Book Recommendations

Blindness

Blindness is my second José Saramago book (the first being The Gospel According To Jesus Christ). I want to recommend it to you, which would normally involve a pseudo-review of some sort full of fancy superlatives and some forms of analyses, but no, I’m not a lit critic or a book reviewer, and so I’ve decided that I’ll just stick with telling you these things directly. In fact, I won’t even do a plot summary, because that really seems a bit silly in the context of what I’m going to tell you.

What I have to tell you will really sound like a bunch of empty words if you didn’t try the book, and I suppose I’m cheating by saying that because this is supposed to get you to read the book. Here goes anyway.

Blindness is a powerful book, the sort that crushes you completely like you would expect the greatest pieces of art to. It is bold and unforgiving, and perhaps to look deepest, that is what we will have to be. It is at one time an unflinching look at the lowest points of human behaviour and a celebration of the human spirit.

The most prominent feature of Saramago’s work (of course, I’ve only ever read two of his books), is his unwavering grasp of the novel. It is this that so assuredly steers the story from start to finish. You always get the feeling that you are in the hands of a true master of the form.

Speaking of Saramago, Blindness wears his defining characteristics proudly. One of these is his style, which I’ve heard complaints about. I think it’s difficult to read for some people, but mostly I find it a breeze to read.

Another trait is its fabulous nature, and that’s where the most important thing I have to tell you come in. Like the greatest of our fables, Blindness casts a tall shadow and it is in this shadow that we consider what it is to be us, or simply to be.

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© 2009 a modest odyssey.