{"id":1669,"date":"2016-04-26T09:22:07","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T16:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1669"},"modified":"2017-12-18T08:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T16:31:00","slug":"review-blindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/26\/review-blindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Blindness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blindness\"<\/a>
\n Blindness<\/a> by Jos\u00e9 Saramago<\/a>
\n My rating: 4 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

Do yourself a favor and set aside a weekend to read Blindness<\/em>. Or a long day, or get a lot of rest and buy some good coffee so that you can read Blindness<\/em> from a dusk to a dawn. This book is written in a style that simply does not allow for many interruptions. You could try and treat the commas like periods and create your own paragraph breaks, but I think you\u2019d be better off simply reading the novel straight through.<\/p>\n

And when you\u2019re done you\u2019ll be exhausted. You\u2019ll have been to hell and back. You\u2019ll feel as if you\u2019ve been brutalized, made filthy, and only at the end given an opportunity to be clean again. You\u2019ll have witnessed a primordial evil without terror, and a deep humanity without pathos. You\u2019ll know what it\u2019s like to be an animal and will be satisfied that you\u2019re more than one: for all your base urges and needs, all the pains you suffer, sweetness and light are their own reward.<\/p>\n

Blindness<\/em> is probably an extended metaphor, and the various, unnamed characters are probably archetypes for something\u2014and that\u2019s all well and good when the reading is done, and you\u2019re ready for analysis. Memory, afterall, is something that serves one better if re-arranged, constructed, and made to fit one\u2019s philosophies. But in the book itself, when you\u2019re mired and coated with it, Saramago\u2019s language and tone defy any other thinking than the experience itself. You will get lost in this book. You will be unable to talk about it, much, when you\u2019re in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

This novel is not for everyone, but then no novel is. Nor will Blindness<\/em> suit you if you\u2019re not ready for it. And yet, there is no way to test for suitability and readiness. One can never, truly, know how one will change when tragedy strikes. But one can prepare. Find that open weekend, that long day, that over-night time that you can set \u2013aside. If Blindness<\/em> does not suit you, read something else. But if does, prepare to be changed.<\/p>\n

\n View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blindness by Jos\u00e9 Saramago My rating: 4 of 5 stars Do yourself a favor and set aside a weekend to read Blindness. Or a long day, or get a lot of rest and buy some good coffee so that you can read Blindness from a dusk to a dawn. This book is written in a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: Blindness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-qV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1670,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}