Blindness

[October 2005]

**********
Blindness
Jose Saramago

number of voters: 9
percentage of voters who finished the book: 88
highest rating: 8
lowest rating: 4
average rating: 6.25

The woman who chose the book spoke first. She liked the book, the way it ended, the way it made her think about what it would like to be blind, even though she was already blind. Then the teacher who was eating dinner said she was not really impressed with the book, that she felt like she was reading a translation, which she was. The woman with shoulder-length blonde hair said that it took her a while to get herself into the book, that some parts were random, but that she was glad that she had read it. The first pregnant woman to speak never would have picked up this book, let alone read it, were it not for the book group. She said, I like that there were no quotation marks. The just newly pregnant woman was kind of glad she’d read it, that she liked it for the first half, but that it then went on and on (kind of like this recap). The woman with the broken leg liked the book at the beginning, but wasn’t really excited about it and was even less excited about it when it became more gruesome and brutal, at which point she began to skim the details. The woman who was taking notes, that is, the third pregnant woman and the only woman who had not yet gone blind, took very good notes for the red-haired woman, who was thoroughly impressed by the this author’s writing ability and the fascinating story, but nonetheless could not necessarily recommend the book due to its rather disturbing imagery (if you’ll pardon the irony of words implying the ability to see). The pregnant woman who was nearly full-term definitely did not enjoy the book, nor did she bother finishing it since she didn’t like the writing style which she said was, quote, distracting, endquote. The woman with curly hair read every page but whole-heartedly agreed regarding the distracting writing style, that the book was hard to follow. But it left her, as well as all the other blind readers, wondering, What is the deeper meaning? What is the author trying to say? Each person must answer that for herself. As to why we were blind that night, the red-haired woman said, I don’t think we ever were blind, I think we were wearing blindfolds.