For a Nobel Prize winner I was underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong- the story is good, just a tired concept. The "virus sweeps across humanity and we resort to animal-like behavior" shtick has been done time and time again. It's been a few years since I've read it, but I still recall myself wondering what all the hype was about. Mind you, this is often listed as one of the best novels in recent history.

>>8187300
i dont think that was the point at all. in fact i think saramago was famously suspicious of people who tried to infer a grand, larger meaning like "humanity is base and animal" or something like that. the book resists simplification despite the simple, fable-like narrative. people are neither good or bad (it sounds like a platitude the way i say it here...), but rather, events simply unfold as is. you can easily find significance and meaning in individual actions, but the way saramago portrayed the world during the epidemic is, in my opinion, far more sophisticated than what you see in, say, day of the triffids or lord of the flies.

and, indeed, the book is simply beautifully written in my opinion. the unadorned style still had moments of great visceral beauty - the scene inside the church, for example, is still super vivid in my mind.

the book is super strange in that when you try to summarize or generalize it, everything sounds like trite banality. quotes like "I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see" and ""There are no blind people, only blindness." sound absurdly new-agey handwavey bullshit when taken out of context, but assume a kind of dignified power when read in context of the book. i think it speaks to my point tat saramago actively resists generalization and distortion.

i recommend you read seeing. it's a "sequel" to blindness and it's not really related plot-wise beyond mentioning people went blind in blindness, but i think it's quite illuminating. the two novels complement each other nicely. be warned that the lighthearted, comedic satire that the book starts with does not last the whole way and the tone shifts drastically.

My favourite novel

As a portuguese person I have no idea why that's his most popular novel abroad. Most of his novels start the very same way, something impossible happens, and then you have the possible outcome of it; a blindness epidemic, the iberian peninsula comes off from europe, people stop dying, etc.

>actual book thread
>barely any replies

>>8188014

As an American who has read all of this books that have been translated into English (and who read Blindness first and was compelled to read the rest of his books because of it), I too am surprised that people like it better than all of his other books. It is a great novel, but it is not greater than a great many of his other novels.

All I have to say right now is that it was a lot more entertaining than "Claraboia", I'm halfway throught it but damn it can get quite boring.

>>8189405
examples?

i really like the way he names the characters
and i really like the way the dialogue is just part of the sentences, the flow of it

>>8188014
>Most of his novels start the very same way, something impossible happens, and then you have the possible outcome of it
that's a pretty good description of half Borges', PKD's, and Calvino's work too

>>8187262
dat rape scene...

>>8187262
It's okay but I prefer the one about jesus christ

>>8187262
all the talk about shit smell made me feel ill

>>8190338
Portuguese guy from before; my choices are Bathasar and Blimunda, the Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (this one needs a bit of Pessoa beforehand), Death with Interruptions. My favorites are also the ones with very portuguese themes, but those I have no idea how they come off in english, like the Stone Raft or Raised from the Ground.