel, exploring the human condition and how we fail ourselves; and yet, eventually overcome the most severe circumstances. The text is a block of words with few paragraph breaks or markers to help us keep track of who is talking. This certainly adds to the difficulty of reading the novel, but I must counsel you to persevere. You will come away from the novel knowing you have experienced something, a grand vision of the disintegration of civilization and certainly you will reevaluate what is most important in your life. This is a novel that does what a great novel is supposed to do; it reveals what we keep hidden from ourselves.

To see all my latest book and movie reviews visit my blog at http://www.jeffreykeeten.com.
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واقعا فوق العاده بود،ناراحتم چرا زودتر اين كتاب رو نخونده بودم

Update. I said I would never read another Saramago because of his writing style. I did though. All the Names and Death with Interruptions. Both brilliant. But I listened to them. I wouldn't have appreciated them as much if I'd had to struggle through Saramago's idiosyncratic writing style.

_________________

In H.G. Wells 'In the Country of the Blind' the only person who can see suffers great discrimination and has to agree to have his eyes removed and become as blind as the rest of the people who over the generations have adapted to life without vision. In Saramago's book, the only person who can see is the heroine of the book. This is a device for telling the story which is the collapse of the social order as with just about all dystopian stories. One wonders if, given time, those blinded by the disease wouldn't adapt as in Country of the Blind? And if they did so, then resent those who could see and instead of relying on the few sighted people for help despise them for the obvious power they have. Perhaps even suspect them of exploiting that power for their gain and the blinds' detriment.

I read the book and watched the film. I didn't find Saramago's style easy to read. Extremely long sentences, endless paragraphs and an idiosyncratic grammar made me have to concentrate on the reading more than the subject matter. It was worth it, but written in standard English I think I would have enjoyed it more. The film was a good, standard, Hollywood film meaning it appeals to the masses, has pretty people and no depth and has been designed to make money. I quite enjoyed it, but am glad I read the book first.

Although I found this book interesting, I didn't find it the cutting edge work of genius that I had read about. I don't think I would ever read another Saramago because life is too short to struggle through such a difficult writing style. The book took me about three times as long as if it had been written in a more usual manner. It seems to me to be an ego thing to write in a way that is completely different to everyone else. The reason there is a standard way of writing is that it is easy for us all to understand rather than having to adapt to anyone's idiosyncratic idea of spelling and grammar.

Writing is communication and understanding is key. This applies just as much to the reviewers on GR who don't ever use paragraphs and or/capital letters, but it's one thing reading a review and another a whole book - I'm prepared to go along with someone's style if they write good reviews reasonably short ones. Write an unparagraphed essay-length review and you've lost me, but a whole book.... no, not again.

Un roman despre o epidemie, nu-i așa?

Nu mai e nevoie să rezum intriga, o știe toată lumea. S-au scris sute și sute de recenzii despre „eseul” lui Saramago, publicat în 1995. A mai fost și filmul din 2008. Aș mențona faptul că José Saramago a scris romanul despre „orbire” la 72-73 de ani, exemplu uimitor de fecunditate tardivă. În treacăt fie spus, prima carte notabilă a prozatorului portughez a fost publicată de el cînd împlinise 60 de ani: Memorialul mănăstirii.

M-am întrebat de ce a ales autorul să pună dialogurile în text, de ce a renunțat adeseori la semnele de punctuație, de ce alineatele sînt foarte rare... Lectura devine astfel mai dificilă, unii renunță pur și simplu să termine romanul. Bănuiesc că Saramago știa bine asta. Nu este, cred, un simplu procedeu „poetic”, o găselniță grafică, lipsită de sens. Vă amintiți, cred, de poetul e. m. cummings, care a minusculat totul, și versurile, și numele propriu.

Renunțînd la paragrafe, la dialogul introdus prin liniuțe, Saramago sugerează, am impresia, că Eseu despre orbire este o carte care se cuvine a fi citită lent, tacticos, frază după frază, propoziție cu propoziție, cuvînt după cuvînt, „langsam”, cum zic nemții și cum cerea într-un text foarte cunoscut Nietzsche. În fond, nici n-o poți citi altfel: nu ai cum sări peste paragrafe și descrieri, fiindcă nu există paragrafe și descrieri (în număr prea mare). Dacă te apuci să citești o carte de Saramago, e bine să fii gata pentru acest efort de atenție, știi că vei fi răsplătit la sfîrșitul lecturii. Un text de Saramago dă întotdeauna de gîndit. Naratorul lui (ironic cît cuprinde) ne pune mintea la încercare. Aș observa și faptul că, în Eseu despre orbire, naratorul / povestitorul nu este orb, el vede ceea ce orbii din casa de nebuni, din oraș, nu sînt în stare să vadă (cu excepția soției medicului oftalmolog).

Nu există nici nume proprii. Personajele sînt identificate astfel: soţia medicului, bătrînul cu legătură neagră, fata cu ochelari negri, orbul contabil, oarba cu insomnia, camerista, asistentul farmacist, femeia cu bricheta etc. Așadar, oricine poate fi orb, orbirea nu ține seama de identitatea precisă a personajelor. Îi transformă pe oameni în anonimi. Nu o mai lungesc. În încheiere, voi transcrie cîteva pasaje. Le voi lăsa, desigur, ca în carte:

„A fost vina mea, suspina ea, ce-i drept e drept, nu se putea nega, dar e la fel de adevărat, în caz c-ar fi o mîngîiere, că, dacă înainte de fiecare gest, am încerca să-i prevedem toate consecinţele, să le cîntărim serios, mai întîi pe cele imediate, apoi pe cele probabile, posibile, cele imaginabile, n-am reuşi să ne urnim un pas din locul unde primul gînd ne-a făcut să ne oprim”;

„La ce-mi ajută că văd. O ajutase ca să ştie despre oroare mai multe decît îşi închipuise vreodată, o ajutase ca să-şi dorească să fie oarbă, la nimic altceva...”;

„aici nimeni nu se mai poate salva, orbire e şi asta, să trăieşti într-o lume unde s-a terminat speranţa”;

„bătrînul cu legătură neagră spuse, Mai bine mor de un glonţ decît în flăcări, părea glasul experienţei...”;

„omul începe prin a ceda în lucrurile mărunte şi sfîrşeşte pierzînd tot sensul vieţii”;

„Frica orbeşte, spuse tînăra cu ochelari negri, Sînt bune cuvintele, eram orbi în clipa cînd am orbit, frica ne-a orbit, frica ne va ţine orbi...”;

„aşa e lumea făcută, încît adevărul trebuie să se deghizeze de multe ori în minciună ca să-şi atingă scopurile”;

„fuseseră părăsite [de oameni] toate laboratoarele, unde nu le rămînea bacteriilor altă soluţie de supravieţuire decît să se devoreze între ele...”

În concluzie, un roman care își merită întru totul celebritatea.

"رغم ان البلاء عام على الجميع، فهناك دائما من يعيش زمنا أسوا من الاخرين"
عندما تقف امام تحفة فنية رائعة يكون الصمت هو المعبر عن هذه الروعة.
وانا اعجز عن قول اي شيء امام تحفة جوزيه ساراماغو،
فهكذا تستطيع ان تفوز بجائزة نوبل للاداب .
عمى فجائي يجتاح الجميع وعودة للبصر فجاة ايضا واثناء ذلك يبين تغير الناس من حال الى حال من حب النفس والاهواء الشخصية والطموحات الفردية الى حالة اقصى طموحها الحصول على وجبة طعام دون التفكير بأي شيء اخر السيارات بالشوارع تستخدم فقط للمبيت والمنازل اصبحت مشاعا من يصل اليها ينام فيها دون ملكية فردية، كل شيء مشاع وجعل زوجة الطبيب التي لم يصيبها العمى في الرواية الشاهد الرئيسي على هذه التغيرات وحتى انها تمنت العمى لنفسها حتى تتساوى معهم.
انها دعوة الى البصيرة والاهتمام بالحياة الحقيقية وملخص الرواية يكون في مقولة الشاهدة الرئيسية: "لا اعتقد اننا عمينا، بل اعتقد اننا عميان، عميان يرون، بشر عميان يستطيعون ان بروا ولكنهم لا يرون."
انصح الجميع بقرائتها والاستمتاع

"الأكثر رعبا من العمي .. هو أن تكون الوحيد الذي يري"
وهذه رواية ربما ستُغير رؤيتك للعالم..للأبد

n
{إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ خُلِقَ هَلُوعاً * إِذَا مَسَّهُ الشَّرُّ جَزُوعاً * وَإِذَا مَسَّهُ الْخَيْرُ مَنُوعاً}
n

صدق الله العظيم
تذكرت بقراءتي لتلك الآية الكريمة ما حدث من بعض نوعيات البشر بتلك الرواية/الفيلم للمؤلف العبقري جوزيه سارماجو الذي للاسف تأخرت قراءتي له، وتلك القصة المقبضة السوداء بالرغم من كل اللون الأبيض الغالب في صورها والكادرات

يا الله علي البشر .. يقولون أن الإنسان يظهر معدنه الأصلي وقت الشدائد
وهذا الفيروس الأبيض..العمي الذي يحيل كل ما نراه أبيض كان أحد تلك الشدائد..وقد سودّ البعض كل هذا البياض

إهمال السلطات والحكّام للمرضي بهذا العمي الابيض المفاجئ ، وعزلهم دون العناية بنظافة أو تنظيم ...فقط للهلع..والجزع
فيحدث صراع علي سلطة واهية فقط للطمع وارضاء الشهوات والجشع
وقتها من يضع يده علي الغذاء..الخير ، يكون منوعا ويمنع الغذاء علي الضعفاء

نعم هي نظرة سوداوية بشكل رهيب ولكن من قال أنها بعيدة -في خيوطها الأساسية- عن الواقع؟

لسبب ما عندما شاهدت المستشفي التي تم وضع بها العميان تذكرت حال 80% من مستشفيات بلدنا غير الاستثمارية , غير تلك التي لا يقدر عليها إلا من يمكنه دفع الألاف لليلة واحدة بالعناية المركزة

لسبب ما عندما شاهدت الفوضي في المدينة علي الأسواق التجارية ذكرتني بكل الفوضي التي حدثت عندنا في وقت الثورة ببعض الأسواق وبلطجة "ككارفور الأسكندرية 28 يناير"..وما يحدث ايضا في بلدان كثيرة في مثل تلك الأوقات

الـ"مستقوي" والمستحوذ علي كل الطعام ويتحكم بباقي البشر به , بلطجة .. منع للخير والحق ..استبداد وشهوة للحكم

كل هذا في المجتمع الصغير الذي كونه العميان داخل المستشفي , مستشفي المجانين..صراع علي الحكم بل ونظام ملكية واستبداد وطاغية

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أسلوب الرواية
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من قال ماذا؟ من صاحب تلك الجملة..من الذي فعل هذا..هل هذا حوار أم باقي السرد؟

ليس العيب في نظرك ,وليس عيبا في الترجمات , سواء الأنجليزية أو العربية
فهذا هو النص الذي كتبه العبقري جوزيه..كما بين يديك
الحوار مختلط ,أحيانا لا تعرف متي بدأت جملة الطبيب الحوارية ومتي بدأ رد زوجته..ومتي بدأ السرد مرة اخري؟..استخدام علامات الترقيم من أقواس حوارية وخلافه شبهه منعدم
لماذا؟
لا تنس ,أن الأحداث من وجهة نظر مجموعة من العميان..ومبصرة واحدة

أين حدثت أحداث الرواية .. ما أسماء الأشخاص؟

لن تدري..وهذه أيضا عبقرية المؤلف
استخدم المؤلف فكرة اللامكان واللازمان, بل لم يمنح شخصيات روايته أسماء..يعرفون بأعمالهم او سماتهم " الدكتور , زوجة الدكتور, المريض الأول, ذات النظارة الشمسية..الخ" بل وحتي الدولة لا تبدو لك اين هي بالضبط

والعبقرية هنا أن أحداث الرواية كلها ,بأي لغة تقرأها ...ستشعر أن -لا قدر الله- إذا ما اصابت البلد تلك الفاجعة, هذا نفس ما قد يحدث لك ولمن حولك ,لحكومتك وسلطاتك
هذا هو الطبع البشري
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الشخصيات بين العمي والبصيرة
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هناك لص, ليس لصا محترفا ولكنه فقط وجد فرصة سرقة سيارة من رجل أعمي متاحا بسهولة...ففعلها

ولكنه شعر بتأنيب الضمير بمجرد أن عمّي , وكراهية للأعمي صاحب السيارة لأنه يري أنه السبب في عماه

صاحب السيارة "الأعمي الأول" يمقت ويكره سارق سيارته الذي استغل عماه , ولكنه يشعر بالتعاطف معه ومسامحته عندما يجده يحتضر

الفتاة المتحررة "المحظية" بمجرد عماها تشعر بشئ من العفة ..والحنين لإهلها والقلق عليهم ,والقلق علي قلقهم عليها

الفتي الصغير..الذي لايطيق الأبتعاد عن أمه ,بمجرد تقبله للأمر الواقع وعماه يحاول التكيف..وترك والديه جانبا ومحاولة التعايش مع الحياة التي امامه

الدكتور يشعر طوال الوقت بعجزه امام زوجته,التي صارت "عصاه البيضاء" ,ليس هذا فحسب بل هي صارت عيناه ويداه..صارت هي المسؤلة عنه وليس منه كالمفترض

هناك الرجل ذو العصابة السوداء..الحكيم , كان مقدرا له ضعف بصر نهائي بعينه الوحيدة ..لذلك لم يغير العمي الكثير من حكمته

قد يكون العمي غير بعض الشخصيات والطباع للأفضل..وربما للأسوأ
ربما بفقد البعض بصرهم استعادوا بصيرتهم , وربما باصابتهم بالعمي افقدهم صوابهم
ربما لهذا كان رمز مشفي المجانين

ولكن هناك من لم يعمي..ولكنه تحمل ضغطا اضخم بكثير من كل باقي العميان
هي شخصية زوجة الدكتور
زوجة الدكتور الوحيدة المبصرة ... تري عيوب ونواقص الجميع , تحاول بقدر الأمكان تنظيم حياة بضع الأفراد المقيمين معها وزوجها في العنبر
تعرف أن هؤلاء العميان لن يرحموها إذا ما عرفوا بأنها مبصرة, سيعاملونها معاملة العبيد
وبصراحة أعتبرها واحدة من أهم الشخصيات النسائية بالروايات التي قرأتها


وقد نجح الفيلم ايضا في نقل كثير من تلك المشاعر والأحداث من وجهة نظري بعد أن قرأت الرواية

بالطبع اختصر شيئا من الأحداث بالأخص بعد الخروج من المستشفي ولكن الأمر كان مرهقا فعلا ..ولكن لا يجب ان ننحي الرواية جانبا لتعمقها في نفسية الشخصيات بالطبع بشكل أكبر

وللعلم أن جوزية ساراماجو عندما شاهد الفيلم غلبته دموعه تاثرا وشكر المخرج لسعادته بمشاهدة الفيلم بنفس سعادته يوم انهي كتابة تلك الرواية

الرواية الرهيبة..الخيالية..الواقعية

وَخُلِقَ الْإِنْسَانُ ضَعِيفًا
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إلا من رحم ربي

خلي عندك أمل

محمد العربي
في يونيو 2015
القراءة
من 20 يوليو 2015
إلي 25 يوليو 2015

Gruesome disaster porn with an overstretched premise. A prolonged meditation on the breakdown of sanitation, sanity and humanity. And even then Saramago doesn't go the whole way in showcasing human debasement. He refrains from letting his characters devour each other in times of extreme hunger, cannibalism being a historically common famine practice.

For me, what would have elevated this book from being a bland parable of the human propensity for survival to an interesting sci-fi novel would be the gradual evolution of a congenitally blind government [organisation being a form of 'seeing'] instead of complete(ly) dull anarchy. I don't know why Saramago didn't choose to explore this, because surely, during an epidemic of 'white blindness', the 'already blind' are in an advantageous position with well-honed instincts and heightened senses.

Blindness is a chore to read both because of the bulky form (I however liked the unique grammatical style which lends the book its breathless quality) and the disturbing content. But it doesn't really compensate for the tedium with wise insights or literary pleasure; ultimately coming across as a book that is bleak to the point of being boring. Not recommended.

إن كنت تستطيع أن ترى فانظر
إن كنت تستطيع أن تنظر فراقبn

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عندما كنت أكتب القصة القصيرة في وقتٍ ما
كنت دائماً بغريزة داخلية لاشعورية وبتصميم لا أعلم من أين ينبع تماماً
كنت أحاول أن أترك الأسماء ..السمات الدالة على المحلية والابتعاد عما قد يفصح الهوية المكانية

ودوماً كنتُ أفضل أن أترك الأشخاص بلا إسم أو وطن وأبقى على إنسانيتهم فقط والتي قد تجعل الحدث ممكن وقوعه في أي مكان في العالم
بعيداً عن الدين أو الجنس

ولذا من بداية القراءة وأنا مستمتعة بانعدام المحليّة الواضح في الرواية
فهؤلاء الأشخاص قد يكونوا من أي مكان
وهذه الحكومة قد تكون أي حكومة
وردود الأفعال تعود إلى البدائية الإنسانية عندما لم يكن هناك حدود أو مذاهب
ترتد إلى الشعورين الأوليين الذين قد أصبحا عادة لديك لدرجة أنك لم تعد تشعر بهما
الرغبة في الأكل ،،وقضاء الحاجة

وعبر فانتازيا غريبة من نوعها يعود بك ساراماغو إلى هذه الأولويات
وطوال أحداثها تجد نفسك تواجه نفسك بكل ضعفها ،، أنانيتها ،، وقسوتها
وبقاء قطرات من الضمير الإنساني فيها
فانتهينا إلى "تلوين ضميرنا بحمرة الدم وملوحة الدمع" وحولنا أعيننا إلى "مرايا داخلية" قد تصيب احيانا في عكس ما نشعر به وننكره بقولنا
وقد تخيب كثيراً خاصة إن كانت دواخلنا في جمود الصخر وخواء الصحراء

كم هو عميق نوم الحجارة
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يقول ساراماغو

الأدب وحده لا يستطيع فعل شيء. كل الأعمال الأدبية العظيمة التي كُتبت على مرّ التاريخ لم تستطع أن تحول دون الوضع الكارثي الذي نعيشه. من الضروري أيضاَ ألا ننتظر وصول "مخلّص" ما، يأتي ليحل جميع مشاكلنا

ما الذي يُخيف هُنــا؟

ليست الأحداث في ذاتها هي المخيفة وإنما تعرّي إنسانيتك بهذا الشكل هو المخيف
هو الذي يدفعك لمحاولات عديدة لتناسي ما قد قرأته بعد كل موقف يثبت لك مدى
عماك أنت الشخصي

الهلع
حياة النبات أيضا ستنحو المنحى نفسه لو لم تكن جذورها تغوص عميقاً في التربة
وكم سيكون جميلاً أن ترى أشجار الغابة تفر هاربة امام النار
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تحولت مدينة بأكملها إلى مملكة عميان
كومة فضلات
قاسية ،،وحشية ،،مسكينة
وعليك الآن أن تفكر جيداً وان تنظر من حولك
وتقارن بين عمانا نحن والفضلات التي تحيط بروحنا من كل جانب
وبين عميان في مدينة غاصوا حتى النخاع في مزبلتهم الشخصية الكبرى


لما اختار ساراماجو أن تكون العتمة بيضاء؟

تستطيع أن تقول أنه ربما أراد لإنسانيتك البدء بصفحة جديدة
وتستطيع أن تقول انه ناظر بين بياض عتمتهم وبياض حياتنا التي نسير فيها عميانا ونحن لا ندري
عن وقت صارت بصيرتنا تحت أقدامنا ونحن نهذي بمدى تفتحنا وعقلنا المستنير

قُل لأعمى أنتَ حر، افتح له الباب الذي كان يفصله عن العالم ، وقل له ثانيةَ
اذهب أنت حر
لن يذهب
سيبقى في مكانه وسط الطريق هُو والآخرون ، مرعُوبِين لا يَعرفُون أَين يَذهبُون
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في البداية وعندما تنحشر مع المصابين الأوائل في مشفى مجانين مهجور
-نعم أنت تنحشر معهم لأن ساراماغو ينقلك إلى الحدث نفسه
ولذا تشعر برائحة النتن والحرمان والوجع الإنساني في أقسى وأقصى معانيه

هنا تبدأ في النظر حولك والتفكير في عالم العقلاء الذي تعيشه أنت
كل قطرة خراب من حولك قد أعطاها شخص أو جماعة من حولك مصطلح ما

إن الصور لا ترى
إن الصور ترى بأعين من ينظرون إليها
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قرب النهاية تجد نفسك في دار العبادة وصور القديسين من حولك قد طليت عيناها بالأبيض ووضعت عصابات عليها
فمادام العميان لا يستطيعون رؤية الصور
فيجب ألا تكون الصور قادرة على رؤيتهم بالمقابل
فقد قرر الإنسان أن يعلن أن الله الكلي القدرة لا يستطيع أن يرى
وبهذا يتحقق الكابوس في أعلى صوره

الحب الذي يقول الناس انه أعمى له صوته الخاص
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الشخصيات في رسمها وطريقة ساراماغو العجيبة والممتعة في وصفها هي واحدة من عوامل الجذب في هذه الرواية
أنت تتابع الأحداث نعم ولكنك في الأغلب تتابع ردود أفعال الشخصيات على اختلافها أكثر من الحدث ذاته

أنت تقع في غرامهم جميعاً
هذه الكائنات الإنسانية التي بلا أسماء
تحب كلب الدموع والفتاة ذات النظارة السوداء والكهل ذا العين المعصوبة وزوجة الطبيب التي تظل مبقية على بصرها في مملكة العميان


من الجدير بالذكر أن طريقة السرد وكتابة الحوار من أعجب وأمتع ما رأيت
فلا هو حوار بالمعنى بالمعروف ولا السرد يخلو من نبرة ساخرة ماكرة لا استطيع وصفها فأنت تحتاج لقراءتها بنفسك

ميزة هذه الرواية هي أنها تريك دواخلك وتعري مخاوفك البدائية بسخرية مؤلمة وممتعة معاً

كلنا عميان بشكلٍ أو بآخر
ولكننا لا ندري


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بعض اللوحات الشهيرة عن العمى

العميان يقودون عمياناً لبيتر بروجيل


وجبة الأعمى لبيكاسو


الأم العمياء للإيجون شيللي



Theodule Augustin Ribot _ توماس ومعلمه الأعمى



Benigne Gagneraux -أوديب الأعمى مع أطفاله



Giovanni Antonio Galli -المسيح يشفي رجلاً أعمى