Culture

A Portuguese Must-Read: Saramago’s “Blindness”

This Portuguese Classic Should Be On Your To-Read List

There are many facets to a country’s culture. History, geography, cuisine, religion, and many more would fall under that definition. Learning about them, however, will only get you to a certain point in understanding this cultural worldview. If you really want to get to know its people and their outlook on life, you will need to read its literature.

European literature, in this regard, is particularly varied. Every country – every region – has its own defined characteristics, ones which comprise the cultural baggage which people from that country have rooted within them. Analysing European literature in all of its traits and idiosyncrasies is the best way to truly soak in what Pierre Bourdieu called the habitus: each country’s cultural capital, the deeply ingrained habits and skills of its people, and the dispositions which they possess due to their life experiences within that culture. In short, reading a country’s literature allows you to understand its people.

There are some books which manage to capture that, and as such, have become classics of national and European literature. For this month’s pick, we look at Portugal!

Recommended

Blindness by José Saramago.

The author: José de Sousa Saramago (1922 – 2010) is one of Portugal’s most famous writers, and has been referred to by one critic as “a permanent part of the Western canon”. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, and his works have been translated into twenty-five languages. Although he was a self identified atheist, his works often use religious topics and contain theopoetic elements. He has been criticised by the Catholic church on numerous occasions; especially for his novels, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, and Cain.

Saramago statue Portugal
Statue of Jose Saramago, reading a book to a child. Located in Colin de la Frontera, Portugal

Saramago was a proponent of anarcho-communism, and a member of the Communist Party of Portugal, as well as a supporter of Iberian federalism. In 2007 he founded the José Saramago Foundation with the aim of defending and popularising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Portuguese culture, and the protection of the environment.

The book: Blindness is true to its title, detailing the outbreak of a mysterious epidemic of blindness in an unspecified city, and describing the subsequent collapse of society, as well as the marred lives of the stricken protagonists. It is a story about the dark side of human nature, and what happens when the rules of society are no longer upheld or enforced.  Whilst dark, dystopic books about the end of the world have been written before, Blindness is unique in the way it tells the story.
It is not identified, not even hinted at, when and where this white blindness epidemic takes place. There are no specifics on communication methods, no landmarks, no references to famous people, or any aspect of culture. Save for essential infrastructure, like supermarkets, there is no setting element for the reader something to grab on to, to connect this with any location, or time in history.
This gives the novel a very unsettling tone, because it gives the feeling that it could happen at any time, anywhere and to anyone.

Blindness Portugal
Portuguese book cover of Blindness

The Plot (spoilers ahead): in an unnamed city, a mysterious disease strikes first one unnamed doctor, then several of his patiens, moving on to everyone they have come in contact with, and slowly spreads to the entire population. The doctor’s wife is the only person who is spared from the disease, but she fakes blindness so as not to be separated from her husband. Typically for Saramago, all the characters remain anonymous throughout the novel, and are only identified by some personal trait, or more often by their relationship with the other characters.

In the first stage of the epidemic a quarantine is set up, and the first few dozen infected are isolated. The doctor’s wife is the only inmate who still has her sight. This is where the book switches from mystery to the erosion of society. At first, the victims are still disoriented and trust in the better judgment of the authorities, so they go along with everything that they are subjected to. But because the disease is spreading at exponential rate the government just cannot control the situation. Anxiety over the increasingly haphazard food supply grows rampant as the logistics that allow the functioning of modern society fall apart.

As more and more people are put into the quarantine area, a new, harsh social structure emerges within the walls of the hospital, with wardens withholding food and subjecting the inmates to violence. Eventually, all hell breaks lose and the blind fight each other, resulting in violence and murder. The patients eventually revolt and break out from the confines of the hospital, with the doctor’s wife serving as caretaker for a core group of survivors.
Once outside, the escapees find that society no longer exists. Everyone is blind, unable to find their family and friends, chiefly preoccupied with securing food and surviving. And then, the disease starts to disappear, without prior warning. There is no comfortable resolution at the end. The epidemic is left unexplained, and readers are left to their own means to interpret the story.

Why we recommend it: Blindness terrifies the reader with its intense and dark depiction of society, but it also gives a glimpse into what is wonderful about the human experience. Love, kindness, solidarity and courage. These are all present at the same time, in a cruel new world where no one really knows how to do things right. The authorities are powerless, other people are dangerous, the only thing that protects the individual is their group, their chosen family. In the end, all the characters have is each other.
It is not a book for the faint of heart, with some of the scenes being deeply disturbing. But it is a story that makes you think and ask the deepest of moral questions. How much are we shaped by the comfortable, well regulated social context we live in? And how much is it up to the person to decide what is right and what is wrong? The book does not moralise. It just presents this story and leaves it to the reader to answer the question of what they would do in the inhumane situation described.

Other recommended literature from Portugal

Portugal is a country with a rich history of literary masterpieces! Should you wish to explore this tradition, here is a quick list to get you started.

Recommended books from Portugal:
A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening
(Um Deus Passeando Pela Brisa da Tarde) by Mario de Carvalho.
The Sin of Father Amaro (O Crime do Padre Amaro) by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz.
The Maias (Os Maias) by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz.

Recommended authors from Portugal:
Aquilino Ribeiro
Miguel Torga
Cesario Verde
Antero de Quental
Almeida Garrett

Recommended poetry from Portugal:
Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads) by Luís Vaz de Camões.
The works of Fernando Pessoa.

Did you enjoy this article? You might like The Ode To Joy: Five Key Facts About Our Common Anthem and The Wall: a European Album that Warns Us Against our Inner Nazi Dictator

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