كتاب كوري يكي از بهترين كتاب هايي بود كه من تا به حال خوندم. اينقدر در داستان غرق شده بودم كه حتي فرصت نوشتن جملات زيبايش را پيدا نكردم و به همين خاطر مي خوام در اولين فرصت براي بار دوم بخونمش تا جملات قشنگش رو براي هميشه براي خودم بنويسم....

خلاقيت نويسنده اش برام قابل تحسين بود.

ولي اصلا نمي تونستم تصور كنم كه اگر واقعا چنين اتفاقي كه براي شخصيت هاي اين داستان افتاد، روزي اتفاق بيفته حال و روز ما چطوري ميشه!

نكته ي جالب براي من اين بود كه هيچ كدوم از شخصيت هاي داستان اسمي نداشتند و حتي در مكالماتشان هم اسم همديگر را صدا نمي كردند...
نوع نوشتار كتاب هم جالب بود
اينكه بين مكالمات تمايزي ايجاد نكرده بود و خواننده از روي حرف ها بايد تشخيص مي داد كه اين كدام شخصيت است كه مشغول حرف زدن است... يه جورايي يعني اينكه شخص مهم نيست و فقط بيان انديشه و واقعيت مهم است...

خواندن اين كتاب رو به هر كسي كه تا به حال نخوندش توصيه مي كنم.

I was lent this book many years ago when I barely read five to ten books a year, and soon quit, because of the annoyance of page after page of run-on sentences, un-paragraphed dialogue and zero quotation marks, What the hell! I thought, I'd never come across this before. I can't be doing with this. Here, have your book back.

Two decades later, and after thoroughly enjoying both 'The Double' and 'All the Names' in the last year or so, I got my hands on Blindness again, only this time, having grasped Saramago's writing style by the horns, I was well up it, and wanted to be terrified by the thought of white blindness. I can't say that I was truly terrified, that would make me look like a big softy, but the novel did spook me, especially the middle third where the blind are quarantined in an abandoned mental mental asylum. It is that great feeling of powerlessness, and the insult to human dignity that really got under my skin. Ordinary everyday people, terror-stricken at finding themselves and everyone else blind, normal order breaking down, and everything getting out of control. There is no expertise, no hierarchy, no politics, no electricity, no water. In such a world, nothing can be assumed. Garbage and sewage collect on the streets and food supplies are endlessly fought over. Under these extreme circumstances, Saramago simply asks: what now constitutes a human being?

There is behaviour of such selfish brutality by a gang of thugs who seize power, terrorise the wards and abuse the weaker inmates, flushing all self-respect and human decency down the toilet. I didn't think I would come across the need for sex in this novel, seeing as the inmates would have more important things to worry about, like food and drink, and just staying alive, but a sick and twisted few, obviously feeling they can't keep their dicks in their pants, sight or no sight, had other ideas.

His central characters are as anonymous as those in an obscure play, referred to only as 'the man who first went blind' or 'the boy with a squint', initially connected by the coincidence of attending the ophthalmologist's surgery, and throughout the narrative, once white blindness takes control, only one character (an ophthalmologist's wife) remains sighted, and after claiming to the brutal military that she too is blind so she can stay by her husband's side, she eventually becomes the guide and protector for an improvised family whilst locked up, so it's good to see through the horror and mass cruelty that love and compassion also exists in the novel.

His bleak apocalyptic vision really did attack the senses, and the only thing that bothered me was the optimistic finale (obviously it had to be that way when you take into account the sequel 'Seeing'). Although this was great to see, part of me was wishing things had ended on a downer.
Whether I read Seeing remains to be seen.

این کتاب روایت کوری عمیقی ست که گریبان گیر جامعه امروزی شده است_کوری از نوع مدرن و نه به شکل بدوی و تمثیلیی_کوری زمانی آغاز می شود که چشم هایمان را به روی حقیقت،عقل،عدالت و حقوق دیگران می بندیم و سطح فهم خود را تا روزمرگی نزول می دهیم و سرانجام ما، جز سقوط نیست.حینی که خرد اجتماعی زایل شود و دغدغه افراد بشر به سطحی ترین حد خود برسد،اپیدمی کوری همان سرنوشت نهایی است.
بسیاری از صحنه های داستان مانند تجاوز به زنان،دزدی و غارت،از بین رفتن احساس و عواطف انسانی،زورگویی به اقشارضعیف و...روایت های جدیدی نیستند و ما بارها با چشمانی سفید به آن نگریسته ایم بدون اینکه به درستی به آنها فکر کنیم و ساراماگو با تلفیق احساس و تفکر ما را وامی دارد تا اندکی از کوری خود بکاهیم.
'زن' شخص بینایی در جمع نابینایان است، که بر خلاف تصور عموم و مذهب و ادیان به جنس زن به عنوان منجی،راه را به سمت بینایی باز می کند.
《فکر نمی کنم ما کور شدیم،فکر می کنم ما کور هستیم،کور اما بینا،کورهایی که میتوانند ببینند اما نمیبینند》.

البارحة كنت أتجول في مكتبتي -الإلكترونية طبعا- أبحث عن عناوين جديدة أو أقرأ العناوين فقط، وهو فعل أقوم به بحثا عن صدفة ما، والصدفة هنا اقصد بها عنوانا يجذبني دون أن أعرف لماذا أو كيف، فأقرأه أو بالأحرى أبدأ في قراءته وفي كثير من الأحيان أنهييه. المهم أثناء هذا التجوال أو الجولة قرأت اسم هذه الرواية " العمى " .. هذه الرواية أعرفها جيدا، بل قرأتها منذ مدة، بل وقرأت عنها عدة مقالات، بل وقرأت الكثير من المراجعات حولها، ولكن لماذا لفتت انتباهي في هذه اللحظة بالذات ؟

قبل هذا اللقاء مع هذه الرواية كنت أسأل نفسي " كيف يستطيع القارئ التحدث عن كتاب قرأه منذ فترة طويلة ؟" يعني بلا شك سيجد بعض المشاكل، فالذاكرة ضعيفة والأسماء كثيرة، والعناوين متعددة. ولكن في رأيي الرواية العبقرية هي التي تترك ذلك الأثر الدائم داخل نفسية القارئ، يعني يكفي أن يتذكر الواحد منا العنوان، فسيترجع شعورا وجوا عاما قد لا يكون دقيقا ولكنه يكفي لتهييج خيالنا وتحريكه ومن ثم الدخول إلى جو هذا الكتاب، وبالتالي استرجاع القليل من الأحاسيس وبعض الخواطر التي خبرها القارئ أثناء القراءة. أنا هنا اكتفيت فقط بالعنوان لأتذكر البداية والنهاية وما بينهما جو مرعب، سوداوي رغم بياض العينين، قاتم، دموي، البقاء فيه للأقوى، والفوضى العارمة هي السمة الرئيسية لهذا الجو .. تذكرت عالما بدون أسماء ولا مكان، لا هنا موجود ولا هناك ولكنّه يمكن أن يحدث هنا وهناك، رعب الإبصار في عالم العميان، رعب أن تكون أعمى في عالم مبصر. كان العنوان كافيا لأتذكر هذه التحفة، واتذكر عوالمها القاسية.

عبقريّة !
هل نحن عميان جميعاً... أين مكمن الحقيقة في العمى أم في الأعمى ...
أين حدّ الإنسان , وكم فيه من الحيوان الذي ينتظر شرطه لينتبه من السبات ,
هل يمكن للاستئثناء أن يكشف الحقيقة , و هل نحتاج العمى حقّا لنكشف العري ,الكامن فينا منذ عصر الوحدة الأولى , البداوة ... منذ ما قبل اجتماع البشر الضمنيّ أو المعلن على أخلاق التعايش .. أو التمدّن ... أخلاق المجتمع , و هل نحتاج ظرفا حالكا لنكفر بما كان قانون الحياة المشتركة و نرتدّ إلى أنانا ممزّقين الشرائع و الحياء من أجل الوجود ... و هل من استثنوا أنفسهم من قانون "الأنا الغابة " مصرّين على الحبل الجامع بين التائهين كضرورة للاستمرار كانوا معبّرين عن الفطريّ فيهم , أم مقاومين للاستثناء في حالة العمى بطريقة أخرى ...
رواية عبقريّة تلقي الكثير من الأسئلة و تصف أدقّ الحالات و تكشف عمق ما فينا و ما في الأرض من الزيف و القصوة ما لن نبصره إلّا في حالة العمى !

*4.5

Uma das histórias mais impactantes, memoráveis e fortes que eu já li na vida.

Once we accept our postmodern affliction of Blindness - blindness to any and all intrinsic sets of values we once had - as regrettably inevitable, there it is, then! There is nothing we can do or refuse to do, no cure, no panacea nor peace.

It is God’s world, and if it is His will it will inevitably be done.

Our common bed has been made.

Now we must lie in it.

All we, like sheep, have gone our Own Way!

***

In 2005, Henry Kissinger remarked that the New World Order was nearly upon us. Now it’s too late, of course. The New World Order has become like something T.S. Eliot once wrote of the correcting Divine Will - it is that will, that

“will not leave us,
But prevents us everywhere.” (Four Quartets)

This is Blindness. The Absolute Zero pain of being totally, blindingly awake but helpless, "pinned and wriggling on a wall."

It’s in the air that we breathe. Books are being banned. Even Amazon is part of the whitewashing. Indecent behaviour is put high on a pedestal.

In other words, move over, tradition. The New World is HERE.

The State has become like a god among men. Its Right and Left sides equally attract and repel, now that humanity is split and helpless.

The New Fall of Man is here Now - as I speak.

Surely the “whole earth is groaning, as one giving birth:” but it’s not the Second Coming.

It’s apocalypse.

***

You see, it’s like in Kamakana’s SF world of Advent. We have slowly surrendered to alien gods. We have bought into their technology. And by doing so, more and more, we have found ourselves bereft of the comfort of our childhood faith.

Now we are alone and hurting.

We’ve got what Saramago calls BLINDNESS.

We “go with the flow.” We take it easy. But suddenly, the Fit comes upon us. We are plunged into incredible helpless anger. We rage and lash out in fury…

While the corporate yes-men of the upper echelons stay Blindly cool.

And here now is their secret, the Golden Rule of Blind Cool:

He who is most Myopically Cool makes the Rules, for the Blind shall lead the Blind.

Like lemmings.

***

Once I was broken. Badly. They threw me into confinement and psychotropically reworked my brain.

That process, along with the follow-up meds, took fifty years. Am I healed now? Well,

There is no pain, you are receding -
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves,
Your lips move, but I can't hear what you say:

For I... have become Comfortably Numb.

So, am I now, like these others, Blind?

Not quite.

I am merely become
Nervelessly and terminally, dumbly Numb!

" لا أعتقد أننا عمينا، بل أعتقد أننا عميان، عميان يرون، بشرٌ عميان يستطيعون أن يروا، لكنهم لا يرون "

ساراماجو عبقري بلا شك.. كاتب متمرد على كل شيء، استطاع أن ينثر فكره على الورق برمزية مدهشة، وفي مشهد واحد أفضى بكل فلسفته وما أراد أن يقول.

هذه رواية عن العمى، لكنه ليس كأي عمى، بل هو غرق في بحرٍ حليبي، كمثل أشعة الشمس وسط الضباب، العمى الذي يحول الرؤية كلها للأبيض.. يبدأ المرض بإصابة أحدهم ومن ثم تتفشى العدوى ولكي يحاصروه يجمعوا العميان في مكانٍ واحد حيث يعيشوا كالحيوانات، ثم يتفشى المرض في المدينة لا يترك أحد سوى واحدة، يعمى الجميع لكنها ترى، ترى لكنها لا تستطيع أن ترعى الجميع.
في نهاية الرواية عندما يدخلوا الكنيسة كي يستريحوا فيها فترى أن تمثال المسيح أيضًا على عينيه عصابة بيضاء، وكل الصور المقدسة تم طلاء عيونها بالأبيض، مقطع عبقري، هيّأ له ساراماجو منذ البداية بكل ما عانته المدينة من انعدام الإنسانية. ولهذا كان ساراماجو بإلحاده دائم التصادم مع الكنيسة، ربما غلبت الرمزية على هذه الرواية، لكن في روايات أخرى كان أكثر وضوحًا وسخرية.
يوجد جزء كبير من المتعة في الصفحات التي يحكي فيها العميان متى أصبحت الدنيا بيضاء في أعينهم، وخصوصًا في وصف الشخص الذي يصف اللوحة التي عمى وهو يشاهدها.. ولا يوجد أبلغ من عبارة الفتاة ذات النظارة السوداء: "قد يسبب الخوف العمى"
ومن الملاحظ ألّا وجود للأسماء في الرواية، كل شخص يعرف بصفة فقط، وهذه من النقاط العبقرية.
أثرت فيّ كثيرًا أول خمسون صفحة، حين بدأ الجميع يفقد بصره، ربما شعرت كثيرًا بهذا النهر الحليبي يغمرني حينما أغمض عينيّ، كما أثرت آخر الصفحات حين بدؤوا في استعادة بصرهم، لكن ما بينهما لم يكن له تأثير مماثل، وما في هذا ما عانوه داخل مستشفى المجانين التي حجزوا بها عن العالم، ما أعرفه أن الأحداث بائسة لكنها لم تكن ذات تأثير قوي، لم يجعلني الكاتب أشعر بالمأساة كما يجب.
كما وقع الكاتب مرتين في الأخطاء سهواً، أحدهما في الصفحة "264" حين قال عن الفتاة أنها نامت مع أحدهما -الكهل والطبيب- عندما كانوا محتجزين، ولكنها نامت مع الاثنين.. والثاني كان قبل هذا ولكني لم أعره انتباهًا كبيرًا ونسيت أن أحدد موضعه.

ما يفعله ساراماجو في رواياته بتعمد عدم فصل الحوار عن السرد مربك بعض الشيء، خصوصًا وأن السارد خارجي أو موضوعي، ربما لم يكن لهذا تأثير كبير بالنسبة إلىّ لأني قرأت هذه الرواية بعد أن انته��ت من رواية في حضرة العنقاء والخل الوفي والذي كانت على نفس النسق.

قبل قراءة آخر خمسين صفحة كان تقييمي للرواية ثلاث نجوم، وبعد الانتهاء أصبح ثلاثة ونصف أقرب للأربعة، ربما لم أجد الرواية عظيمة كما وصف الكثيرين ولكنها رائعة على كل حال، وارتفاع تقييمي كان لعبقرية الكاتب في إدارة الرواية كما يريد.

Ένας άντρας γυρίζει με το αυτοκίνητο από τη δουλειά. Σταματά στο κόκκινο φανάρι. Όταν το φανάρι γίνεται πράσινο εκείνος δεν ξεκινά. Είχε τυφλωθεί. Ήταν ο πρώτος τυφλός.
Έτσι στα ξαφνικά χωρίς λόγο κι αιτία ξεκινά μια επιδημία τύφλωσης, μια τύφλωση που δεν είναι μαύρη αλλά λευκή. Κι έτσι ξεκινά ο φόβος και ο πανικός και τα ένστικτα για επιβίωση να υπερτερούν της λογικής. Το περι τυφλότητος είναι μια μελέτη της ανθρώπινης συμπεριφοράς και αντίδρασης. Τι θα έκανες αν από τη μια στιγμή στην άλλη έπαυες να βλέπεις; Αν ξαφνικά αντί για χρώματα, πρόσωπα εικόνες, αντικείμενα το μόνο που μπορούσες να δεις είναι το απόλυτο λευκό; Τι θα συνέβαινε αν μέσα σε λίγες μέρες όλοι η ανθρωπότητα μετατρέπονταν σε έναν κόσμο τυφλών; Για πόσο θα κατάφερνες να επιβιώσεις; Και με τι επιπτώσεις; Και τι θα έκανες αν μέσα σε αυτό τον κόσμο των τυφλών ήσουν ο μόνος που έβλεπε;

Γραμμένο με έναν τρόπο κι ένα ύφος που σε κάνει να νιώθεις εγκλωβισμένος. Με κάποιο τρόπο αυτή την τυφλότητα των χαρακτήρων σου την περνούσε. Μπορεί να μην “έβλεπες” το λευκό που έβλεπαν αυτοί, αλλά μια θολούρα, σαν να μην υπήρχαν περιγράμματα, σαν οι μορφές να ήταν ακαθόριστες και τα χρώματα θαμπά. Περιοριστικό και κλειστοφοβικό. Ή έτσι τουλάχιστον το ένιωσα εγώ.
Τρομακτικό με τον τρόπο του. Μου άρεσε πολύ!


“Νομίζω ότι δεν τυφλωθήκαμε, νομίζω ότι είμαστε τυφλοί, Τυφλοί που βλέπουν, Τυφλοί που δεν βλέπουν, κι ας βλέπουν.”

*edited on 27.05.2020

The word Attention was uttered three times, then the voice began, the Government regrets having been forced to exercise with all urgency what it considers to be its rightful duty, to protect the population by all possible means in this present crisis, when something with all the appearance of an epidemic of blindness has broken out, provisionally known as the white sickness, and we are relying on the public spirit and cooperation of all citizens to stem any further contagion, assuming that we are dealing with a contagious disease and that we are not simply witnessing a series of as yet inexplicable coincidences.


The unanticipated and unforeseen events often strike us when we least expect them to, so much so that those could afflict you in the middle of a ride, which is still explicable. It could be one of those serendipitous and arbitrary events which happen in life but to find that you are not alone to be 'blessed' with such a travesty could numb your senses and send our entire existence for a toss, all your morals and ethics, essentially everything what life comprises of, may be gaping at you with an unfathomable existential horror. While the world is still grappling with dread of the CoVID-19, struggling hard with its all might to come to terms with the pandemic which is however yet in its embryonic phase, I noticed that quite a few people found somewhat declining fascination for dystopian, post-apocalyptic books coming to life with up surging beguile, I too found myself caught entwined with allure of the same. Though I have a bit of luxury in options- The Plague by Albert Camus and 1984 by George Orwell, to name a few- but Blindness made itself popped up out of sea of indecisiveness with eruption of glamour, the fact that Jose Saramago’ s world have been still elusive to me, must have played a part in it. The flipping through the very first pages sends an eerie glimpse of what the book might hold in wholeness. There is an inexplicable utter chaos which announces itself through horrific disorder of humanity, the existence of human beings is reduced to just numbers (quite similar to what we are witnessing in CoVID-19); the consciousness of individual dies out in the wake of retaining the ‘society’, but those who are renouncing their beings, ostensibly not by choice, do not have their desire in it, which is otherwise not required as it is for amelioration of humanity, some of them could be burned in the fire of hell of nothingness to save all, the unrealized beings of them gaze with delusive hope, only to become one with hell. Ah! what could it be?


Blindness, it is, or is it really? We have been brought up with the notion of blindness in which a person loses its ability to see things as they are, more often than not it reveals out empathy and compassion from us. But could Blindness draw out baffling horror out of humanity, perhaps if it succeeds in showing the ignominy of humanity to itself; probably that’s what Jose Saramago has been able to achieve with this masterpiece. It just holds an inhuman mirror which shows humiliation of entire humanity, the farcicality of civilization to reveal our savage and primitive nature hidden under its inauthentic sheath of comfort, which is stripped down to rags of acrid and stifling truth, however appalling it may be. We invariably boast about feathers we have been able to add in the crown of humanity, over the years of civilization, but have we really moved a bit, transformed a bit from what we were, Jose Saramago shattered such notions, if any, with disdain; but perhaps that is how we really are, the ghastly image he shows us is probably we are essentially.



Saramago invites us to his fantastical world, which has only one order that there are no orders- social or natural, with a shattering shriek as drivers of one of the vehicles in a seemingly ordered assortment of automobiles watches in horror as his eyes go white, everything they could perceive to send visual signals to the brain is white as if he has been thrown in a sea of white, quite unusual, earthly improbable, the mayhem follows, welcome to the world of Saramago. The omnipotent blindness, as contagious as any influenzas on the planet could be, engulfs the entire world of the author, but is it just the influenza or it hides something else, more profound, more concrete underneath it, doesn’t it talk about shallowness of our orderly society, the feebleness of our standards.

…..Anyone who is going to die is already dead and does not know it, That we're going to die is something we know from the moment we are born, That's why, in some ways, it's as if we were born dead, …….


The author handpicks around half a dozen characters and they have been quarantined in an abandoned military establishment, wherein they are left to themselves, their lives have been totally cut off from the outer world. Their existence has been suspended between being and nothingness, as if it doesn’t matter to those who are still considered civilized, but yet to be thrown in the hell of nothingness. The life of the quarantine camp briskly degenerates into an existential hell where the blind are victimized first by the way they have been rounded up and shoved into what was a mental hospital, after that they are not given proper food either, and most appallingly by how they are reduced in their attempt to stay alive. We see new sort of barter system in the camp, which eventually takes inhumane form as human beings are demanded in return of food. The dangled and unfulfilled existence of these characters takes us through the manifold possibilities of human wickedness wherein they have been reduced to just vermin who do not have say in the social order of humanity as if their existence is just an apparition, so much so that they have not been even given names, just referred by their professions or relations. However, they are still alive and as human as anyone could be but the society becomes oblivious to their existence. Could they spring their unfulfilled existences back from the hell of nothingness or they would be crushed down under the humongous pressure of disarray, indifference, contempt and atrocities committed by the orderly world.


Life as we know it, could be changed with the rules of nature, our society, our morals, ethics may not stand the savage duress of existence. It is not just the world out there which the inhabitants of the quarantine center have to take care of, we have witnessed on numerous occasions in the history of human civilization that whenever humanity is stretched to its inhumane limit, horrendous activities take birth, the social orders go for a toss, the primitive, archaic human instincts come to play and the world of Saramago is no exception either. We witness perhaps all possible horrendous and grisly acts of humanity, unfortunately as we are not blind, our eyeballs move as swiftly they could to watch murder, thefts and rapes; tears may flow down as a stream of water from those but perhaps our own shame keeps them withhold. The characters of Saramago struggle with their need to connect with one another, form relations and bond as a community, and also with their need for individuality, there is a ever going tussle between individuality and community.

……. we went down all the steps of indignity, all of them, until we reached total degradation, the same might happen here albeit in a different way, there we still had the excuse that the degradation belonged to someone else, not now, now we are all equal regarding good and evil, please, don't ask me what good and what evil are, we knew what it was each time we had to act when blindness was an exception, what is right and what is wrong are simply different ways of understanding our relationships with the others, not that which we have with ourselves, one should not trust the latter, forgive this moralising speech, you do not know, you cannot know, what it means to have eyes in a world in which everyone else is blind, I am not a queen, no, I am simply the one who was born to see this horror, you can feel it, I both feel and see it, ………….


The author has been able to create here an alternate reality without touching the easily sought after characteristics of science fiction, he doesn’t dive into any parallel universes, instead he just shows a world which is so strange by the word go, yet so much our own world; it takes us to the uncomfortable and unwanted recess of our memory and imagination however it is always there, which shows the ability of the author. The book is more like a philosophical treatise, without being pedantic, on human existence which shows us our own fragility and fallibility through dismantling our society, crumbling our civilization to nothing. The things which we have amassed and hard earned over the years as a reward to swank our so-called hard work to categorized those as luxuries, which only distinctive could afford, are reduced to just basic things of necessity, even some of those glorified and proudly gloated things become useless as life come back to basic needs of survival.

…���.. We are so afraid of the idea of having to die, said the doctor's wife, that we always try to find excuses for the dead, as if we were asking beforehand to be excused when it is our turn,……..


Do we have any hope then? Perhaps we do, otherwise we may not be reading this great piece of literature after progressing through so many hideous acts- genocides, wars, rapes, murders etc.- in our own history of civilization. Hope is a necessary evil, which instills confidence in you to move forward, though it may be shallow and baseless at times and that is all sometimes we need to put forth through madness of humanity. Saramago doesn’t disappoint you here either. The major characters of Saramago braved themselves to last extend of their perseverance, which comes out to be most essential of human qualities needed for survival, to remain afloat in this sea of white nothingness.



The prose of Saramago is peculiar and inimitable with unique innovations one might come across. He takes movement of post-modernism to a different level altogether thereby constructing many long, breathless sentences, some of those may even go for more than a page, in which commas take place of periods, quotation marks, semicolons and colons. I have found something which one of its kind as far as narrative style of the book is concerned wherein narrative shift in the voices of characters may be identified with fist capital letter of the phrase, which may not be discernible immediately. The characters are referred to by descriptive appellations such as "the doctor's wife", "the car thief", or "the first blind man". Given the characters' blindness, some of these names seem ironic ("the boy with the squint" or "the girl with the dark glasses"), his style reflecting the recurring themes of identity and meaning, showing the imbecility and impotence of the existence of the characters. There is omniscient third person narrator amidst the changing but reliable narrative voices who, at times, tries to pull the reader into narrative showing glimpses of metafiction.




Saramago has used quite intelligently one of the characters to infuse intrusive narration through “the doctor’s wife” whose eye balls remain utilitarian throughout the madness of Blind people. She is an intelligent woman who full of survival instinct which is quintessential to exist in such mayhem. Gradually, she becomes “eye” to the main characters of the story as their existence become solely dependent on her will and act. What may appear a position of fortune is essentially an unfortunate gift to her in the city of Blind people as she has to witness all the horrors, horrific acts through her experienced but numb eyes. The doctor’s wife may also imply a type of internal narrator infused masterfully by the author to show the human virtues such as empathy, sympathy, co-ordination, assistance and perseverance amidst the madness of inhumanity.


One could not miss the ostensible impact of Franz Kafka on the prose of Jose Saramago, as his characters take the strange and outlandishly unusual events to be perfectly normal. In the start of the story itself, the sudden blindness of “the first blind man” reminds me of The Metamorphosis in which Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find himself transformed in to vermin, and which he accepts as an ordinary situation. Like Kafka used to throw his characters into absurd and outlandish circumstances, Saramago uses the settings of the novel to bring out the most extreme reactions from the characters. Likewise, we see that Saramago, similar to Albert Camus , uses the social disintegration of people to the extreme to study the fragility of our vices and virtues.

And since disasters never come singly, at that same moment the electricians went blind who were responsible for maintaining the internal power supply and consequently that also of the generator, an old model, not automatic, that had long been awaiting replacement, this resulted, as we said before, in the elevator coming to a halt between the ninth and tenth floors.


It is like a social commentary using highly allegorical streamlined unique prose, as James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant", which may get sometimes a bit challenging to read due to its text having no quotation marks, no indentations when a speaker changes; however, if one could brave through initial pages then the book could not be put down. The book is highly enjoyable with traits of acerbic, ironical and wry humor through the existential horrors of life, dense but comprehensible, its impact is immediate and a reflection of the sensibility of Saramago, which is at once alive and significant.

……. , You mentioned that there are organised groups of blind people, observed the doctor, this means that new ways of living are being invented and there is no reason why we should finish up by being destroyed, as you predict, I don't know to what extent they are really organised, I only see them going around in search of food and somewhere to sleep, nothing more, We're going back to being primitive hordes, said the old man with the black eyepatch, with the difference that we are not a few thousand men and women in an immense, unspoiled nature, but thousands of millions in an uprooted, exhausted world, And blind, added the doctor's wife,……….

n  4.75/5n

This is definitely a book that people will either love or hate. It's just that kind of book. Not everyone is going to pick this up and like it. Even the people who end up really liking it, while reading it keep finding themselves putting down the book, looking around the room and sighing in discomfort, wondering if they should really continue. They will though, and they will once again find themselves fully immersed.

Jose Saramago writes this specific story in such a way that you are one of the blind people. Punctuation is few and far between, at least when it comes to dialogue. When people are talking to each other, it's just one continuous run on sentence, forcing the reader to try and discern who is talking and what they are talking about. It forces you to be in the same predicament as the blind.

The way he writes makes you realize just how much we all do rely on visual stimuli, even in books! Even though our protagonist is one of the few with sight, Saramago often forgoes visual descriptions of objects and places with the way the feel, sound and even smell. For me, it marked Saramago as a truly brilliant writer.

But even brilliant writers and brilliant books have their flaws. The time spent in the hospital seemed too long and unneccessary to further the story along, rather it stopped the story. It was that portion of the book I found it most difficult to get through, but in the end I got through it and to their journey out into the real world. It's there that the book picks back up and you find yourself absolutely enthralled.

Overall, this book was beautifully written and wonderfully told. An interesting story made even more so with the way Saramago writes it. This is a book I definitely recommend, but I give you a warning, it becomes slightly wordy at times and drags at different times. Give it a chance though, because it does pick back up.

When you sit in a coffee shop at the corner of two busy streets and read a book about blindness, you find yourself thinking unfamiliar thoughts, and you believe, when you raise your head to watch the people passing, that you see things differently. You notice the soft yellow light of the shop reflecting off the bronze of the hardwood floors. You notice among the people coming from the train two girls who intersect that line, spilt, call back, and go their ways, dividing into the two directions of larger traffic. When the girl working the shop goes out and leans against the brick entrance – to clear her head of coffee smells or just to see more of the sky – you feel the breeze blow in, and you smell it, and you feel that all these things – the sights and smells of a place you already know – are now something different. The place you know, you don’t know. It becomes mysterious, romantic: a newness you don’t have to search for, or travel toward, because you are already among it. You only want to feel more of it sweep over you, and as a result feel new yourself. If only for a few minutes longer.

You walk home and notice a discarded knit hat at the foot of a tree; you see the street cleaners’ orange signs tied to tree trunks, lampposts, telephone poles. You see a train run alongside you the color of the silver clouds, of the reflected golden light. You see people, in all their shapes, walk past you, each individual and anonymous. You feel anonymous yourself, and therefore more forgiving, more patient. You think everything is possible. You think everything possible must already exist. You think again of something you already believe: that people read the books that find them. That stories arrive to tell themselves, as relevant as news.

A little King, a little Camus, a little Gabriel Garcia: which is to say Blindness is a lot of everything.