Previously posted on Goodreads!¹
I don't even remember how I got this book, I just suddenly remember me reading it, and the most surprising thing is that I REALLY LOVED IT! I had my doubts, because even that I have another book from Saramago in my "to read list" I know that it's not the kind of genre I usually read, and I'm so pleased about this one.
One of the things that it is important about this text it's its structure, at least in Spanish, everything is writing without pauses or with commas in weird places, with no paragraph divisions, sometimes it even starts to confuse you because for a moment you don't know who's talking. At first I found it annoying, maybe because I didn't know this, but then I realized that it was OK to be written like this because there are spaces with a lot of dialogues and that would've been even worse to see lots of quotation marks (or em dashes in Spanish), these even enhances the desperation of the characters.
The plot it's about an epidemic (and white) blindness that at first affects a small number of people, which are sent to an asylum in order to contain it. The thing is that you see what would happen to us in a situation like this, we learn here how much people are willing to pay in order to survive, even if it means to become a slave, a murderer, or as weird as it sounds, a mother.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, playwright, and journalist. He was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor rather than the officially sanctioned story. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. He founded the National Front for the Defense of Culture in 1992 with among others Freitas-Magalhaes. He lived on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain, where he died on June 2010.
¹This review was written and originally posted on my Goodreads profile in 2014. It might now present minor changes in structure or corrections but has not changed its intention.
One of the things that it is important about this text it's its structure, at least in Spanish, everything is writing without pauses or with commas in weird places, with no paragraph divisions, sometimes it even starts to confuse you because for a moment you don't know who's talking. At first I found it annoying, maybe because I didn't know this, but then I realized that it was OK to be written like this because there are spaces with a lot of dialogues and that would've been even worse to see lots of quotation marks (or em dashes in Spanish), these even enhances the desperation of the characters.
The plot it's about an epidemic (and white) blindness that at first affects a small number of people, which are sent to an asylum in order to contain it. The thing is that you see what would happen to us in a situation like this, we learn here how much people are willing to pay in order to survive, even if it means to become a slave, a murderer, or as weird as it sounds, a mother.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, playwright, and journalist. He was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor rather than the officially sanctioned story. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. He founded the National Front for the Defense of Culture in 1992 with among others Freitas-Magalhaes. He lived on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain, where he died on June 2010.
![상수리나무 아래 [Sangsurinamu Arae]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1587570227l/53244934._SY75_.jpg)
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