Blindness (Harvest Book)

"Blindness" tells the story of an unexplained outbreak of blindness in an unnamed modern city, and the social confusion and devastation that follow. At first, the people who exhibit the symptoms are quarantined in increasingly dismal conditions by the government. As the contagion becomes universal, the quarantine concludes, all governmental services end, and life as we know it ceases--with the population left to wander aimlessly from building to building in search of food and shelter.

As far as the reader is told, only one person (the "doctor's wife) is ultimately spared the blindness; she serves as the narrator and moral center of the book. She, and the small group who surround her, including her husband and others they meet in quarantine, are the central characters in the novel.

The contagion brings out the uglier and/or more primitive side of the population--with the descriptions of depravity and desperation often making the book a challenge to read. For example, while in quarantine, one group wrests control of the food supply, and uses it to exact money and sex from the other detainees, including a "hard to read" rape scene. Other difficult scenes resulting from the societal breakdown describe people wandering hopelessly and aimlessly through streets filled with garbage and human excrement.

So that's the bad part. On the other side, Saramago uses this tragedy to provide many important and interesting insights into the human condition--what is the true nature of man, what it really means to "see," what is the nature of beauty, what are the rules which govern social interactions and social structures, on and on. He appears to reach some interesting conclusions, some more equivocal than the situations might otherwise suggest. Ultimately, I got the sense that the author felt that this ugliness was only temporary--transitory--and that eventually, mankind would come out the other side changed but not necessarily better or worse.

As for the mechanical elements of the novel (the language), Saramago is a rather idiosyncratic author, using some very unique methods to tell the story. For example, sentences are often lines long, devoid of punctuation, with conversations occurring with no quote marks, making it difficult to know who is speaking. Additionally, the names of the characters are never used, and instead, characters are identified throughout the book by appellation, such as "the doctor's wife" and "the first blind man." While at first I found the author's writing style annoying, I quickly accepted it, and even came to feel that his writing style fit very nicely into the tenor of the story.

All in all, I believe that this is a challenging book, with some deep insights. I would strongly recommend it, with a caution about the uglier scenes I described above.

About the Book

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.


I first read this book in 1999, but since it has been made into a movie recently, I wanted to read it again. The first time, I enjoyed the book, but not the writing style. This time I had the audio version; it was very good. A few things that made this book unusual were that all the events happen in an unnamed city, in an unknown land. None of the characters are mentioned by name. The story evoked a sense of panic or tension, and the author, through this story reflects many of the deepest fears about ourselves. The author seems to be describing a world not simply as it might be but as it is and has been. He shows us the worst of human nature. But in the end I found the book to be an unforgettable lesson about respect and love, about loneliness and despair, about hope and forgiveness.

In an unnamed city lives an anonymous reviewer who has been struck by a sudden and unexplainable affliction: he cannot finish any book by Sarramago, no matter how hard he tries. "Blindeness" is his second such book - the story of a plague of unseeing that spreads through an unnamed, South European capital, causing the government to quarantine the afflicted. Alas, to no avail - the plague spreads, exacerbating the inherent cruelty of society... soldiers shoot at the blind, afraid they might be infected; one blind thief tries to fondle a blind hottie, gets stabbed in the leg by her stiletto heel, gets infected and dies... and on and on, through page after page of unpunctuated sentences, each running longer than the eye can see or the mind can follow without yawning.
The initial premise is interesting - there is something there, you tell yourself. The unashamed, unafraid approach to political topics - and such an interesting starting point! Add to that the quirky style, the flowing, meandering sentences, and it's no wonder the man got a Nobel. For my money, though, once I got over the inherent shame (he's a genius, a friend said - read him!) I realized I had to stop, after about 130 pages. The thing is, the stuff is boring, which sounds paradoxical, given all the details I've given. i read another book by him, something about the voters returning all blank ballots, and it had the same feel to it - and then it hit me: the unusual syntax hides the fact that most things he says are very banal: to read, stroke by stroke, what happens in the hospital with the blind is to realize that, even though the most unusual sequence of events is happening, he's managed to make it feel boring; I got hammered by all the small details of existence, the humdrum noise of daily conversation and chatter - he goes on so much about mundane stuff, his free-flowing style covering everything under a patina of sameness, that I stopped caring about the extra-ordinary things: the soldiers start shooting at the blind men? yes, but God, you know he's gonna go back soon to telling you all the petty details about it, sprinkling in some rhetorical question, or proverb in-between, to make it sound deep.
I'm unhappy to add that this disease of not finishing, which started with "Blindness," has now spread to other books. Maybe it will mysteriously afflict those few who read my review, thus unleashing forces greater than myself, and revealing the inherent oddness that ensues once you accept odd premises. As for myself, I haven't given to despair yet - there's always the movie tie-in.

I picked this book up at a local bookstore on a stand containing "good reads" recommendations from the staff. I was skeptical at first but soon completely taken in by the storyline and author's unconventional methods for packaging dialog. The book is at times sad, uplifting, poignant, and repulsive, with not much telegraphing of what we're going to feel next. Particularly impressing is the author's ability to convey truly disgusting acts of degradation without rubbing our noses in it too much. I recommend this book highly.

Saramago's writing style is compelling, both he & his translator are/were(in case of Pontiero) craftsmen of a high order. Unfortunately I believe the book suffers from a flat imagination of what blindness (even sudden mass blindness) entails, and brings out all of the worst that human beings are capable of.

The metaphor of our many blindnesses and the chronic ignorance that plagues our society only carried me so far in terms of willingness to endure extremes in human misery.

I finished this book hungry for an uplifting view of humanity - something to counter-act the misery of the last few days of reading.

I was also sorely disappointed by the ending which seemed to reflect the author's desire to stop showing us this world, rather than a well crafted story arc.