Blindness - Jose Samingo

Blindness was a book I had never even heard of before it was picked as the April read for my book club. Written by Portuguese author, Jose Samingo, Blindness was actually a dystopian novel we can all relate to.

SYNOPSIS: A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations, and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides her charges—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and their procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. As Blindness reclaims the age-old story of a plague, it evokes the vivid and trembling horrors of the twentieth century, leaving readers with a powerful vision of the human spirit that's bound both by weakness and exhilarating strength.

REVIEW: From the first chapter of this book I was hooked and it completely took me by surprise. With its Sally Rooney writing style, I was expecting this book to be a difficult read but the language was so easy to follow and I became obsessed with the new, dystopian world I had stepped into.

The book is written in third-person and from the get-go things hit the fan. You’re completely transported into this world where a pandemic is breaking out and since having lived through that exact time of paranoia and unknown knowledge, I could completely relate to how the characters were feeling.

However, in this book, instead of being told to stay at home, if you’re infected with the blindness, you are put in a hospital and basically forgotten about and made to fight for yourself. I was actually not surprised that there was some violence and I thought what this book did excellently was how humanity deals with panic, uncertainty and fear. I thought it was completely believable and I actually enjoyed reading the story, which shocked me because I thought it would have brought back bad memories of the start of the pandemic when we too experienced the panic, uncertainty and fear of the unknown.

Overall, I thought it was such a great depiction of humanity - humanity at its worst but also humanity at its best and although I felt like the third-person narrative didn’t fully allow me to feel a personal connection with the main group of characters, it did spark so many emotions and feelings toward how we treat our eyesight, memory and loss of loved ones. Not the easiest topic to read but executed so excellently well and I was so pleasantly surprised as I had never heard of this book before it was picked for book club but now I’m glad I gave it a go.

READ THIS IF:

👀 You like dystopian novels

👀 You’re looking for something a little different

👀 You like books written in third-person