Friday, April 25, 2008

Blindness

Like many novels that I read over a period of time, I read Blindness in five months. It's my first novel by a Portuguese author and Saramago's writing style is distinctly different from any that I have read before.

First, the sentences usually are very long, running to ten or twelve lines on an average. So the entire book just runs in paragraphs. Then, there is hardly any punctuation except commas (in abundance). Dialogs by different characters are separated by commas within a single sentence making it slightly difficult to follow. There are no quotes around conversations, which makes you pay close attention. Second, none of the characters have names. Throughout, they're all addressed by some unique trait that they have. For instance, "girl with dark glasses", "doctor's wife", "old man with black eye patch" and so on. Third, there is no name to the city where this epidemic strikes and there is no definite mention of time when this happens, which lends some kind of uncertainty and timelessness to the novel.

The plot itself revolves around the onset of a sudden "white" blindness in a city. There are a handful of characters that come together by chance and face the difficulties, albeit with one pair of eyes -- that of the doctor's wife. Within a matter of days, the whole city is blind and law and order, governance break down quickly. There is chaos everywhere and people are soon resorting to barbaric means to obtain food and basic necessities. Eventually civility disappears. The authorities try to quarantine those struck by the epidemic, but with all losing their sight, there is little point in keeping a few in seclusion. The story revolves around the survival of these blind people amidst the anarchy that results.

Saramago glorifies the human spirit. At several places, he speaks very highly of human nature. The nature to help and share, to face adversity with courage, and to stand together in harrowing times. When newspapers today often print news items quite the contradictory, this is a refreshing perspective of human nature indeed.

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