Book Review: Blindness

Blindness by Jose Saramago

Rating: 3.5 of 5 STARS

Source: Random purchase as I browsed a bookstore

I'm still catching up on my book reviews! Almost there...

I finished this book well over a month ago, but I started reading it probably a year-and-a-half ago! I got about half-way through and put it down because I just couldn't keep going with the writing style. I picked it back up when I saw there was a movie coming out based on the book. Even when I hadn't finished the novel, I would find myself thinking about the story. That's why I'm giving it 3.5 stars....the idea of the story is incredibly interesting.

So, what's it about? It's the story of a mass epidemic that causes sudden blindness, eventually afflicting every person in an unnamed city in an unnamed country. Initially, those stricken with the blindness are quarantined to a vacant asylum and basically left to fend for themselves. One woman, the wife of a doctor, pretends to be blind herself so she can be with her husband in quarantine. A picture of complete and total social breakdown follows as witnessed through the eyes of the doctor's wife. Mainly the book follows a small group of blind people who banded together to help each other through these horrific circumstances.

OK - for the bad...First, the writing style...the only punctuation is periods and commas and there's few of those, sprawling sentences with capital letters interspersed to give some idea of what's going on, paragraphs that last for pages, no quotation marks, the characters have no names, etc. When I started reading it, the style was interesting, but half-way through, as I said, I couldn't bear it any more and had to put it down. But, it wasn't so bad that I couldn't eventually finish the book or follow the storyline. Second, the characters...they all seemed pretty flat. I don't know if it was because of the writing style or because the author never even gives you the names of the characters or if that's just the way Saramago wanted them to be. Third, the violence...if you've seen the movie, I've heard it's pretty graphic there, too. I was planning to see the movie, but the reviews I've read have steered me away. Ho-hum...that's the whole reason I picked the book back up...I wanted to finish reading it before seeing the movie.

I wouldn't recommend the book, but I'm glad I read it. (Not sure if that makes sense.) Talk about a picture of the depravity of man! I've look at some other books by Saramago and the story lines all sound so interesting. But when I flip through them, I just don't think I can make myself read 300 pages of this unusual writing style again. Ugh.

Here's an example of the Saramago's writing style:

They waited for almost an hour. When the door-bell rang, she got up and went to open the door, but there was no one on the landing. She tried the internal telephone, Very well, he'll be right down, she said. She turned to her husband and told him, They're waiting downstairs, they have strict orders not to come up to the flat, It would appear the Ministry is really alarmed. Let's go. They went down in the elevator, she helped her husband to negotiate the last few steps and to get into the ambulance, then went back to the steps to fetch the suitcase, she lifted it up on her own and pushed it inside. At last she climbed in and sat beside her husband. The driver of the ambulance turned round to protest, I can only take him, those are my orders, I must ask you to get down. The woman calmly replied, You'll have to take me as well, I've just gone blind this very minute.

By the way, Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. I suppose I shouldn't be too critical of his writing! :-)