Tabs & Twists
Blindness
When a sudden epidemic of white blindness strikes a city, society falls apart, and only one woman can still see.
- Setting / Period
- Unnamed city
- First published
- 1995
- Pages
- 352
- Language
- English
Review
A man goes blind at a traffic light, and the condition spreads rapidly. The authorities quarantine the first victims in an abandoned asylum, where the thin layer of order soon gives way to violence and degradation.
Saramago writes with long, unpunctuated paragraphs and no names, only descriptions: the doctor, the doctor's wife, the girl with dark glasses. The style is demanding at first, but it creates a dreamlike, claustrophobic effect that suits the subject.
It is harrowing and includes scenes that are hard to read. Yet the novel ends with compassion, and its central image of a community that sees clearly only when it chooses solidarity stays with you.
