Blindness

CLASSIC

I loved the premise of Blindness. It had a great flow to it, excellent character development (though highly unconventional), and a story that kept one guessing most of the way through.
Though the ending was somewhat predictable, some of the scenes completely off base on human reactions, and the action often simplistic, the story itself had a cohesiveness that keep me locked in the whole time. Some have described the story as if it were an interpretation of a painting, attributing many facets to it that were not obvious. Maybe I am just shallow, but though it was a great read, I would not rank it up there with "War and Peace"!
I read the book in two sittings, and will do it again. That said, the style of writing best associated with an internet chat room, missing all writing conventions except periods for the end of a sentence, makes the book difficult to read. Though, as you become accustomed to the style it gets easier, it creates confusion as you often find yourself rereading parts to figure out who was speaking, and trying to decide if it was a thought or a spoken word. The minimum amount of paragraphs, even though action, conversations and thoughts among many people take place in one paragraph, make following the threads of the story difficult. Many have said that this was intentional, and maybe it was, but I fail to see how it would have hurt the story to follow normal writing rules. Unfortunately, the sequel "Seeing" is done the same way, and makes even less sense!
All that said, if you like apocalyptic science fiction with an intellectual bent, this is a great book to work your way through. It even has a slight feel of Asimov to it.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Boring

Did not understand the story.

1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

See the world differently

Perhaps the greatest novel since John Fowles's DANIEL MARTIN. Like Camus's THE PLAGUE, BLINDNESS establishes an extreme situation - in this case, a whole nation becomes blind - and through the situation tells us (the reader) about humanity. The rape scenes in the middle of the book are a little difficult to stomach but worth pushing through to get to the tear-jerking scene in the church, which for whatever reason reminded me of a similar scene at the end THE ATHEIST'S CHURCH (though thankfully that one didn't make me cry). All in all, along with the other novels I've mentioned here, BLINDNESS is one of my favorites.

A marvelous and unique story. I found much about life to reflect

A marvelous and unique story. I found much about life to reflect upon.

Doomsday

This was another doomsday, apocolpytic book that I feel is far too common in our world today. However, I am a fan of all. :-D. It addresses a sort of "end of the world" mood from an entirely new perspective.

Awkward translation

A friend recommended this book to me. The premise of the story is interesting and one I would normally like. However, the translation is not very good. The phrasing is awkward and there is not a good use of punctuation. Some of the sentences are more like paragraphs. I found it hard to follow. I rarely put a book down once I start it, but I put this one down after only about 30 pages. I may pick it up again when I have more patience to wade through it because I do think the story sounds really intriguing.

Disturbing

I was always dying to know what was going to happen next. I wanted to read it non stop, it was so interesting. The mystery of why the one woman never went blind kept me wondering if she ever would.

A Book that challenges the way we view our lives...

The concept of this book was very interesting. What would you do if you went blind? Where would you go? What would you do? This book is a very scary and realistic view of what would happen if everyone faced an epidemic of blindness. A chilling story, but what happens in this book, could very well happen in real life if an event similar to this were to happen. This is a great book in its own sense, but probably not for the faint of heart. Upon completion of this book you will learn to appreciate our ability to see and realize how much we come to depend on it as a society.

You've never read a book like this!

Read it in high school and its become my all time favorite. Marvelous plot. Makes you think about life.

Awesome Read

No text was provided for this review.

Awesome

Havent read it but pretty sure its awesome

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Heard a review on NPR... this was not what I expected

This book is well written and does generate thoughts about what could happen. It's not what I usually have in my pile of books to read but I heard a lady on NPR rave about how this was the only book she had read or would read more than one time and I thought that was a good recommendation. It did make me think about a lot of things I would never have thought about which I suppose a good book will but it was pretty dark (no pun intended) and had a little to much of the gritty details for me.

This book is a classic.

This is a great read. Beacause it is translated from Potuguese, the text can be a little choppy, but I thought the translator did a god job. I saw the movie first, which did it great justice, but the novel does have some twists that are different, especially in the second half.

I did not like this book!

I'm actually surprised that everyone gave it such good reviews. The translation was awkward, which made it very hard to read.


I also kept waiting for someone to be a little more self sufficient! They all walked around like sheep and did nothing to help themselves. They relied on the only sighted person in the story. It was frustrating!
They couldn't cook because there weren't any microwaves? Ahhhh...what did we do before microwaves? The whole book was like that! Sorry, I just was surprised at how weak it was. Good idea that fell flat.

But, what do I know, he won a nobel prize for it!

Wouldn't describe book as "new"

The shipping was really fast, so plus for that. However, the condition says "new" and I wouldn't really describe it as "new" more in "Good" or "Very Good" condition.

There were some stickers stuck to the book obviously that were taken off but left the residue behind.
Also, was this a reprint? Or did the author really mean to not use quotations when people were "speaking"? It's confusing to read at times because I don't know if a character is talking or not.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A Surrealistic Masterpiece!

Mr. Saramago manages to destroy the structured society that we all know and believe in. This book is powerful, unique, sad, and disturbing. It touches the philosophical side of all the readers. It's eloquently written with vivid characters that makes you truly "feel" that you are in the novel itself. This is truly one of my favorite books.

Getting Through The Darkness

One evening on the way home from work, sitting in his car at a traffic light, a man is suddenly struck blind. Not the blind we think of as everything going dark, but all he sees is white. He is taken to a doctor then home to his wife. Soon the blindness has spread from the man to his wife and the doctor and a girl with dark glasses who was waiting in the office. Their contact are similarly afflicted. Only the doctor's wife is untouched.

When all the blind people are shuttled off to an asylum to protect the populace, the doctor's wife feigns blindness so they won't be separated. It is in the handling of the afflicted and breakdown of society both inside and outside the asylum that remains with me to this day.

Instead of distancing the reader from the people in the story, the lack of names seems to draw one in closer. I may never have been as connected to a character as I was to the doctor's wife as she tries to take care of the group in her charge and maintain her secret, through some of the most brutal moments I've ever read.

Ultimately, though, this a book of great warmth, triumph and even beauty. It's well worth the walk through the dark places.

We are all blind

I listened to this on audio while driving from Florida to Michigan and it made the trip fly by. "Blindness" can best be described as a cross between Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and William Golding's "Lord of the Flies". People mysteriously and suddenly become blind. They're separated into a sanitorium-type building because the blindness is considered to be contagious. The various characters are never given names instead called by characteristics like man wearing dark glasses, first blind man, etc. But Saramago does such a good job differentiating the voices of each of these many characters that they are individuals in our minds and are easily kept straight. The actions of the people and groups in the cloister is a telling story of civilization and how we act when left to fend for ourselves. Man's inhumanity to man springs to mind. Then, when the Blind are released they have to live in a totally different world than what they left. One of the main characters is not blind, though she pretends to be to stay with her husband. Her interface with the blind characters is also telling. This would be great for a book club and would lead to meaty discussion, I'm sure.

What If this Happened to Us?

What a smart story from a fabulous Portuguese writer. You will love the way this plot unfolds as one adventure after another evolves in the horror of mass blindness (hysteria?). The author is well-known for his satiric slant in which the foibles of us humans is brought into the blinding light for everyone to see. And as quickly as the crisis erupts so the resolution is very satisfying and uplifting. Definitely worth reading. Check out his other books as well; "All the Names" is equally fascinating.

Compelling but very, very dark

The premise of the story is very compelling: if you suddenly found yourself blind, what would you do? What if everyone in town were suddenly blind? What if you were the only sighted person left? And the author uses this premise to create a singular view, as it were, of hell. But I found the characters frustrating - put in quarantine, they accept that since they are treated as dogs, they might as well behave like them, even to the point of discarding their own names. I found myself caring about the characters, but only because the author puts them through horrible circumstances, and I wanted to see how they came out in the end.