This book is the opposite of feelgood literature. Blindness is an enigmatic book doing its best to hinder you from entry. Each page is a struggle in reception due to the style as well as what is happening. I constantly felt at unease while reading Blindness. Not because its awkward or the topic is tasteless but because I really felt like being a blind among blinds while civilization has broken down.
One defining element making the situation unbearable is the omnipresence of human excrements. Each step you take can end up in a turd, every thing you touch, all your clothes as well as yourself will soon be covered by feces.
While this in itself is a dangerous situation with all the consequences coming from a complete lack of hygiene, the decisive element making hell out of life once all ordinary rules of society and living together have vanished are other humans. The selfish nature of man is at the center. Once survival is the most immediate need, there’s not much room for thinking about others. Pure darwinism rules. The strong use the weak. A group of men force others to place their women at their disposal in exchange for food. Care for members of your group is simply utilitaristic as a mean to get them to protect and help you in response.
As a light at the end of the tunnel, Saramago gives us one individual who still is able to see. One beacon in the darkness to preserve humanity. I won’t go so far as to take it as the message of this book that there’s always hope. Blindness is too complex and cryptic to carry such a simple message. But it’s a great book on the nature of what it means to be human.
Reading it in times of Covid-19 added a whole dimension to my reception. The selfishness of individuals in our Western civilization but also the helplessness of those in power fit the exaggerated patterns of Blindness. A shoutout to the ones who are still able to see, the Faucis of this world.