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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Solid book overall, it just got bland at times. I was into it a lot, and other times I was bored and waiting for it to end. It was a nice dive into what would happen if this situation occurred, but also left open ends in all the wrong places. I wouldn’t say it was bad. But it wasn’t a great book.
I'll probably be thinking about what I thought of this book for months at least, and there's something good about that. However, I haven't decided that I liked a lot of it. I like apocalyptic books like this, and I think that, for the most part, it was an accurate representation of the government and humanity, but it still made me really uncomfortable in, at times, unnecessary ways.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
this might be brilliant, or it might be rubbish. Can it be both?
Major ICK vibes with cheating and rape.
Major ICK vibes with cheating and rape.
Blindness by José Saramago
José Saramago's Blindness tracks an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city and swiftly following social breakdown. I must confess that I struggled with this one. It's not the story, which is unremittingly grim. Nor is it the experimental form of pages of run-on sentences and unparagraphed dialogue with nary a quotation mark in sight.
No, it is the unrelenting baroque nature of Saramago's writing (or perhaps that of his translator). The bane of many a translation from a romance language, I struggled with the overly florid verbiage in even the direst circumstances. Honestly, I can't quite imagine someone coming out with the following amidst pack rape, mass starvation amidst piles of human shit:
The plotline is intriguing enough, but I confess to finding the interminable soliloquies wearisome.
⭐ ⭐ ½
José Saramago's Blindness tracks an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city and swiftly following social breakdown. I must confess that I struggled with this one. It's not the story, which is unremittingly grim. Nor is it the experimental form of pages of run-on sentences and unparagraphed dialogue with nary a quotation mark in sight.
No, it is the unrelenting baroque nature of Saramago's writing (or perhaps that of his translator). The bane of many a translation from a romance language, I struggled with the overly florid verbiage in even the direst circumstances. Honestly, I can't quite imagine someone coming out with the following amidst pack rape, mass starvation amidst piles of human shit:
“Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that can not bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.”
The plotline is intriguing enough, but I confess to finding the interminable soliloquies wearisome.
⭐ ⭐ ½
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting story. Ingenious plot. Cleverly written.
Not gonna lie, while I did like Blindness, I'm not sure I feel the same way for Seeing. It's difficult for me to get through.
Incredible! How did I manage to go so long without reading this book. Excellent story from a unique writer.