Blindness

By: José Saramago

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there social conventions quickly crumble and the struggle for survival brings out the worst in people.

There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers -among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears - out of their prison and through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing.

A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the 20th century, by Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago, Blindness has swept the masses with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses - and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit.

English translation by Juan Sager.

©1997 Juan Sager (English translation); 1995 Jose Saramago and Editorial Caminho (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America

Weirdest book to listen to

It's a book about people going blind. And the descriptions are wonderful, but you can only see it in your mind's eye. It's a weird book to listen to.

Beautiful writing style

An apocalyptic book written in the poetic style of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. I needed just one more word for the minimum amount of words necessary to submit a review so I wrote this sentence.

Highly recommend

One of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while. Philosophical and well written. Great narrator. Love his voice. Gave me a lot to think about.

Excellent story, well suited for our 2020 pandemic

Really fantastic story. Visceral and challenging at times, but overall, extremely strong and touching. Highly recommend for people who enjoyed the first few books of The Walking Dead but quickly got tired of the meandering and inability for the writer to wrap anything up or attaching any kind of meaning to it. Again, a wonderful performance by the narrator, one of my favorites, giving life and individuality to the characters who had no names to call them by. The writing is beautifully translated from Portuguese, even, at times, giving the English translation that gorgeous, Latin poetry which is often lost in English writing; the magical realism which all writers of this caliber seem to wish to emulate (to different levels of success).

very good!

This book was good! It always held my attention and I was always wondering what would happen next

Great Story

Loved the concept and actually can make you feel as the characters. definitely worth the listen

Illuminating Read

Truly a spectacular, horrific story that does not only examine the human being but also our existence of a race. If anything read this book to prepare yourself self, not for a widespread blindness, but for the purpose of becoming aware of how easily everything can change and deteriorate in a blink of an eye.

Very well read, audio is nice and clear.

Any additional comments?

Great audiobook. The story is for you to judge, but the audio was great. The quality was good, the audio was very clear. And the reader was able to change his voice in order to adapt to the characters. One of the best audiobooks I've heard!

the 1st book I've lived in!!

This is a book that wrapped me up and tossed me around as the story went along. It is somewhat of an Apocalypse story that freaks you to the bone because it is something that you can see happening and it explores the dark reality of the situation!

A parable, and a winding symbolic one at that.

the performance was great and it made an often sporadic style clear, however, this is certainly best read. I enjoyed it most when I was reading along wit a copy of the book. I will think about this story for along time and surely it's value to literature at large can't be understated.