Describing Sight in a book about the Blind

“... the resistance of the contaminated broken, many of them no longer contaminated, others running like madmen, were still trying to escape their black destiny. They ran in vain, one after another they were struck with blindness, their eyes suddenly drowned in that hideous white tide inuading the corridors, the wards, their entire space.” (pg 112)

It is the imagery of Blindness, and not so much the characters, that pushes the story along. The imagery is vivid, ironic considering the subject material:  an epidemic of the blind. While the characters sort of stumble through the story, with a few exceptions, it is the feel and image of the dark (pun not intended) world of Blindness that is the stories strongest point.

The imagery of Blindness is aided by its writing. Long, run on sentences, and no quotations help the text, giving it a sort of almost-claustrophobia. To me, this really helped me put myself in that world. In the writing seems to be  in a sort of matter of fact, on the run writing style, as if Saramago was just describing the story as he saw it, running on in the sentences as if he is in a rush to get information on the page. (something he and I seem to share in our writing styles, he does it better) The matter of fact, out-of breath, fast writing style

The imagery is vivid in part because it does not hold back very much. It describes the disturbing happenings of the novel in great detail,. A case in point, the fire set by a woman to kill her rapers, and the descriptions of the sounds made: “the cries of rage and fear, the howls of pain and agony, there they have been mentioned, note in any case that they will die away, the woman with the cigarette lighter , for example, has been silent for some time.” (213) Again, Saramago does not shy away from the disturbing when describing the disturbing, and it is this quality that helps the imagery become vivid, as a combination of fast prose, disturbing images, and dark material has created an image in my head that will remain for some time.

That the imagery is so strong is fascinating considering that it was written in another language. Writing well in a language not known requires skilled translators, and imagery like this reflects well on both the translator and the author.