Blindness

By: José Saramago

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there social conventions quickly crumble and the struggle for survival brings out the worst in people.

There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers -among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears - out of their prison and through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing.

A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the 20th century, by Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago, Blindness has swept the masses with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses - and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit.

English translation by Juan Sager.

©1997 Juan Sager (English translation); 1995 Jose Saramago and Editorial Caminho (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America

Good overall

I’ll start with narrator- great in every way. Pleasant voice, clear, without annoyances.
Story: hmm there are disturbing parts, disgusting parts, surprising outcomes…… honest view of what humanity becomes when civilization crashes

Too philosophical

I only finished this book because I listened to a big portion hoping for relief. The reader was excellent but I did not enjoy the story.

Not the best.

Great plot. Just not very well written. I would prefer it if there’s nothing else.

So repetitive

The writer constantly would explain something and then explain it several more ways again and again. Like I got it move on. Other than that it wasnt horrible but just something’s I felt could have been left out. It was okay, hard to get through. Glad I am done.

No vision statement

Blindness by Jose Saramago is a tale of societal breakdown due to an unexplained outbreak of blindness. While having all the hallmarks of a contagious disease, medical etiology for the condition is never offered. Starting with one man who suddenly becomes blind, a city gradually descends into chaos as blindness slowly overcomes everyone except for a single woman who is the wife of an ophthalmologist. Initially with few numbers, the blind are segregated in a former mental asylum. Conditions degrade until the military perimeter is abandoned and a core clique wanders out and make their way through a nightmare of blind survivors. They manage to eke out an existence until, just as inexplicitly, sight slowly returns.

Saramago captures the terror that descends as sight is lost, both at the individual level as well as the societal level. Horrible people do horrible things even when sightless. It’s also clear that no one is prepared for what is happening as well as what’s to come. The one seeing woman makes for a fascinating character as she must at times pretend or fake being blind to prevent being overwhelmed, while still carrying the bulk of the responsibility for taking care of everyone.

The narration is superb with excellent character distinction. Pacing is smooth and on the brisk side.

An interesting premise but...

It got very padded with poetic ramblings and over selling of some situations. I liked the clever use of character identification and I thought it enhanced their personalities. The portrait of human nature's reaction to the epidemic is frighteningly believable. The reader (actor really) does a wonderful job in portraying so many different characters and their trials. My only critique is that I listen in the car and sometimes the dialog, perhaps deservedly so, gets very hard to hear. I guess that's why they invented the 15 replay! A tentative recommendation with a finger on the FF button sometimes. PS - I didn't like the ending.

Aren't we all blind

For two decades I was afraid to read this book and probably for a very good reason. Reading it especially now, makes a lot of sense as it was and still is prophetic in so many ways.

Captivating story

I have read the novel a couple of times and now listening to the narration was great as well

Surrealistic

Saramago is a Nobel laureate, so I think we have to credit him with having insight worthy of our attention. Blindness is a powerful parable, but I think it has to be read as a surrealistic allegory rather than any attempt to portray the situation as it might actually occur in the real world. I agree with the reviewer that pointed out that this parable is much more accessible in the oral than in the visual format. The endless run-on sentences and lack of proper names makes the reading hard to follow, but as a narrative, it isnt so bad. Maybe this was the intention of Saramago. In the story he has the blind listening to readings from the only sighted individual as their only source of entertainment, and he may have intended this as a more powerful verbal parable that a written one. I am an ophthalmologist myself, I found this story to be an intriguing thought experiment, but I was waylaid by the fact that the author made no attempt, or possibly consciously avoided the attempt, to make the story scientifically plausible. There are so many incongruous elements in time and space, its like a Dali painting. For instance he talks about the doctors wife being distraught about not winding her watch. The last time I had to wind my watch was probably in the 1960s, and then he talks later about computers functioning the water system. The ophthalmologist talks about ordering an encephalogram , which we havent used since the 1970s, instead of a CT scan or MRI. He also talks about how the blind stop gesticulation when they talk. But people with acquired blindness have their gesticulations programmed into their extrapyramidal system and never loose that habit. Did he intentionally ignore present day science so as to make the story more surrealistic, or is he a lazy Nobel laureate researcher?
I thought it was a provocative read, intriguing and thought provoking. But dont expect Crichton. Think Lord of the Flies by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Blindness is Powerful

This story has the structure of a parable, but here the parable is not transparent. The parable is interpreted through Blindness. Becoming one with the Blindness the story, characters, and the text cease to matter.

This is definitely not a dystopian fantasy. It is not philosophy either.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of Blindness are the reviews. Some see darkness, nightmares, frightening, heartbreaking. Others see beauty, uplifting, thought-provoking, interesting. Some say boring, unrealistic, and just plain bad. Some are deeply offended by the violence, poop, stench, vomit, and decomposition. Some people even hate the Dog of Tears! All this is what makes Blindness powerful.

The narration is excellent.