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Blindness.
Saramago, Jose (author).
Aug. 1998. 304p. Harcourt, hardcover, $22 (0-15-100251-7).
REVIEW.
First published August, 1998 (Booklist).
Less an allegory than a mature writer’s inspired characterization of human nature, this book opens with a driver being struck blind at a stoplight. Soon, so are his wife, the doctor who examines him, and the doctor’s other patients: a pretty young woman, a worn-out old man, and a young boy. The doctor’s wife retains her vision but claims to be blind so she can help the others, but she then has to witness the horrors of blind human nature as the government quarantines them in a mental hospital under armed guard. That cannot stop the disease from spreading, nor does being blind prevent human behavior from expressing itself. As in Golding’s Lord of the Flies a hierarchy of terror arises behind closed doors as more blind arrive. They hoard and share, love and rape, fight and heal. Eventually, the doctor’s group escapes and returns to his house, where the world starts to return to normal. Saramago’s novel deftly shows how vulnerable humans are, how connected and how blind. (Reviewed August 1998)— Kevin Grandfield
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