Blindness - Jose Saramago

The story of a highly contagious blindness running rampant through a 20th century country, from the stylistic Portuguese Nobel prize winner Jose Saramago.

The story here starts with one man going blind while waiting in his car for some traffic lights to turn green. He is driven home by a seemingly helpful stranger, where he waits for his wife so he can tell her the news. Obviously, first step is go to see the ophthalmologist, who has a look into the First Blind Man's eyes, and can't see any issues, leaving him to conclude it must be psychological, and also making lots of insensitive jokes ("Wait and see" for example).  The opthalmologist is puzzled by the man's blindness, and stay up late that night in his study to look into what it could possibly be. Just before he is about to go to bed, he is struck with a sudden blindness. He waits to tell his wife in the morning, then reports it to the hospital he works at, and eventually the Ministry of Health. The Ministry decides this is catching, and it is too dangerous to risk the blindness spreading, so the blind (there are a handful of them now) are shipped of to be quarantined in an old mental asylum. They are told the rules - there will be no outside contact. Food will be left outside the door daily. If there is any illness they are to treat it themselves. If there is violence they are to make their own peace. If there is a death, they are to dispose of the body. The population grows in the quarantine, and things start to get ugly. Very ugly in fact - some parts of this book are brutal, and it creates such a dark, oppressive atmosphere that is almost makes reading it a struggle - especially at bedtime.

I've read one of Saramago's books before (The Double - here is the link), and while I enjoyed that book, Blindness is in another league. This is the possibly the best book I've read this year, possibly the best book I've read in the past few years. The story is dark and dismal, and grotesque and disgusting, but the writing is subtle and nuanced and the narrator keeps a light hearted view of things, which makes the whole ordeal bearable. The squalor and evil in the asylum are unthinkable, but we are led through it with a gentle touch. This is one of the books that won Saramago his Nobel prize (The Double came afterwards) and quite rightly so. The symbolism comes through in leaps and bounds, and while the story is a simple one (everyone goes blind) it raises a few questions, and Saramago has given a lot of thought into what would happen. This is known as a sci-fi book, but there are few sci-fi tropes here.

Sarmago's style is in full force in this one too - though maybe not quite as much as in the Double. There are many long, meandering sentences, even going on for over a page in places. Jose frequently favours commas where others would use a full stop, which creates these long ramblings. But through these rambling sentences the story comes through, and it gives a feel of someone talking to the reader, telling a story where they are getting caught up in the telling. Also, there are no speech marks. There's no sign to say when someone has started talking - nothing separates it from the narration, and new speakers are simply marked with a comma. Don't worry - it's easy to follow for the most part - but it adds to the feel of the narration. It at times leaves the reader to figure out who is talking to who, maybe that feeling would have been common among the newly blind. Also, none of the characters have names - there is a noticeable lack of proper nouns. The characters are known by their most distinctive feature, even though in the setting and story these are often redundant, for example The Girl with Dark Glasses. She's blind, so is everyone else, so who knows whether she is wearing her glasses by the end. 

I loved this book and will definitely read it again. It's making me want to check out every other peice of Saramago's work.