Reviews

Ensaio sobre a Cegueira by José Saramago

mariangmakiling's review against another edition

4.0

the lack of quotation marks almost made me go blind
but otherwise

alonadadonut's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

delaguila19's review against another edition

4.0

“Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.” “Dentro de nosotros hay algo que no tiene nombre, ese algo es lo que somos” Esa es la frase que podría resumir el libro, genio Saramago para plasmar la maldad del ser humano. Mucho le critican la falta de puntuacion pero igual me parece genial.

beatrice_apetrei's review against another edition

4.0

This book mirrors perfectly the disintegration of society as blindness arises in each and every one of them, the source of it remaining unknown. Fear envelopes humanity, making them act less as humans and more like animals, for they remain unseen by the other and so their instinct of survival becoming an excuse for their lack of dignity is more important than reason, which kept them cautious. Where does this chaos begin ? How ? Why ? No one knows. They know that it can, or better said will, occur at any moment . Do you wear glasses ? Blindness does not care. Do you see perfectly? Are your eyes healthy ? Blindness does not care. Do you have any blind relatives? Once again, blindness does not care. Does it catch ? Apparently so, which drives people insane, in their desperate trying to keep blindness out of their lives, they do the best they could think of : they start a quarantine and throw inside everyone who encountered or witnessed it. This novel describes the unbelievable acts of people put under the curse of fear, how much can they endure until they give up? How much does hope linger in their hearts till it vanishes forever?

The writing is a bit difficult to get accustomed to. The novel is written in large blocks of text ( my edition even had pages with no paragraphs), with the dialogue incorporated in them, sometimes they may get hard to keep up with. It is not something bad, but it is surely different from anything I have read before. It requires a fresh mind and patience. A lot of it.

But even so, I managed to feel for the characters. They were so real, so strong and frightened, hopeful, stressed, organized, pained and so on. And oh, the Doctor’s Wife. Can I say how much I loved her, from beginning to the end? Such a loyal and strong woman, no matter how afraid she was when no one was watching. How at times she prayed for blindness because she couldn’t do it anymore. But she kept on moving, surviving through the disaster, giving her all to the ones in need. I. LOVED. HER. I still do. And I believe it is important to have such powerful women in novels. Mr. Saramago, I appreciate you for choosing her.

I’ve read comments about Blindness, about how it’s shaming blind people and making them seem more like animals than humans. And I disagree. This is not a story about blind people in general, but more about how something people are unprepared for can birth a living hell among citizens, how society falls apart when no one knows how to deal with such a crisis. Blindness comes in a variety of ways. In my opinion, vision felt always as the trickiest of the senses : nothing is as it looks like. Looks are deceiving, people are ashamed to be themselves under certain stares. “Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.” said the doctor, one of the protagonists.
Don’t let the assumption that this book is triggering ruin its ideas.

This book is terrifying. Frightening. A living nightmare. But it is in my opinion a must-read.

The question is : do we need eyes to see ? Do we need to go blind to appreciate the view of the sky at night, or the way grass dances in wind?

dredrril's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

korol_rezni's review against another edition

5.0

Saramago uses words in a way that you feel everything he tells. It was slow at the beginning but then it was like a river. If I could give ten stars I would give without even thinking.

eloyvallina's review against another edition

2.0

La premisa y las referencias con que este libro llegó a mí prometían mucho pero me he llevado una decepción. Me quedo con la sensación de haber leído algo trascendental y haberme perdido parte del mensaje. El estilo, al que no estaba acostumbrado, tampoco ayuda. Lo encontré un tanto lento y repetitivo, en ocasiones tedioso.

Por mi parte, supongo que esto me convierte en un necio. O, mejor dicho, en un ciego.

_nat_con_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

4.5

thebiggestboy's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was the darkest book I’ve ever read in my life.

ritaslilnook's review against another edition

4.0

Tantas questões, tanta história por preencher... mas a que mais me assombra é a razão pela qual a mulher do médico não cegou. O porquê da cegueira não me importa, nem o nome dos personagens
faz alguma diferença... mas, o porquê de ter sido apenas uma a pessoa a presenciar esse mal imundo a que Saramago chama de cegueira branca. Seremos nós a mulher do médico? A olhar de cima, a incitar para que entendamos que esta história levanta derivadas questões sobre a dignidade humana. Do e de quem ela depende e como, num piscar de olhos, em que tudo fica branco, tudo se pode perder. Creio que o mais chocante é ver em tão poucas palavras o quão terrível o Ser Humano pode ser. Tal como diz Saramago, “a pior cegueira é a mental, que faz que com que não reconheçamos o que temos à frente”, e assim o demonstra este livro: nós não somos boas pessoas, não há boas pessoas. Somos todos Seres iguais, alguns com divergências de personalidade e, exatamente por isso, é que necessária uma instituição capaz de manter a ordem social, capaz de controlar o instinto animal que nos possui aquando da aflição. Como o autor refere, "[...] não somos bons e é necessário termos coragem para o reconhecer”, no entanto, acredito que através desta história há espaço para aprendermos a ser melhores: menos egoístas, menos orgulhosos, ... menos tudo o que em demasia temos.