You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

Please put all spoilers about Blindness in this section!

I didn't like the ending thought it was really weak and crap. It was an "and they all live happily ever after" end.

Ah no! not one of them endings :(

I've just read the part where about 4 of them get shot but I'm confused as to what actually happened. Did the non blind people see what was going on? I feel like I'm blind!!! Maybe that's the point!!

Where they the ones that got shot by the soldiers guarding them? I think they shot them because they were panicking things were getting out of control and they don't want to get contaminated do they so they just shot them to calm everything down.

but you may be right in the point is to make us feel blind. but i kept getting annoyed with the stupid drs wife. i think if i was her i would've tidied up by now! lol

Ha ha!! Love it. And cleaned the toilets :P

Has anyone got upto the bit where one of the dorms take over and become the 'bosses'? Where did all the sighted people go? There was a sudden influx of more people put into the asylum and it said that they all had to just go where there was space including going into the half that was meant to be just the people who'd had contact but weren't blind yet but then there wasn't anything else about those people. Are we just to assume that they all went blind? I thought that there was something missing there.

Ah yeh! I hadn't even noticed. Although I did notice that people in the outside world are becoming blind instantly after contact with an infected person. So maybe they did go blind instantly. That bit seems a tad forced, like he's changed how quickly people become blind in order for the story line in the hospital to make more sense.

Yeah but it did need to be moved forward a bit. But like you I felt it was a bit forced!

I've just read the part with all the raping etc in it. Wasn't nice. This book is grim :(

It is pretty grim isn't it? I guess by now no one cares what's happening inside the place - in fact no seemed to care from the beginning. It made me think about what the government would actually do if this kind of thing happened. I don't believe for one second that they would just dump a whole load of blind people in a disused building and leave them to fend for themselves even if it was a contagious epidemic. But then is it meant to be realistic?

What do you think the blindness is meant to be an allegory of? Our blindness to the state our society is in? Is the author saying that we are all actually like the dr's wife in that we may as well all be blind the mess that society is in and that we do nothing about it? well that was my take on it anyway.

I'm not really sure what he's trying to get at really. I think you may be on to something with your comment about us being blind to the mess that society is in.

The point I'm at now makes it seem as if it is better to be ignorant to what's going on around you. The wife has just seen the corpse being eaten by dogs, she can also see the state of the streets and peoples' homes.

I'm really not sure if I'm enjoying this book. I'm desperate to get it finished which is never a good sign. Some of it's just a bit OTT, I can't get the graphic sexual scenes out of my head! Yucky, or the visions of poo everywhere!

I'll be glad when it's over!

Wasn't the ending a bit strange?! Why did they all suddenly get better?! What led them to deserve to be better? i mean did they learn anything in that time of being blind other than it was hard being blind!!

Yeh the ending was pretty pants. Didn't explain anything. Why didn't the wife go blind? I wasn't enjoying the book though so was quite glad it was a 'they all could see again, the end!' kinda ending.

I actually think the way the gov't and society behaved would be very similar to how things would really happen. Imagine--a disease suddenly shows up that renders people just like this. First thing we want to do is stop it from spreading. Our first concern with illness is to stop people from getting it, THEN try to fix it. I saw that as fairly realistic.

I don't know how much time was supposed to have elapsed between when the first man became blind and when the people made it out of the asylum, but I can't believe that no one evolved. No one built a fire, no one cooked meat, no one found a way to sustain themselves? That was sad.

I didn't enjoy this story as much as I had hoped. The rapes and shootings are not what I enjoy in my reading. Grim is right!

I can't see how else you could end the book, but I also felt like the ending wasn't that strong. Actually, I wanted to see what people thought when they finally realized how gross they all are!

Oh, and did anyone else want to know what happened when all the sight came back? It's like everyone now has a clean slate. There's no money, no jobs, no society...just cause people could now see doesn't mean the grocery stores will suddenly be filled. And, if you worked for the electric company or waterworks, would you immediately go back to work so society could start functioning with daily "luxuries"?

Is is just me who immediately thought of these things? An epilogue with this stuff would have filled my interests in this story...what happened when society tried to rebuild?

Oh my god it's like reading my own thoughts!!! I'm so glad I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy it very much. I wrote in my review that this book left me with a slight feeling of panic/dread. I can't see how the government could react in any other way!

I've read somewhere that there is a sequel to this book, seeing?? I think it's called. I have no idea if this explains anything but yes an epilogue would have been nice.

Jenny,

It looks like it's a pseudo-sequel. 4 years later, but with not much to do with the original Blindness (except that it's the same townsfolk). It sounds like more of a political commentary, but maybe that's just the opinion of the person on GR who posted the summary.

I dunno. I think maybe I'll try another one of Saramago's............but not for a while.

Julianne what you wrote about the ending was exactly my thoughts too. Can you imagine suddenly being able to see and there's all that shit all over the place?!

I'm not so sure that that is how the government would deal with it. The whole dumping them in a building and not having anything else to do with them I don't think would quite happen. Although I do think that the group that took control and did the rapings etc was very likely. And before that them all being selfish about food rationing. I kept thinking for god's sake why don't you just share it all out equally?! but then thought well that's exactly what we don't do. Individually we may do but on a national and international scale we certainly don't!! And when it comes to survival I'm not so sure how i'd act.

I'm still don't understand why the ending was how it was. As Julianne says can't really see how else it could end but there didn't seem to be much learning there? If you take the blindness as a metaphor for how we are blind to society then what made them suddenly not blind to it? But then Jenny saying that maybe it's more to do with the wife being able to see and feeling she may as well be blind is what it was all about. People finding out that the statues in the church all having been blinded was definitely something to do with everyone suddenly being able to see i think.

I quite liked the book but it didn't really all add up. I did want to keep reading while in it.

I also got a bit frustrated that nobody seemed to question why the doctor's wife never went blind, despite being surrounded what was apparently very contagious. Nobody ever asked why she remained safe - exploring that might have helped them to work out how to solve it!

Heidi-

I agree. My hope would be that they "studied" her later, but I don't know that because they ended the book before telling us that stuff!

I can see why, during the story they didn't, b/c all the people trained to study her are blind and so no one can actually do it!

Since this is the only book I've read of those being commented in this group, I'll risk posting my 2 cents.
It is grim, it is meant to be grim, it is meant to leave you with "a slight feeling of panic/dread" like jenny said, but if you look closely, there is also an up side to things.
They all discovered that they could form alliances and even romantic relationships, that were not based on the "masks" that society forces us to wear, when they were blind, they couldn't see how old they were, how they were dressed, how pretty or ugly they looked, but they were forced to "see" the inside.
The Dr's wife, on the other hand, she can see both sides, and becomes the protector of her group, but she also is forced to give more importance to the "inside" of people, act in ways she wouldn't normally act, question what is right and what is wrong. At the end, she is left with a feeling of uncertainty, since now her "group" can see, they don't depend on her anymore and she is not the same person she started as.
Did you put yourselves in the main character's shoes? Did you ask yourselves: would I end up doing what she did, if faced with a situation like this? Are you now the same person you where before reading this book?
I think that is what Saramago wants us to experience while reading his book.
A long time ago I read "All the names", also by him, I don't remember that much, but I do know I liked it, in case you want to give him another try.