*4.5

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

Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira = Blindness, José Saramago

Blindness (Essay on Blindness) is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago.

It is one of his most famous novels, along with The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Baltasar and Blimunda.

In 1998, Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Blindness was one of his works noted by the committee when announcing the award.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه دسامبر سال 1999 میلادی

عنوان: کوری؛ نویسنده: ژوزه ساراماگو؛ مترجم: اسدالله امرایی؛ تهران، مروارید، 1378؛ در 388ص؛ شابک 9646026702؛ چاپ سوم 1379؛ چهارم 1380؛ پنجم 1381؛ ششم 1383؛ هفتم 1384؛ هشتم 1385؛ نهم 1386؛ سیزدهم 1389؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان پرتقالی - سده 20م

مترجمین دیگر: «مهدی غبرائی، تهران، نشر مرکز، 1378؛ در 360ص؛ شابک: 9643054748؛ در 360ص؛ چاپ ششم 1383؛ عنوان دیگر هیولای سفید؛ چاپ دیگر نشر مرکز، 1382؛ چاپ بیست و پنجم 1394»؛ «کیومرث پارسای، تهران، روزگار، 1390، در 272ص»؛ «نسیم احمدی، تهران، نسل آفتاب، 1389؛ در 394ص؛ شابک 9786005845185»؛ «فاطمه رشوند، آوای مکتوب، 1392؛ در 263ص»؛ «مینو مشیری، تهران، علم، 1378؛ در 366ص؛ چاپ نهم 1381»؛ «ترمه شادان، تهران، هنر پارینه، 1393، در 420ص؛ چاپ دوم 1394»؛ «عاطفه اسلامیان، تهران، نگارستان کتاب، 1385، چاپ بعدی 1386؛ در 412ص»؛ «مرتضی سعیدی تبار، قزوین، آزرمیدخت، 1394، در 408ص؛ قم، آوای ماندگار، 1395؛ در 376ص»؛ «محمدصادق سبط الشیخ، تهرن، میرسعیدی، 1391، در 366ص، چاپ دیگر تهران، جمهوری، 1389، در 416ص، چاپ دیگر تهران، چلچله، 1394، در 368ص»؛ «بهاره پاریاب، تهران، رادمهر، 1389، در 400ص»؛ «فرزام حبیبی اصفهانی، تهران، میلاد، 1395، در 368ص»؛ «جهانپور ملکی الموتی، تهران، سپر ادب، 1395، در 362ص»؛ «زهره روشنفکر، تهران، مجید، 1392؛ در 392ص، چاپ دیگر تهران، آوای الف، 1392؛ در 392ص»؛ «محمدمهدی منصوریان، تهران، نیک فرجام، 1395؛ در 362ص»؛ «مجید شریفیان، تهران، شبگبر، 1394، در 279ص»؛ «زهره مستی، قم، نوید ظهور، 1394، در 382ص»؛ «فاطمه امینی، تهران، شاپیکان، 1394، در 415ص»؛ «میلاد یداللهی، تهران، ابر سفید، 1395؛ در 368ص»؛ «کورش پارسا، تهران، حوض نقره، 1390، چاپ سوم 1394؛ در318ص»؛ «عبدالحسین عامری شهرابی، تهران، دبیر، 1390، در 420ص»؛

ژوزه ساراماگو، نویسنده­ ی «پرتغالی» (زاده­ ی روز شانزدهم ماه نوامبر سال 1922میلادی و درگذشته روز هجدهم ماه ژوئن سال 2010میلادی) برنده­ ی جایزه­ ی «نوبل ادبیات» در سال 1998میلادی هستند؛ سبک ادبی منحصر به فرد، از ویژگی آثار «ساراماگو» است، ایشان از جملات بسیار طولانی استفاده می­کنند، که گاه در آن جمله، زمان تغییر می‌کند؛ گفتگوها را پشت سرهم می‌نویسند، و مشخص نمی‌کنند که کدام جمله را، چه کسی گفته است؛ «ساراماگو»، پیرو سبک «رئالیسم جادویی» است، آثارش را با آثار نویسندگان «اسپانیایی زبان آمریکای لاتین»، می‌سنجند، اما ایشان خود را، ادامه دهنده ی ادبیات «اروپا»، و تأثیرپذیری خود را بیشتر از «گوگول»؛ و «سروانتس»؛ می‌دانند.؛

ایشان، در دل داستان‌هایشان، از جملات طعنه­ آمیز سود می­برند، تا ذهن خوانشگر را از رویدادهای خیال انگیز، و بیشتر تاریخی داستان خود، به واقعیت‌های جامعه ی امروزی برگردانند؛ نوک پیکان کنایه‌ های «ساراماگو» مقدسات مذهبی، حکومتهای خودکامه، و نابرابری‌های اجتماعی است؛ رویکرد «ساراماگو» علیه مذهب، آنچنان در رمان‌ها و مقالات ایشان آشکار است، که وزیر کشور «پرتغال» در سال 1992میلادی، در پی انتشار کتاب «انجیل به روایت عیسی مسیح»، نام ایشان را از فهرست نامزدهای جایزه ادبی «اروپا» حذف کردند، و کتاب را توهینی به جامعه ی کاتولیک «پرتغال» خواندند، «ساراماگو» پس از آن بود، که به همراه همسر «اسپانیایی»‌ خویش، به تبعیدی خودخواسته به «لانساروت»، جزیره‌ ای آتشفشانی، در «جزایر قناری» در «اقیانوس اطلس» رفتند، و تا آخر عمر در آنجا اقامت گزیدند؛ علی­رغم تمام انتقاداتی که از نگرش بدبینانه «ساراماگو» نسبت به دنیا می‌شود، تعجب­ آور است که آثارش را خوانشگران «ایران» می­پسندند؛ نامداری «ساراماگو» در «ایران» با ترجمه­ ی همین کتاب «کوری»، در سال 1378هجری خورشیدی، آغاز شد، «کوری» را تا امروز بیست و دوم ماه آذر ماه سال 1396هجری خورشیدی بیست و یک مترجم متفاوت به فارسی ترجمه کرده­ اند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 07/05/1400هجری خورشیدل؛ ا. شربیانی

¿Puede una novela ser despiadada a la vez que irremediablemente humana? Saramago nos demuestra que sí, que es posible diseccionar a la sociedad y desmantelarla dejando al descubierto lo más perverso de ésta y sus gobiernos y aún así hallar el ímpetu por la supervivencia, la dignidad y unos insólitos atisbos de nobleza en medio de un país en ruinas.

La novela empieza con contundencia. Un hombre como cualquier otro varado en el tráfico un día cualquiera. Con una salvedad, se queda repentinamente ciego. Éste es el comienzo de la manifestación de una epidemia inesperada e inexplicable que avanza con fervor cobrándose la vista de sus víctimas y son los primeros perjudicados de este irrefrenable mal los que van a constituir nuestro núcleo protagónico. Reunidos en un manicomio que sirve como centro para la cuarentena impuesta por el gobierno, se ven segregados, excluidos e incluso eliminados a balazos probando que la dignidad humana cae de rodillas ante el miedo y que la autoridad de desentiende rápida y fácilmente de su compromiso con el ciudadano.

El aislamiento, la falta de recursos y la privación del sentido del que somos más esclavos no demoran en corromper el espíritu de los involucrados orillándolos a una realidad oscura en el sentido figurativo pero también en el literal, donde prima la voluntad del más fuerte y se da rienda suelta a los más arbitrarios y perversos abusos. En este contexto la ética, aunque presente en los discursos y discusiones de los ciegos, se ve doblegada y corroída. La pluma de Saramago explora este torbellino de degradación y violencia con un cuidado ejemplar, una prosa absorbente y una astuta decisión de no proporcionales nombres a los personajes sino de presentarlos en base a características vagas intensificando la noción de que podrían ser cualquiera.

El libro es tenso, demoledor y se halla repleto de planteamientos existencialistas. Es rico en personajes, complejo en su abordaje y sin lugar a dudas inolvidable.

Κ-Α-Τ-Α-Π-Λ-Η-Κ-Τ-Ι-Κ-Ο!!!!!!!!

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.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

What an irony that a book which holds, loss, filth, loot, stomp, cruelty, disorientation, putrefaction, injustice, helplessness, murder, rape, misery, nakedness, abandonment, death and unimaginable suffering in its bosom, left me with a climactic emotion of beauty, overwhelming beauty! Beauty of what you ask? That of resilience, that of courage, that of insurmountable human spirit which perhaps hits its zenith when it is brutally pinned to the bottommost pit.

Blindness has a chilling plot – a city where people start going blind, without a warning or faintest history. A man behind a car, a robber escaping from the back door, an ophthalmologist reading reference book, a call girl in the midst of making love – this moment, they are going about their business and the next, they are blind. As this terrifying infliction gains the proportion of an epidemic in shuddering no time, the state machinery jumps into action by hoarding the blind and the contaminated and dispatching them to a quarantine. The events that unfold thenceforth grow into a numbing testimonial of limits that humankind pushes with the weakest of hands but the strongest of beliefs.

Saramago slits his heart and lets the blood do the talking, for how else does one explain the impeccable conjuring of a land that is crumbling under the consistent attacks of physical needs and rising from the tireless crenellating of mental walls, at the very same instance?

n  n    With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.”n  n

The blind stay close and maintain proximity akin to a herd of helpless antelopes; always alert but not without a sinking feeling of falling prey, eventually. In the midst of this nebulous blindness, food makes a demand and water makes a cry, shit gets spilled and showers run dry. Bullies emerge from within them, like ugly exhalations of a poisonous body, often unaware of its obvious power of self-destruction. n  n   

Arriving at this point, the blind accountant, tired of describing so much misery and sorrow, would let his metal punch fall to the table, he would search with a trembling hand for the piece of stale bread he had put to one side while he fulfilled his obligations as chronicler of the end of time, but he would not find it, because another blind man, whose sense of smell had become very keen out of dire necessity, had filched it.

n  nWhat do we know what we are capable of? Of the high we can inspire ourselves to? Of the lows we can shovel ourselves to? Do we even know that if thrown into the arms of gut-wrenching starvation and mutilation, our lofty ideals can turn evanescent and the feral desire to survive at any cost can reign supreme?

n  n    she knew that if it were necessary, she would kill again,
And when is it necessary to kill, she asked herself as she headed in the direction of the hallway, and she herself answered the question,
When what is still alive is already dead.n  n

But it is from these repugnant ashes of human extremities that the human spirit arises. Like a new-born phoenix, it breathes in short puffs but never stops breathing. A fledgling resilience, no matter how threatened, pervades the blind group, who hobble painfully towards a future that is white in their blindness but imaginable in their collectiveness. When a lonely hand is clasped and a crying baby is cuddled, when a single soul performs vigil and the wasted sacrifices, when the timid find voice and the brave, their clan, the world remains no longer white; it regains its colour.

While reading this book, I felt its power in every page, its vulnerability at every turn. In many ways, it was an allegory of life. For every burden placed on our soul, there is a corresponding lever to dispel it. There is a solitary character who miraculously retains sight, throughout the book. And a consistent persuasion is all it takes to become free. Should that come easy, blessed we are. Should that come with unexpected caveats, memories we will have (or be).

n  n    We are already half dead, said the doctor,
We are still half alive too, answered his wife.n  n

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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”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.

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Leggere questo libro durante una pandemia globale è stato... intenso. Ma devo dire che "Cecità" mi ha davvero convinto, oltre che turbato nel profondo (anche se dopo la metà diventa molto più digeribile).

Questa è una storia decisamente pesante da leggere e con un sacco di trigger warning (violenza, stupro, ecc.), ma proprio per questo il libro ha un impatto fortissimo e riesce a trasmettere tutto il senso di de-umanizzazione e egoismo umano.

Lo stile di scrittura di Saramago è molto strano, praticamente è come se in un libro tradizionale non si andasse mai a capo con la formattazione, il che rende un po' difficile seguire il tutto, soprattutto all'inizio. Dopo un po' ci si abitua ma non ho trovato il motivo di questa scelta, anche perché non mi è sembrato che aiutasse a rendere meglio il senso della storia (in cui non credo ci sia un senso di urgenza da esplicitare).

Ve lo consiglio se cercate un libro distopico che vi faccia riflettere, non leggetelo se non vi piacciono i libri emotivamente molto pesanti e brutali. Magari leggetelo una volta finita la pandemia però (o se volete calarvi a pieno nella storia fatelo subito).

لا بد لمن يزور باريس أو لندن أو دبي أن يجرب تناول العشاء في مطعم "الظلام"، فالمطعم كما يوحي اسمه غارق في العتمة، ويعمل به ندل عميان سيتحولون إلى العين التي ستبصر بها في الظلام الدامس، وتبلغ الإثارة ذروتها عندما ستجلس إلى الطاولة وأمامك أطباق لا تعرف مافيها ولا كيف تصل إليها لتضعها في فمك. قد لا تكون التجربة ممتعة، ولكنها حتمًا ستعطيك مذاقًا -ولو لساعات- عن المعاناة التي يعيشها فاقدو البصر والعالم الذي يتعثرون فيه!

أو بإمكان من لم يتسنى له زيارة هذا المطعم أن يقرأ هذه الرواية التي تتحدث عن وباء غامض يصيب إحدى المدن، حيث يصاب أهل هذه المدينة بالعمى فجأة، مما يخلق موجة من الذعر والفوضى العارمة.

كانت هذه الرواية -بالنسبة لي- بمثابة تأشيرة الدخول إلى مملكة خوسيه ساراماغو الأدبية قبل سنوات. على الرغم من أنني سبق وأن شاهدت الفيلم المستوحى من الرواية إلا أنه لا شيء يعدل متعة قراءة الكتاب!

يستكشف ساراماغو في هذه الرواية فرضية مثيرة: ماذا لو تحول مجتمع ما -فجأة- إلى مجموعة من العميان؟ كيف سيتعامل ويعامل أفراد المجتمع بعضهم البعض؟ أي تغيير سيصيب بنية مجتمع أفراده من العميان؟ هل سيحكم في نهاية المطاف من بيده القوة والسلاح؟ هل سيسود "مجتمع الغابة" الذي تحدث عنه توماس هوبز، الفيلسوف الإنجليزي الذي أعلن عن "ذئبية الإنسان" حينما أطلق عبارته الشهيرة، "لقد أصبح الإنسان ذئباً على أخيه الإنسان"!

هنالك شيئان آخران، بعيدًا عن كل هذه الأسئلة وبعيدًا عن رمزية الرواية وحبكتها التي أشبعها القراء/النقاد بحثًا، شدا انتباهي. أحدهما أسلوب الكتابة!

سيلاحظ من يقرأ الرواية أن ساراماغو يستخدم الفواصل (،) والنقاط (.) فقط في لملمة حوارات الرواية. فلا وجود للفواصل المنقوطة (؛) ولا وجود للأقواس ( ) أو الشرطات (-) أو النقاط الرأسية (:) أو حتى علامات الإقتباس (") أي أنه -وبمعنى آخر- يعمل على بناء سرد غارق في حالة من الفوضى المترامية الاطراف.

سيصاب القارئ بكثيرٍ من الارتكاب، وسيستغرقه بعض الوقت ليعتاد على القراءة.

الأمر الآخر الذي شد انتباهي، وأربكني بنفس القدر الذي أربكتني فيه الحوارات، عدم تسمية أي من شخصيات الرواية، والإكتفاء بالإشارة إليهم هكذا: الأعمى الأول، زوجة الطبيب، الرجل ذو العصابة السوداء!

هذه المناورة الأسلوبية (إن صح الوصف) هدفها التشويش على القارئ بجعل عملية القراءة أكثر صعوبة. كم مرة توقفت -عزيزي القارئ- أثناء قراءة أحد الحوارات وتساءلت "من قال هذا؟" هل هي زوجة الطبيب أم الرجل ذو العصابة السوداء أم أم !!

وهي بالمناسبة نفس الطريقة التي كانت تتفاعل بها الشخصيات العمياء في الرواية

باختصار .. إن ساراماغو يريد أن يجعل القارئ يشعر بأنه أعمى جزئيا.

لهذا السبب أعتقد أن قراءة الرواية أهم من مشاهدة الفيلم المستوحى منها على الرغم من أن ساراماغو أشاد به، وقال بعد مشاهدته : أشعر بسعادة وأنا أشاهد الفيلم تشبه السعادة التي شعرت بها بعد أن أنهيت كتابة الرواية!!

3,5
Es RARO lo de este libro.
Las primeras 100 páginas se me hicieron muy cuesta arriba por el estilo y la crudeza de lo que cuenta. En muchos momentos sentí una angustia horrible y no se puede decir que haya disfrutado la lectura la mayor parte del tiempo... Pero está escrito increíblemente bien, me enganchó terriblemente y me ha dado para pensar muchísimo.
Es una de esas novelas que te dejan poso, está claro, y que, aunque creo que no ha llegado a marcarme, me ha resultado muy interesante por lo original que resulta cómo está contada la historia.

I’ve read more than my share of post-apocalyptic novels where humanity is suddenly wiped out by a sudden plague or enslaved by aliens, attacked by zombies, buried under snow or under volcanic ash. I have even read one about people going blind overnight in The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Yet, none of them managed to touch me so deeply and to disturb me out of my comfortably numb daily routine as Jose Saramago’s account. There are no teenage chosen ones to pull us back from the brink of extinction, no armed to the teeth Rambos to drive back the forces of evil, no scientists to discover a cure by the 25th hour. The blindness epidemic is as unavoidable as the radiation cloud closing in on the last survivors of the atomic holocaust in Neville Shute’s novel 'On the Beach' (my top choice for post-apocalyptic novels until this one).

Blindness is also this, to live in a world where all hope is gone.

While the description of the affliction and of the progressive dissolution of all social and moral institutions is ‘concrete and real’, (... no imagination, however fertile and creative in making comparisons, images and metaphors, could aptly describe the filth there.) I believe the correct way to read the novel is as a master metaphor of going through life blind to the fragility of our existence and of our ‘civilized’ way of life, ignorant or indifferent to the abuses and the violence going on all around us.

This is the stuff we’re made of, half indifference and half malice.

The phrase ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ has been used before, and the way the unnamed government in the novel reacts to the first cases of the epidemic (first denial, then frantic damage control, later isolation and military guards with trigger happy fingers) is sadly reminding me that life beats fiction as I watch the unfolding events and the mass hysteria in the ongoing Ebola epidemic.

I will not delve too much on the plot, as I believe the message is more important than the details. I could make a comparison and say the novel is kind of like Lord of the Flies with adults instead of children, devolving all the way back to the animal instincts, to predator and prey and ruthless selfishness. But it would be a false image. Yes, there is a group of isolated people in a kind of concentration camp, and yes, some of these people try to take the law into their own hands and treat others as slaves, but throughout the novel there is an enduring inner core that still distinguishes between right and wrong, there are still people who try to maintain their dignity and their integrity, who are ready to fight back and help a person in distress.

The moral conscience that so many thoughtless people have offended against and many more have rejected, is something that exists and has always existed, it was not an invention of the philosophers of the Quaternary, when the soul was little more than muddled proposition. With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.

There is a writer at one point of the story, blind himself, yet still trying to put down on paper his thoughts in unintelligible scribbles going up and down and crosswise over a blank page (my favorite cover of the novel among several). It may be interpreted either as a pointless exercise, as the ultimate failure of art to help with real life and death problems, or as the irrepressible spirit of man that refuses to go silently into the night, that fights back against oblivion and hopelessness:

... words inscribed on the whiteness of the page, recorded in blindness, I am only passing through, the writer had said, and these were the signs he had left in passing. “Don’t lose yourself, don’t let yourself be lost!”

I have looked through the rest of my bookmarks, and all the quotes I have selected are a reiteration of the basic conflict between the material dissolution and the persistence of the moral spirit. I believe they are self explanatory:

If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.
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The tuning knob continued to extract noises from the tiny box, then it settled down, it was a song, a song of no significance, but the blind internees slowly began gathering round, without pushing, they stopped the moment they felt a presence before them and there they remained, listening, their eyes wide open turned in the direction of the voice that was singing, some were crying, as probably only the blind can cry, the tears simply flowing as from a fountain.
---

You have no idea what it is like to watch two blind people fighting. Fighting has always been, more or less, a form of blindness.
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Blind people do not need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters.
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Dying has always been a matter of time. But to die just because you’re blind, there can be no worse way of dying. We die of illnesses, accidents, chance events. And now we shall also die of blindness, I mean, we shall die of blindness and cancer, of blindness and tuberculosis, of blindness and AIDS, of blindness and heart attacks, illnesses may differ from one person to another but what is really killing us now is blindness. We are not immortal, we cannot escape death, but at least we should not be blind.