Sep. 13th, 2008
75) Saramago, Jose. BLINDNESS. Harcourt, Brace and Company: 1998.
This author was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.
In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, with unnamed characters, a plague of sudden "white blindness" strikes. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and quarantines victims in an abandoned mental asylum. Guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape, the newly blind are left to fend for themselves. Interestingly, Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping, gritty story of a faltering humanity is written with a lack of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. It's a challenging read, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.
This author was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.
In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, with unnamed characters, a plague of sudden "white blindness" strikes. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and quarantines victims in an abandoned mental asylum. Guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape, the newly blind are left to fend for themselves. Interestingly, Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping, gritty story of a faltering humanity is written with a lack of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. It's a challenging read, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.