Blindness by Jose Saramago

I wrapped up The Orchid Thief as best as I could and am now moving onto re-reading (for the 5th time) Blindness by Jose Saramago.

Publishers Weekly Review:
"Brilliant Portuguese fabulist Saramago (The History of the Siege of Lisbon) has never shied away from big game. His previous works have rewritten the history of Portugal, reimagined the life of Christ and remodeled a continent by cleaving the Iberian peninsula from Europe and setting it adrift. Here, Saramago stalks two of our oldest themes in the tale of a plague of blindness that strikes an unnamed European city. At the novel's opening, a driver sits in traffic, waiting for the light to change. By the time it does, his field of vision is white, a "milky sea." One by one, each person the man encounters the not-so-good Samaritan who drives him home, the man's wife, the ophthalmologist, the patients waiting to see the ophthalmologist is struck blind. Like any inexplicable contagion, this plague of "white sickness" sets off panic. The government interns the blind, as well as those exposed to them, in an abandoned mental hospital guarded by an army with orders to shoot any detainee who tries to escape. Like Camus, to whom he cannot help being compared, Saramago uses the social disintegration of people in extremis as a crucible in which to study the combustion of our vices and virtues. As order at the mental hospital breaks down and the contagion spreads, the depraved overpower the decent. When the hospital is consumed in flames, the fleeing internees find that everyone has gone blind. Sightless people rove in packs, scavenging for food, sleeping wherever they can. Throughout the narrative, one character remains sighted, the ophthalmologist's wife. Claiming to be blind so she may be interned with her husband, she eventually becomes the guide and protector for an improvised family. Indeed, she is the reader's guide and stand-in, the repository of human decency, the hero, if such an elaborate fable can have a hero. Even after so many factual accounts of mass cruelty, this most sophisticated fiction retains its peculiar power to move and persuade." (Drenka Willen)

Nonsensical Yet Productive

Two words that describe this past week: "absurd" and "nonsensical." With that said, most of my studies occurred today! I am closing in on 12 hours of Hermionish endeavors and calling it a day well spent.

Earlier this week, I did two reference observations at two rural libraries and loved every second of it. I managed to read all of Diane K. Kovac's, The Virtual Reference Handbook, which primed me for the virtual reference assignment that I worked on this morning and afternoon. The assignment asked me to conduct "secret patron" reference requests and summarize my experiences with how I might adapt my reference interviews when I am practicing librarianship. Very interesting and enjoyable.

This afternoon, I worked at putting together the documents Dr. Gonzalez requires for her academic advising appointments. In the next week or so, I will be petitioning the School of Library and Information Science for candidacy! Here is my final Plan of Work:
LIS 6010: Introduction to the Information Profession
LIS 6080: Information Technology
LIS 6120: Access to Information
LIS 6210: Organization of Knowledge
LIS 7040: Administration and Management
LIS 7050: Public Libraries
LIS 7140: Advanced Reference
LIS 7240: Client-Based Website Development
LIS 7250: Programming for Children and Young Adults
LIS 7340: Collection Development and Selection of Materials
LIS 7370: Multicultural Materials
LIS 7500: Information Behavior
LIS 7640: Practicum: Public Libraries
LIS 7996: Research in Library and Information Science

Fall of 2011: a possible study abroad trip to Germany, 14-20 days, with Dr. Mika. I will have to check and see how that trip will work with my other two classes.

Literature to Film Club: Very unlike me but I am having a hard time moving through The Orchid Thief. I love her writing style. Adore it, in fact; however, with all of the academic reading, Orlean needs to "bottom line it!" The next piece, recommended to the club by me, is Saramago's Blindness, which was translated to English from Portuguese and it is a much faster and smoother read. One of my favorite books!

Writing Project: No progress this week. I didn't even play with Haiku. Hopefully, next week.

I leave you with this tune from my study playlist:


P.S. I just got word that Dr. G's last term with SLIS's faculty is this winter 2011. I am sad that she is leaving, but wish her an amazing journey.

This One's for Jose

"First of all I'm Portuguese, then Iberian, and then, if I feel like it, I'm European," said Jose Saramago in an AP interview.

The great Saramago, Nobel prize winner, for his literary works was called home.

Library Journal's review of his piece Blindness, "To describe as allegory this story of unnamed characters in an unnamed city who are struggling with an undiagnosed epidemic of "white blindness" is both too simple and too complex. Beyond any emblematic purpose, the characters act out life with all its paradoxes and hidden truths. Ultimately, the greater meaning here is the simple story of human frailty and community in the modern world. In searing prose, both complex and minimal, all this and nothing more is revealed. No wonder Saramago won the Nobel prize this year."

Publisher's Weekly Review: "Brilliant Portuguese fabulist Saramago (The History of the Siege of Lisbon) has never shied away from big game. His previous works have rewritten the history of Portugal, reimagined the life of Christ and remodeled a continent by cleaving the Iberian peninsula from Europe and setting it adrift. Here, Saramago stalks two of our oldest themes in the tale of a plague of blindness that strikes an unnamed European city. At the novel's opening, a driver sits in traffic, waiting for the light to change. By the time it does, his field of vision is white, a "milky sea." One by one, each person the man encounters?the not-so-good Samaritan who drives him home, the man's wife, the ophthalmologist, the patients waiting to see the ophthalmologist?is struck blind. Like any inexplicable contagion, this plague of "white sickness" sets off panic. The government interns the blind, as well as those exposed to them, in an abandoned mental hospital guarded by an army with orders to shoot any detainee who tries to escape. Like Camus, to whom he cannot help being compared, Saramago uses the social disintegration of people in extremis as a crucible in which to study the combustion of our vices and virtues. As order at the mental hospital breaks down and the contagion spreads, the depraved overpower the decent. When the hospital is consumed in flames, the fleeing internees find that everyone has gone blind. Sightless people rove in packs, scavenging for food, sleeping wherever they can. Throughout the narrative, one character remains sighted, the ophthalmologist's wife. Claiming to be blind so she may be interned with her husband, she eventually becomes the guide and protector for an improvised family. Indeed, she is the reader's guide and stand-in, the repository of human decency, the hero, if such an elaborate fable can have a hero. Even after so many factual accounts of mass cruelty, this most sophisticated fiction retains its peculiar power to move and persuade. Editor, Drenka Willen. (Sept.) FYI: Paperback editions of The History of the Siege of Lisbon and Baltasar and Blimunda will be issued simultaneously."

During my academic tenure at Oakland University, Blindness was a required piece for my fiction class with Anderson. When I started reading it, I found it a bit challenging at first due to the translation, but the further I read, I soon discovered that I could not put it down. I ended up going to work and class very sleep-deprived! In fact, I was so fascinated by the justice themes, I contacted my alma mater, Ferris State University, and recommended the piece for the Justice in Literature class that I took for my criminal justice degree.

The famous bookish question: If you could recommend a book to your friends/family, which one would it be? My answer: Blindness by Jose Saramago.

And now for a closing Saramago remark, "I am skeptical, reserved, I don't gush, I don't go around smiling, hugging people and trying to make friends."

Perhaps he, too, was an INTJ.