Book Review: Blindness by Jose Saramago

An unexplained mass epidemic of blindness spreads throughout a city, afflicting almost everyone, as civilisation begins to fall apart.

“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.”

First things first, this book has an incredible premise and story but you gotta be prepared to put in a little elbow grease to get it! Unless, of course, you are used to reading walls of text with no speech marks and long-ass sentences that go on for half a page.

That is honestly my only real complaint about this book - once you got into the swing of it and you can sit and read for an extended period of time, it becomes second nature! But if you’re picking it up here and there it felt like hard work to get back into it each time.

The premise is TERRIFYING and so disturbingly realistic. As civilisation breaks down and succumbs to chaos and destruction, the blindness amplifies what was already there in the first place - hate, greed, selfishness, theft, rape, murder. Sewage fills the streets, there’s no electricity, food is in short supply, dogs feed on corpses... Everything is stripped back as we are left to wonder what really makes us human? *Trigger warning for rape, by the way*

Blindness is a pretty powerful dystopian novel with an incredibly harrowing message. We might be able to physically see, but what else are we blind to?

I’d recommend this one for sure if the writing style doesn’t put you off - the audiobook might be a great way around that! 3.5 stars.

Johann

x