Blindness â€� Reader Q&A

Questions About Blindness

by JosÃ© Saramago

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Blindness, please sign up.

Answered Questions (19)

is this book good?

Virginia Arthur GOOD? Raw, gross, compelling, and disturbing. Incredible if not mysterious writing.

flag

How about going blind and seeing everything "whit" instead all the "black" around us....?

Al Maki For one thing, it's actually realistic. Jorge Luis Borges was blind most of his life and he said the one color he never saw again after he became blinâ€¦m´Ç°ù±ðFor one thing, it's actually realistic. Jorge Luis Borges was blind most of his life and he said the one color he never saw again after he became blind was black. He saw a numinous field that was usually blue. Another thing, if you take the book as a parable, which given the fact that the author was a life long communist seems reasonable, then the blindness could be a result of cultural brainwashing, i.e. the blocking of real information by overloading the eyes, as Bruce Springsteen put it "blinded by the light."(less)

flag

Do you think the no naming of characters was to show the difficulty of recognising people without sight? The lack of punctuation was an interesting choice too, why do you think he chose to write like that?

Igor Oliveira Okay, so, starting with the punctuation and the odd paragraphs, that's a really Saramago thing to do, and it's meant for us, the readers, to make us fâ€¦m´Ç°ù±ðOkay, so, starting with the punctuation and the odd paragraphs, that's a really Saramago thing to do, and it's meant for us, the readers, to make us feel blind, you blink, and you miss it: who said what and who did that thing.

Not naming characters is also a really Saramago thing to do. He intends to show that it doesn't really matter which Mary, Susan, Anthony, that is. In the end, those people could be any of us. The same way the city is never named, it could have happened anywhere. (less)

flag

Do you like this novel?

Ã˜yvind Wallentinsen Among my countless problems with the novel was the author's premise: "there's a bunch of disabled people who are completely useless and helpless, unabâ€¦m´Ç°ù±ðAmong my countless problems with the novel was the author's premise: "there's a bunch of disabled people who are completely useless and helpless, unable to do much of anything, and everything they do attempt goes horribly wrong, usually ending with someone getting injured or killed. No worries, though, there's an able character to guide them and lead them and solve every one of their tiniest problems for them". In a word, no. At best, a horrible base for a story. At worst, Saramago had some terrible attitudes towards blind people.

I expected a tale of people suddenly going blind and using their teamwork, creativity, and tenacity to overcome the various obstacles thrown at them, instead they're portrayed as oblivious to even the most obvious events around them and incapable of making even the most basic effort to improve their situation (there's so many examples of this - for example, why didn't anyone think of using various objects as white sticks?).

Even if the story is meant to a metaphor (like the blind as working class people who can't improve their situation and constantly fight amongst each other) or an allegory of some kind (that the blindness is meant to be some kind of "curse" that also makes everything they attempt fail horribly), I find it borderline unacceptable to write characters this way, especially disabled people.

I'm going to write a proper review of Blindness, and I'm going to reflect on it more, but I'm tempted to write it off as way too lengthy misery porn. One-dimensional characters, terrible dialogue, predictable plot.(less)

flag

why hadn't the dr's wife go blind? if we look at epidemic as a metaphor for ignorance and inhumanity and evil, well, she wasn't perfect either so what did he really meant?

Betro Vargas Just as in real life things happen to people for no reason at all, that could have been her case. I see the blindness disease as a random event since â€¦m´Ç°ù±ðJust as in real life things happen to people for no reason at all, that could have been her case. I see the blindness disease as a random event since the author never described the origin. But don't listen to me as I am no expert in literature. (less)

flag

Load 5 more questions