José Saramago, Blindness

This is not a book that makes me wonder what its characters experience; when I read it, I do. Saramago tells the story of the first victims of a mysterious white blindness which infects an entire nation. I pause while reading, and ponder, with its characters, where I will get my next meal, how I can live in the midst of such filth and despair.

Saramago delimits dialogue only with commas, and it is sometimes impossible to tell who is speaking, him or one of his characters. The narration alternately approaches and recedes from the blind men and women of the story. We are told with precision of future or distant events, but the narrator suddenly asks what's to come. The descriptions, as the characters, are blind; no colors, shapes, shades are put forth. Sometimes the narrator's thoughts seem to wander. Strangely, these oddities only serve to draw one further into the story. The words do not inspire images, they pass directly to emotions.

This book didn't inspire graditude for my clean bed, my abundance of food, my sight; it made me feel, for a few hours, that I lacked them.