Blindness is the mirror of the soul.

I read Blindness with my book club. Truth is, I had originally suggested the Voyage au Bout de la Nuit but then changed my mind for fear it be too dark for a book club discussion. Those who have read Blindness understand the irony of this choice…

We are talking about a crescendo of violence spanning over 400 pages of sheer horror. The word “horror” itself is pronounced a couple of times by the protagonists. Until, eventually, they thought better to say nothing. When all is done—murder, adultery, rape, coercion, blasphemy—, silence is all that’s left. No words can express the feelings of the poor souls whose reality has drifted beyond the reach of language.

Perhaps this why Saramago’s style is so verbose. As if he tried to hide the futility of his attempt in a maze of long winded sentences; Throwing the reader from one scatological anecdote to the next, in one long breath of putrid air. The reader endures the hardships of the blinds in search for food and clean vicinity, his time sucked into Saramago’s detailed account of the protagonists’ survival.

But let us not be fooled by Saramago’s post-apocalyptic narrative. To anyone who has read The Plague, Blindness is another social experiment, the construct of an author obsessed with the study of the Human condition. The epidemic of blindness constitutes Saramago’s perfect alibi to deconstruct modern beliefs, in pursuit of the objective study of human's morality, psychnology, and spirituality.

As for us readers, we should refrain from casting any judgment on those who dare to dream such a dreadful blindness. If all should be revealed under the white light of this strange illness, there is nowhere left to hide once the book is closed and our eyes open.