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Seeing
by Jose Saramago
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Powells.com Staff Pick
Seeing, José Saramago's latest novel and companion volume to Blindness, further demonstrates his ability to create a compelling story from an apparently simple and symbolic premise. Eerie and Kafka-esque, Seeing displays Saramago's writing at the height of his powers, and is a pertinent fable for these suspicious times.
Recommended by Tessa, Powells.com 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.
Recommended by Jeremy, Powells.com (See all of our Staff Top 5s of 2006)
Synopses & Reviews 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) the election is repeated, with even more alarming results: Now 83 percent of the ballots are blank. Smelling an insurrection, the prime minister and his cabinet go into emergency session. What follows in this, Jose Saramago's 12th novel, is an often hilarious and sometimes gripping exploration of the inept (but brutal) workings of power, as well as of the almost accidental capacity for heroism of simple men and women. A sequel to his earlier novel 'Blindness,' 'Seeing' is less explicitly allegorical than its predecessor. In the first novel, as the city's sightless residents descend into thuggery and rape, the blindness of unreason reveals the savagery beneath the crust of civilization. In this novel, blindness is replaced by blankness, a paradoxical form of civil disobedience that does not disturb the peace or break any laws. The people have simply expressed their will not to choose. From the government's perspective, however, the number of blank ballots amounts to an assault on the foundations of democratic rule — 'a depth charge launched against the system,' as the minister of defense puts it. Since neither surveillance nor interrogations get to the bottom of the rebellion, the prime minister declares a state of siege in the city. Soon after, white flags begin to appear everywhere. Normally they would signal capitulation, but in the trompe-l'oeil world of 'Seeing,' the banners betoken yet another act of defiance (in Portuguese, 'blank' and 'white' are the same word). An even more draconian measure follows: To punish the protesters, the government withdraws from the city, anticipating that chaos will erupt. But no: People go about their business as usual — and this (paradoxically again) reinforces the government's belief that something is terribly wrong. As one official puts it: 'A city like this, with no one in charge, with no government, no security, no police, and no one seems to care, there's something very mysterious going on here.' Readers of Saramago will find much here that is familiar: the notion that truth is nothing more than the lies of the powerful; the small, piercing insights into human nature (in one delicious moment, an underling thrills at being allowed to use his boss' toilet); the hard-won wisdom that says life is what it is, but we don't have to like it. As in his other recent novels, Saramago tells the story in massive, sparsely punctuated paragraphs that blend description with dialogue and do not mark off one speaker from the next — a mode of narration that, as he has pointed out, is meant to be heard rather than read but that sometimes can be disconcerting. The first two-thirds of 'Seeing,' with its endless councils of craven ministers and aloof bureaucrats, cannot but remind one of Kafka, to whom Saramago has often been compared. (The difference is that Saramago is a lighthearted Kafka, one more likely to make us laugh than grimace.) Yet once we leave the halls of power to follow an anonymous policeman back into the city, Kafka gives way to Capra as the narrative shows us how, in extraordinary times, ordinary people can find within themselves untapped reservoirs of courage. Asked why he refuses to go along with the plan to turn an ophthalmologist's wife into the scapegoat for the blank ballots, the policeman replies with words he read in a book somewhere: 'When we are born, when we enter this world, it is as if we signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf.' Although Saramago's dense, garrulous prose — masterfully rendered in Margaret Jull Costa's translation — may not be to everyone's taste, the clarity and compassion of his vision make 'Seeing' worthy of its name and its author. Gustavo Perez Firmat is David Feinson Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and the author of 'Scar Tissue,' a memoir in prose and verse." Reviewed by Gustavo Perez Firmat, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this 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 ReviewsReview: "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 Author Jose 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.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780151012381
- Translator:
- Costa, Margaret Jull
- Publisher:
- Harcourt
- Translator:
- Costa, Margaret Jull
- Author:
- Saramago, Jose
- Subject:
- Literary
- Subject:
- General Fiction
- Publication Date:
- April 2006
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 307
- Dimensions:
- 918x670x103 123
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