The novel is hugely rewarding and saramago tells us much about the dangers we face today and the facile political assumptions, such as democracy and law and order, that so many of us take for granted. Its difficult to explain without giving too much of the plot away, so ill stick to generalisations. 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. Myla goldberg says saramago vividly illustrates disasters. Blindness is in many ways a horrific novel, detailing as it does the total breakdown in. All the light we cannot see by anthony doerr, blindness by jose saramago, girl, stolen by april henry, not if i see you first. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
Being of an obsessive character i rarely do not finish reading a book. A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant white blindness. Blindness is a great novel by portuguese writer jose saramago that deals with humans individual and collective reactions when in the face of adversarial forces. This dystopian novel does not have even so much as a smile. The blind man had a seeming good semaritan who helps him home and but then steals his car and is thus called the man who had stole the car. A book reread steals time away from a new book i have yet to discover.
Blindness is one of those rare books that crawled inside my head and has. The blindness of the novel operates in this same allegorical vein, using blindness as a metaphor for ignorance. The book i read this quarter was blind a young adult novel by rachel dewoskin. One of the most enjoyable features of blindness is the writing style, which is at one both personal and almost documentary. So, when i tell you that i have read blindness, by jose saramago, three. Blindness is a novel by portuguese author jose saramago. The book discusses racerelated issues specific to africanamerican males and mass incarceration in the united states, but alexander noted that the discrimination faced by africanamerican males is prevalent among other minorities and socioeconomically. Blindness is a fantastic book, the best i have read in a long time. The blindness in the platonic allegory serves as a barrier to understanding just as the blindness in the novel is itself something incomprehensible the doctors are baffled as to its cause, how it spreads and what can stop it. The main character, emma, lost sight in both of her eyes due to a tragic accident on the fourth of july.
In the beginning, it wasnt that great but it kept me interested enough to continue and im glad i did. With julianne moore, mark ruffalo, gael garcia bernal, yusuke iseya. The advantage enjoyed by these blind men was what might be called the illusion of light. An alien race called the krell leads onslaught after onslaught from the sky in a. Ensaio sobre a cegueira, meaning essay on blindness is a novel by portuguese author jose saramago. In saramagos blindness, a vision of human nature jose saramago tells the grim tale of a city devastated by an epidemic of blindness. Saramago wrote a sequel to blindness in 2004, titled seeing ensaio sobre a lucidez, literal english translation essay on lucidity, which has. This is the basic premise of jose saramagos novel entitled blindness, published not long before the author was awarded the nobel prize for literature in 1998. It is one of his most famous novels, along with the gospel according to jesus christ and baltasar and blimunda. The socalled terrorists in the city, still mild and peaceable, help the refugees carry back upstairs all they tried.
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