Blindness

This is a unique and gripping book. It’s uniqueness is in the stylend writing - no character is ever named yet it is easy to form a bond with each of the main characters (except the little boy - he seemed superfluous, other than maybe to serve as an example of how easily children can learn to adapt). I also found it amazing that the dialogue was never put in quotations, the way we are accustomed to reading what the characters say, and yet it was still very clear who was speaking, what was spoken aloud and what was thought. The story of a pandemic seems like a familiar concept in 2022 and like other books before (The Plague by Albert Camus for example) it accurately portrays how quickly humanity turns from We‘re All In This Together into Every Man For Himself. This book does a wonderful job of portraying the breakdown of society unless people are willing to work together, not to mention the simple idea of being blind to the suffering of others. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

Blindness (Blindness #1) by José Saramago has quite a hook and is pretty unsettling, especially for me as a big reader. As interesting as this was though, I wasn't a fan of the writing style. I get what the author's trying to do with the style for the story, but it got old quick. The distance it creates between the reader and the text/ world/ characters works for the story, but after awhile it got off-putting and became a chore more than anything. I know there was a movie adapted from this story starring Mark Ruffalo. Maybe I'll check it out sometime to see how it was adapted to the big screen.