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More copies of this ISBN:Seeingby Jose Saramago
Staff Pick
Yet another brilliant work from Portuguese novelist José Saramago, Seeing is the allegorical tale of an election gone awry. Blank ballots and bureaucratic bungling form the basis of a novel which, despite being a fantastic work of fiction, seems eerily prescient given the global political climate of 2006. As always, Saramago's ardent command of language adds volumes to what is already a magnificent story. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to come out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. What's going on? Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o'clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear. But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. The president proposes that a wall be built around the city to contain the revolution. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that had hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? Is she the organizer of a conspiracy against the state? A police superintendent is put on the case. What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness. Review:"In Nobel Prize-winner Saramogo's best known novel, Blindness, an unnamed capital city experiences a devastating (although transient) epidemic of blindness that mysteriously spares one woman, an eye doctor's wife, who helps a blinded group survive until their sight returns. His new novel, set in the same capital city four years later, depicts a legal 'revolution,' when 83% of its citizens cast blank ballots in a national election. The president declares a state of siege, but even though soldiers cordon off the city, nothing affects the city's maddening cheerfulness. The president receives an anonymous letter revealing the case of the eye doctor's wife (she and the group she helped had kept her support secret), and the minister in charge of internal security sends undercover policemen to investigate her connection to the 'blank' revolution. The allegorical blindness/sight framework is weak and obvious, and Saramago's capital city sometimes reminds one of Dr. Seuss's Whoville. Yet it works: as the novel establishes its figures (the pompous president, tremulous ministers and pantomime detectives), it acquires the momentum of a bedroom (here, cabinet) farce, baldly sending up EU politicos and major media editorialists." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"When is a revolution not a revolution? It's a rainy election morning in the city that, only four years earlier, had been afflicted by an epidemic of blindness, and no one has shown up at the polls. Although election officials worry that a boycott is underway, by late afternoon the voters begin to trickle in. Once the ballots are counted, however, more than 70 percent of them are blank. A week later,... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Review:"The spirit of George Orwell rises from these blistering pages — compulsively readable despite Saramago's fondness for sparse punctuation and lengthy run-on paragraphs....Very nearly equal to the magnificent Blindness: another invaluable gift from a matchless writer." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Saramago's clear eye for acknowledging things as they are barrages us with valuable insights suggesting that the dynamics of human governance are not as rational as we like to think. Highly recommended for fans of intellectual fiction." Library Journal Review:"Saramago has a taste for alternative realities, for the use of fiction as a form of speculation." Slate Synopsis:From the Nobel Prize-winning author of "Blindness" comes this follow-up, set in the same capital city four years after being hit by an epidemic of blindness. What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister.
About the AuthorJose Saramago is one of the most acclaimed writers in the world today. The author of numerous novels, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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