Jose Saramago - Blindness

Pros: Thought provoking, original, frightening and uplifting
Cons: At times almost too disgusting in detail

What can I say? I've read several other epinions on this novel and I have rarely seen such disagreement. Some rave about it and give it five stars while others rave at it and give it one or two stars. As I prepared to write my review, I thought of the...

Pros: A book to open one's eyes to the human condition...
Cons: If you have not read Saramago before, it may take effort to grasp his style

I readily admit that I've limited my literary vision to mostly sci/fi and fantasy plus the occasional biography or extended socio/political rant, but as I've gotten older, I've found that my biblio-focus is changing. I want clarity in the books I ...

Pros: Provocative ideas, evocative prose
Cons: We are all blind

Anyone who has been exposed to the writing of José Saramago will never forget it. Some will hate it, complaining that his lack of normal punctuation and rambling writing style are too hard to read; too difficult to understand; too much work for a ...

Pros: A deeply moving and carefully built novel about the fragility of society.
Cons: Awkwardly translated from the original Portuguese

I was enticed into purchasing a copy of José Saramago’s Nobel prize-winning novel Blindness after reading the praise that fellow Epinions members nita, mgreber and erik_kosberg had offered for the book. After finishing the...

Pros: Makes you think
Cons: Sometimes hard to read

As children, we often pretend that we are blind. We close our eyes tightly and try to see if we could get by with only our hands to feel the way. At times throughout my life, as I have seen a blind person walk down the street with relative ease, I have...

Pros: A literary masterpiece. Enough said.
Cons: Writing style can be difficult, but it's well worth the effort.

An unnamed man, in an unnamed country, goes blind while sitting in his car at an intersection. It is a white blindness, his world a horrific sea of milky whiteness. Soon, it becomes clear that this is a plague, a disease spreading throughout the...

Pros: intriguing story · engaging stream of consciousness narrative · inspiring characters · interesting thoughts
Cons: narrative with minimalist punctuation might turn off some · ending might leave some readers unfulfilled

What if it all broke down, I asked, Everything.

Everything, you repeated, What do you mean.

Well, you know, society, the world as we know it, the whole enchilada, a total and complete meltdown, Some say we got on that...

Pros: brilliant tale of hell on earth
Cons: difficult punctuation

An amazingly good book. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but a short introduction to it is necessary. A man waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind but instead of everything going black, everything goes white, a...

Pros: Gripping plot with allegorical underpinnings
Cons: Difficult to read in spots

While I often enjoy the literary prowess of such mainstream intellectual writers as Irving, Helprin, and Erickson, I find myself gravitating time and again toward the horror genre, toward writers such as Simmons, Barker, Straub, and Koontz. I've done...

Pros: Thought provoking.
Cons: Difficult to read, difficult to understand, unbelievable society.

Perhaps Saramago got the Pulitzer prize for provoking the peewaddin out of the judges. Yes, this story made me think...sometimes about the society he constructed, but more often about how irritating was his experimental writing style.

A man...

Pros: great story, writing style
Cons: a bit slow in the middle, easy to get lost in the style

"Blindness" by Jose Saramago, is a sprawling, horrifying tale about human nature. Set in a nondescript city, it tells the story of an epidemic of unusual force and circumstance-a disease where people go blind one after the other, seemingly...

Pros: powerful content and prose; great read (especially on a gloomy or stormy day in the quiet of one's household)
Cons: As fair warning, the style of prose and the tone of the novel can be at times hard to concentrate through, but it adds to the tension of the book. Stick out the first chapter and you will find that this is a fantastic book.

Despite being a translation of author Jose Saramago's work from Portuguese to English by Giovanni Pontiero, this book is one of the smartest books I have read in a while. As a commentary on society as it stands, "Blindness" does well to...

Pros: Compelling, thought-provoking, study of social breakdown and anarchy.
Cons: Lengthy paragraphs may be confusing for some readers.

I first discovered Jose Saramago after hearing conflicting reports on his book "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ"; after one reading of that volume, I was hooked. "Blindness" shows Saramago for the genius he truly is. It starts off simply enough; a ...

Pros: a beautiful look at a chilling reality
Cons: not for the weak of stomach or heart

Have you ever wondered what it would like to be blind? Jose Saramago's Blindness will fill you in with grim details.

The novel takes place in a city where an epidemic of blindness has touched almost every citizen. A small band...

Pros: exhilarating, different
Cons: style of writing can be difficult to grasp

This is my first book my Jose Saramago and immediately I was enraptured by his unique sense of style. His portrayal of the human existence is done in such a shocking manner, one begins to question the entity of blindness in such a pure physical sense. ...