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A review by jdscott50
For the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches from the World of the Blind by Rosemary Mahoney
3.0
An author's inner journey through her own perceptions of what it means to be blind drives this memoir/history of society treatment of the blind. Assigned to a magazine profile on Tibet's first school for the blind, Braille Without Borders, she realized that she needed to face her own fears of being blind. An incident in high school almost left her blind in one eye. She further recounts a scene in the film All Quiet on the Western Front where she thinks someone dies of blindness. She finds her own issue mirrors those of society as a whole over centuries. In her exploration of the school and the history of the treatment of those who are blind she becomes an advocate for them.
The story itself is interspersed with her own personal history, stories at the school, and a history of the treatment of the blind going back centuries. Stopping at well known figures such as Helen Keller, she is able to make us face our own treatment of those with handicaps. Her initial feelings towards the blind are quite primitive (she would rather be dead than blind when she was a teenager). I'm often reminded of the book Day of the Triffids where an alien plant blinds humanity, making them vulnerable to invasion. Some of the comments in that book are quite shocking and demonstrates that even in the 1950s; thinking towards the blind was still quite primitive.
While Mahoney does an excellent job telling the stories of the children at the school as well as a good history, It would have been nice to see more information on what is happening today. What are the resources now? If people are inclined to help after reading the book, what should they do? Generally, her attempt is to change our perceptions as she quotes Flannery O'Conner in the beginning of the book, "To get back to the crutches, the truth about them is that they worry the onlooker more than the user." She achieves her goal in helping to change perspectives, but I thought she could have gone further with the story and discuss the issues of today.
The story itself is interspersed with her own personal history, stories at the school, and a history of the treatment of the blind going back centuries. Stopping at well known figures such as Helen Keller, she is able to make us face our own treatment of those with handicaps. Her initial feelings towards the blind are quite primitive (she would rather be dead than blind when she was a teenager). I'm often reminded of the book Day of the Triffids where an alien plant blinds humanity, making them vulnerable to invasion. Some of the comments in that book are quite shocking and demonstrates that even in the 1950s; thinking towards the blind was still quite primitive.
While Mahoney does an excellent job telling the stories of the children at the school as well as a good history, It would have been nice to see more information on what is happening today. What are the resources now? If people are inclined to help after reading the book, what should they do? Generally, her attempt is to change our perceptions as she quotes Flannery O'Conner in the beginning of the book, "To get back to the crutches, the truth about them is that they worry the onlooker more than the user." She achieves her goal in helping to change perspectives, but I thought she could have gone further with the story and discuss the issues of today.