Page Fifteen

Blindness by Jose Saramago

A man at a red light suddenly goes blind, and soon so do others. The blind and the contaminated are taken to an old mental asylum and guarded by soliders who shoot them if they try to leave. Inside the asylum, as more and more people arrive, a small group of people band together and try to survive starvation, living amongst disease, filth, excrement, rape, and violence. Only one woman's sight remains intact. Lying to the authorities in order to remain with her husband, she becomes the eyes of the reader and a witness to the horrors that have befallen her unnamed city. She also becomes the eyes of the seven people who have banded together during this terrible catastrophe, and leads them throughout the city streets after the asylum catches on fire. It becomes apparant that everyone in the city and, likely, country has gone blind. As they travel through the city scavenging for shelter and food, they pass sights that become more horrifying than those in the asylum, one hell being replaced by another.
Similar to We Need to Talk about Kevin, this book is not for the faint of heart. It is also challenging because Saramago does not use any punctuation when people are speaking, and prose often runs on without stopping. While I started to get a little impatient for the novel to wrap up near the end, I do think it is definately a book that will hold your attention and keep you thinking long after you've finished it.
"Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be as they truly are, said the doctor, And what about people, asked the girl with the dark glasses, People, too, no one will be there to see them" (114).
"Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see" (292).