Wonderful Reading

[mme_furiosa]

I just finished Jose Saramago's book, BlindnessHe is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. It is not for the faint of heart, as it is touchingly disturbing and heartbreaking-- one of the best illustrations of the human condition I have ever seen

Comments

[popfiend]

OK.

I'm scared just reading the description.

*shudder*

[mme_furiosa]

It's beautiful! And horrible. Just trust me on this one.

[popfiend]

It touches on a deep seated fear of mine so I probably can't read it.

[mme_furiosa]

Yeah, I have been tearing through books lately. Oryx & Crake was a lot lighter, but next I think I need to sink my teeth into some nonfiction. That always clears the palette a bit.

But wow, this book is splendid.

Thank you!

[wyrdwriter]

touchingly disturbing and heartbreaking
and
Oh, the delicious horror of this story! Worth every single pinprick of pain it inflicts.
PLUS
Global Epidemic???

Just my kinda story!

Re: Thank you!

[mme_furiosa]

It's lovely, I almost want to read it all over again. That's insane.

Literature?

[js_africanus]

I'm suspicious of literature. I can't say why, but in my mind a Nobel prize in literature equates to the bad sort of difficult reading, not the good kind. And am I correct in reading your post that the author doesn't follow basic rules of punctuation?

Edit

"The premise: an epidemic of blindness slowly spreads across the globe, and every consequence that could possibly result from a "disease" that is feared and not understood results."

How slowly?

The amazing book The Day of the Triffids begins with nearly everyone going blind in a day, from watching an amazing 24-hour meteor storm. John Wyndham's approach to the problem is quite interesting, and how the various groups try to reorganize is interesting, too. As I said, it's an amazingly good book.

Earth Abides is a depressingly sober view of a world wiped nearly clean by a super-flu. There's no sensationalism whatsoever.

Anyway, your post made me think of those two books, so I thought I'd tell you about them, in case you hadn't heard of them yet.

Re: Literature?

[mme_furiosa]

okay, not really slowly at all. Slow at first, and then you don't really know what is going on because all the main characters are in quarantine.

It's fucking grim, really reminds me of Cormack McCarthy's The Road, another grim glimpse at an apocalyptic world.

Those books both look great. I love apocalyptic stories. But this one really gets into people as much as it touches on the state of the blinded world.

Re: Literature?

[js_africanus]

I love apocalyptic stories.

You are a godsdamn ray of sunfuckingshine. =P

...reminds me of Cormack McCarthy's The Road...

Wasn't that supposed to be a comedy or something? The Wikipedia entry on it made it look a bit over the top for my taste.

My favorite quote on McCarthy is this: "It is a rare passage that can make you look up, wherever you may be, and wonder if you are being subjected to a diabolically thorough Candid Camera prank."

If you like grim, try On The Beach. Written in the fifties, set in the early sixties, it's about people living in southern Australia after a nuclear war, and global air currents are slowly bringing south the radioactive winds that will end life for good. There is an odd Morse-code message coming from the Pacific Northwest, and the hope that "the 'Jorgensen Effect,' a scientific theory which posited that radiation levels would gradually decrease due to weather effects and might allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least in Antarctica" [Wikipedia], will prove to be

[ayoub]

Sounds like an interesting book! :D