Blindness in Pick-a-Shelf

Jan 08, 2017 Rachel N. rated it really liked it

Shelves: pbt-fiction-100, translated, science-fiction, read-in-2017, foreign-literature

A man driving his car suddenly goes blind. he goes to see an ophthalmologist and soon everyone in the doctors office is also blind. The blind are quarantined in a former mental hospital to try to stop the spread of the blindness. Conditions in the hospital quickly devolve. The story was interesting and also incredibly depressing at times. Saragamo has a very distinctive writing style with very long paragraphs and no use of quotation marks. This took me awhile to get used to. Eventually the story ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 20, 2008 Julianne rated it liked it · review of another edition

First, let me say that I had lots of glowing recommendations for this book. But, it did not meet my expectations.

Saramago is a very adept story teller. Anyone who can write an entire story without naming a single character and it still make sense is pretty good. His idea of not following traditional paragraph breaks or using quotation marks added to the reader's involvement in the blind characters' confusion and disorientation during dialogue. My problem was I didn't like the story.

Maybe distopi ...more

Like · see review

Nov 08, 2008 Kellie rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2015-reads, books-for-trade, fiction-literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was a very dark and depressing book for me. It took me a long time to read. I did not look forward to getting back to reading this book. The style of writing was unique. Sometimes it was hard to figure out who was speaking.
The idea of this book was very intriguing. It is an interesting to think about. Scary. I'm sure I missed a lot of hidden themes because of my lack of focus. This book was just not for me. I know I'm an oddball. Most of my goodread friends loved this book. I would really l ...more

Like · see review

Aug 28, 2008 Jaime rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, 2008, own

I really enjoyed this book. It was a little difficult to get into w/ the lack of punctuation but about 1/3 of the way through I was used to it. It is definitely one of those books that makes you think what it would be like if that sort of thing really did happen. The descriptions were really good like that. I would recommend this to others in a second...

Like · see review