"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
In this community of blind people there is still one set of functioning eyes: the doctor's wife has affected blindness in order to accompany her husband to the asylum. As the number of victims grows and the asylum becomes overcrowded, systems begin to break down: toilets back up, food deliveries become sporadic; there is no medical treatment for the sick and no proper way to bury the dead. Inevitably, social conventions begin to crumble as well, with one group of blind inmates taking control of the dwindling food supply and using it to exploit the others. Through it all, the doctor's wife does her best to protect her little band of blind charges, eventually leading them out of the hospital and back into the horribly changed landscape of the city.
Blindness is in many ways a horrific novel, detailing as it does the total breakdown in society that follows upon this most unnatural disaster. Saramago takes his characters to the very edge of humanity and then pushes them over the precipice. His people learn to live in inexpressible filth, they commit acts of both unspeakable violence and amazing generosity that would have been unimaginable to them before the tragedy. The very structure of society itself alters to suit the circumstances as once-civilized, urban dwellers become ragged nomads traveling by touch from building to building in search of food. The devil is in the details, and Saramago has imagined for us in all its devastation a hell where those who went blind in the streets can never find their homes again, where people are reduced to eating chickens raw and packs of dogs roam the excrement-covered sidewalks scavenging from corpses.
And yet in the midst of all this horror Saramago has written passages of unsurpassed beauty. Upon being told she is beautiful by three of her charges, women who have never seen her, "the doctor's wife is reduced to tears because of a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, mere grammatical categories, mere labels, just like the two women, the others, indefinite pronouns, they too are crying, they embrace the woman of the whole sentence, three graces beneath the falling rain." In this one woman Saramago has created an enduring, fully developed character who serves both as the eyes and ears of the reader and as the conscience of the race. And in Blindness he has written a profound, ultimately transcendent meditation on what it means to be human. --Alix Wilber
JOSÉ SARAMAGO (1922–2010) was the author of many novels, among them Blindness, All the Names, Baltasar and Blimunda, and The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 4.75
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First British Edition. An exceptional hardcover with a crisp dust jacket, a tight binding and an unmarked text. The British first edition, with a full number line. From a private smoke free collection. Shipping within 24 hours, tracking number and delivery Confirmation. Seller Inventory # McQEC2D-221a
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. First edition, first printing of the notable author's most celebrated work. Book is very near fine with some light touching to bottom edge, jacket is near fine minus with some ruffling to top and bottom edges, though without tears. A nice example of this tough to come by edition. Octavo in black cloth, 309 pages, pictorial jacket. Satisfaction guaranteed. Additional photos always available on request. Shipped in a fitted, padded box. Seller Inventory # ABE-1648174750625
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. First edition and first printing of this landmark work, with full number line to copyright page. Book is fine with light toning to block while jacket is clipped, near fine, showing some rubbing to rear. All in all, a great copy of a very scarce modern title. Black boards, octavo, 309 pages, pictorial jacket with Paolo Piglia painting. Seller Inventory # ABE-1622316684572
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. First Edition in English/First Printing with the complete number line; A Fine book in a Fine dust jacket, with no visible flaws. A pristine copy of this important work from the 1998 Nobel Prize winner for Literature; basis for the Julianne Moore/Mark Ruffalo movie. This edition is the true first english hardcover edition, preceding the US edition by approximately a year. It would be difficult to find a nicer copy. Not remaindered, not price clipped, not ex-library; in a protective Mylar sleeve and will ship carefully wrapped in a sturdy box. Seller Inventory # 3404