Enough time has passed that I can talk about Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness, without my raving fangirl side coming out. I think.

When I initially pondered blogging the book, I figured I could write 'It's brilliant, I love it' over and over until I ran out of characters. (Characters, not character -- I imagine I'd run out of character sooner than that.)

But, frankly, I loved this book. In a year of simply excellent reading, this book is top of the list. And I can't really explain why.

Sure, Saramago has enough prose-quirk to fascinate me, enough quirky rendition of dialogue and oddly inconsistent-but-never-discordant POV shifts. Sure his allegorical style is alluring. Sure, his insights into the human psyche have that deep thrum of verisimilitude that marks a true Observer of the Human Race ("a powerful sense of the folly and heroism of ordinary lives", as reviewer Andrew Miller put it). But what *is* it sets Saramago apart from meaner spirits like, say Kozinski or Kafka*?


Who would have believed it. Seen merely at a glance, the man's eyes seem healthy, the iris looks bright, luminous, the sclera white, as compact as porcelain. The eyes wide open, the wrinkled skin of the face, his eyebrows suddenly screwed up, all this, as anyone can see, signifies that he is distraught with anguish. With a rapid movement, what was in sight has disappeared behind the man's clenched fists, as if he were still trying to retain inside his mind the final image captured, a round red light at the traffic lights. I am blind, I am blind, he repeated in despair as they helped him to get out of the car, and the tears welling up made those eyes which he claimed were dead, shine even more.
-- Jose Saramago, Blindness, Chapter 1 (excerpt here).


( This is a quirk of the book, by the way: )