Blindness

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I AM BLIND. This is the beginning of what my son labelled the scariest book he ever read, and yet such a perfectly brilliant masterpiece. Similar to Camus' La peste and Ionesco's Rhinocéros in more than one respect, it takes the reader to the darkest abyss of despair and filth and pain. I think even the women had no idea what it really would mean to be raped. They have all had sex, no blushing virgins among them. They were hungry too and after some speculation decide that they need to do this not only to feed themselves, but also their men. It is way beyond anything they could even imagine. It was horrible and Jose Saramago pulls no punches. Being raped by one man is bad enough, but when being raped by several men a woman has become an object, not even an object of desire, but merely a receptacle for lust. Being attractive, or smart or any of the things that made men desire her, in the world before blindness, are suddenly immaterial. She is faceless, a base unit to be used and abused devoid of the uniqueness that identify all of us beyond being just a male or a female. There must be a government, said the first blind man, I'm not so sure, but if there is, it will be a government of the blind trying to rule the blind, that is to say, nothingness trying to organize nothingness. Then there is no future..."Saramago’s work reminded me of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, both are about the crumbling of our civilization as we know it. Blindness is a masterpiece and an important reminder for us to be appreciative of several things that we take for granted, to look around and really see. Without an honest and accurate vision our very existence can disintegrate. In 1998, Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Blindness was one of his works noted by the committee when announcing the award.

We are so afraid of the idea of having to die, said the doctor's wife, that we always try to find excuses for the dead, as if we were asking beforehand to be excused when it is our turn,…….. If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.” Or you can now get your books through an Alexa enabled device such as your smart speaker, tablet or phone.

Anyone who is going to die is already dead and does not know it, That we're going to die is something we know from the moment we are born, That's why, in some ways, it's as if we were born dead, …….

One character, a Cassandra of sorts, is excluded from the plague, and she guides the plot with her seeing eyes. What she sees is unbearable, even to the reader. Rarely have I felt more shaken than while reading the scene with the blind thugs raping hungry women. The seeing woman steps in and uses her power to break off the horror show, but it will leave a scar on my reading inner eye forever. Bizarrely, that means a scene I never actually saw is engraved on my visual memory.Our Talking Books service is absolutely free. Giving you access to over 40,000 fiction and non fiction books for adults and children in accessible formats that suits you. Formats available An allegory of the breakdown of civilisation, Blindness is also the story of those who finally start resisting raw violence and brutal force, and of those who see through the darkness. However, even as the blind spell breaks, and people are regaining their vision, the world is changed forever. Blindness has become a real threat, a terrifying possibility lurking underneath everyday worries. If it can happen once, it can happen again. And who knows when? You may be waiting at a traffic light, and all of a sudden, life goes white... After an uprising, folks find out the asylum has been abandoned by the army who was until then responsible for it and they're able to leave. Realizing that what they went through in quarantine was only a detail in the huge landscape, now we follow our protagonists as they wander through the city in search of better conditions: water, food, clothes, a way to find their homes and their relatives. 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.

Ms. Heffernan also looks at how a focus on making money can circumscribe what we see and do - and she connects this obsession with the notion of willful blindness. In the late 20th century, she asserts, "public energy suddenly centered on money," and though she does not develop this argument, it has an eerie ring of relevance from a historian's perspective. The last 20 years have witnessed an increasing preoccupation - among all manner of people and organizations - with financial gain. It is easier for me to lambaste a book when it is a translation; after all, maybe it is not the author who should be held accountable for the text’s flaws. Whether or not the translator is culpable, Blindness indeed has many flaws.Information overload is also a big factor, especially in our technologically sophisticated age. Ms. Heffernan explains how multitasking and excessive stimulation, combined with exhaustion, restrict what we see and do. Though Leland is accused occasionally by friends of “over-intellectualising” his situation, his fine sensibility, lucid writing and dignified treatment of his subject feels anything but indulgent. This book invites us all to rethink what it means to desire, to read, to be independent, to sit with uncertainty and to assume a new identity. Leland models how we might accept inevitable changes in our faculties as we age with tempered apprehension, humour and interest.

Saramago was the first Portuguese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in June at age 87. Things that made us human are gone. Faces don't matter. Names don't matter. Homes don't matter. Possessions don't matter. Shame and modesty are gone. Medicine is useless. Government is useless. Morals seem obsolete. Empathy is gone. Is anything left? Anything inside us? In 2007 the Drama Desk Award Winning Godlight Theatre Company [4] staged the New York City theatrical premiere of Blindness [ citation needed] at 59E59 Theaters. This stage version was adapted and directed by Joe Tantalo. The First Blind Man was played by Mike Roche. [5] [6]The boy with the squint was a patient of the doctor's, which is most likely how he became infected. He is brought to the quarantine without his mother and soon falls in with the group in the first ward. The girl with the dark glasses assumes a motherly role for him, as she takes care of him and ensures his safety. [2] The car thief [ edit ] La ce-mi ajută că văd. O ajutase ca să ştie despre oroare mai multe decît îşi închipuise vreodată, o ajutase ca să-şi dorească să fie oarbă, la nimic altceva...”;