A review by mmccombs
There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness by M. Leona Godin

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I’ve not read a book on blindness before and it was truly so informative and really broke down a lot of the stereotypes I find myself and the people/culture around me using. I love that this book is not only a personal account of the author’s blindness, but also a rigorous breakdown of our understandings of blindness throughout history and in pop culture (if you count Homeric poems as pop culture lol). Like: why are so many blind folks depicted in movies/books/etc as seers of the truth, but also as poor unfortunate souls, but also as angelic virgins? All of these stereotypes seem contradictory but this book brought them together into a cohesive whole. I wish this was slightly less Western focused, I think it would have been interesting to see global understandings of blindness, but that probably would have made this book way too long! All in all, I would definitely recommend this as an entry point for non-blind folks wanting to deconstruct their understanding of blindness and sight.