José Saramago: Blindness

Hi again

Here’s my review of Blindness by José Saramago.
I got this novel as a gift from my niece Anneke.
It has 310 pages.

“A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides her charges—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and their procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing.”

Oh my word. I have never, ever read anything quite like this before.
Reading this novel is a real experience.

The novel is bleak, grim, raw, claustrophobic, brutal and hard.
The narrative changes from stream of consciousness to seemingly objectivity and back again. This made me uneasy, it adds to the sense of loss, of panic and of uncertainty.
There are no names either, making it even more strained.

It’s never boring, it is brutal but it’s also insightful and truly fantastic.

Thank you so much Anneke! I can’t wait to buy another work of his and devour that as well.

Happy reading.
Helena