Blindness by José Saramago
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Do yourself a favor and set aside a weekend to read Blindness. Or a long day, or get a lot of rest and buy some good coffee so that you can read Blindness from a dusk to a dawn. This book is written in a style that simply does not allow for many interruptions. You could try and treat the commas like periods and create your own paragraph breaks, but I think you’d be better off simply reading the novel straight through.
And when you’re done you’ll be exhausted. You’ll have been to hell and back. You’ll feel as if you’ve been brutalized, made filthy, and only at the end given an opportunity to be clean again. You’ll have witnessed a primordial evil without terror, and a deep humanity without pathos. You’ll know what it’s like to be an animal and will be satisfied that you’re more than one: for all your base urges and needs, all the pains you suffer, sweetness and light are their own reward.
Blindness is probably an extended metaphor, and the various, unnamed characters are probably archetypes for something—and that’s all well and good when the reading is done, and you’re ready for analysis. Memory, afterall, is something that serves one better if re-arranged, constructed, and made to fit one’s philosophies. But in the book itself, when you’re mired and coated with it, Saramago’s language and tone defy any other thinking than the experience itself. You will get lost in this book. You will be unable to talk about it, much, when you’re in the middle of it.
This novel is not for everyone, but then no novel is. Nor will Blindness suit you if you’re not ready for it. And yet, there is no way to test for suitability and readiness. One can never, truly, know how one will change when tragedy strikes. But one can prepare. Find that open weekend, that long day, that over-night time that you can set –aside. If Blindness does not suit you, read something else. But if does, prepare to be changed.