. Spinning .

This may well be the oddest metaphor in a story, but with all the emphasis Saramago has put on human excrement in this book, it bears following it down.

While it is understandable that even in the beginning of our group's incarceration in the mental institution that the toilets would easily become clogged, it didn't hit me as a metaphor until these folk were pooping in the halls and the floors became slick (believe me, my simple statement here is less ghastly than Saramago's details so I won't quote from the book). It was a bit hard to believe that these folks couldn't have found a better way to handle this but they didn't, so that's that.

Even once they are out on the streets the ground is mushy with feces. Blind, okay, but even a pig won't shit where he eats, really, I've raised them. Yet these people, needing badly to go, decide to go right in the garden where an old lady grows some cabbages to eat. That's odd.

Saramago is obviously making a point, and disregarding exactly what the narrator may give as explanation, I do want to remark on a few things. First, and this is what made me think of the Fourth Wall post below, Saramago uses this as a grounding force, this one thing that will happen regardless of what is happening in the world. He also allows the reader to see this, thus not hiding the reality from his audience as is almost always done in drama, movies, plays, tv's, books where it may not be necessary to clarify but there comes a point when the reader/viewer questions the circumstances and wonders how Superman takes a leak with that getup he's wearing.

More though, is the reason to explore why Saramago makes a minor character out of Excrement. For one thing, I find it ironic that the one driving force behind all the actions of the characters is based on their need for food. No emphasis is placed on water, though sex becomes a pawn, and no thought is put into escape. But food is the thing being sought, and the natural and necessary output of food is feces. Does that indicate somehow that maybe food should not exactly be the top priority in these situations? Maybe even death from starvation could be preferable to the loss of soul, i.e., human caring that has come about in this seeking.

The importance of the focus on excrement can also suggest the degradation and depths to which man will succumb eventually if continuing to seek life over spiritual needs. Or it may be simpler: that food follows a known course, in and out, much like man himself.

See, there's more to this shit than it appears…

The doctor's wife has found food in a supermarket cellar and has gone through a time of blindness herself in the darkness of the place until she found matches. Once more we see her face a moral dilemma of keeping her knowledge to herself or sharing with the starving people who have been unable to locate that door to survival. Once she is out safely with a supply to bring back to her little group, she stops and finding herself lost, sinks to the ground in exhaustion and near-despair when a dog comes up to her and licks her tears, gently consoling her.

I would consider the dog as a metaphor or symbol perhaps for hope as the woman reaches her limits. Or maybe as a sign of the courage that comes at that last hour just when all looks lost. Somehow, however, I find it a metaphor for the past. "This too shall pass," is one of my own personal favorites, and I'd like to think that looking back on what we've come to know (as the dog remembers his puppy behavior) makes us strong and experienced enough to face the present.

As a side note, the Simon & Garfunkle tune of the lyrics above keeps playing in my head as I read this. When I gave it the attention it seemed to require, I realized that what we don't see in the story is the rest of the world as it played out in this disaster. And I think with horror of a zoo where the animals are no longer being fed.

I've never particularly cared for this form of critique since I hope that no two stories or writing styles are so alike that dissection via this method would be satisfying. In reality, however, I find myself quite often going back to previous books and authors when some passage or story line reminds me of something else I've read.

At this point of the story, as the victims are freely walking the road and stop into stores in town, we come across the inevitable discovery of how the outside world has fared–everybody's blind–and the wandering of blind people from house to house in search of food. This, of course, is very similar to the path unfolded in Cormac McCarthy's The Road where a man and his son have taken the initiative to walk towards the coast and encounter several groups and individuals along the way.

While I am tempted to dig out McCarthy and find some passages containing similar situations–which I know I can find–I realize something else. Something alluded to in posts of Steve Ersinghaus, Dennis Jerz, and the original of Bruce Fleming regarding the question of the value of literary studies for purposes other than students intent on becoming English professors intent on teaching literary studies, makes me smile with the relief that I don't have to.

With that freedom of knowing that I don't have to pass a test, teach someone else, claim any expertise as a literary critic, I can stop here, enjoy the recall and satisfaction of not only the connection but the brief exposure to classes that taught me to enjoy finding those connections. As a hopeful writer of story I of course use the abilities of deeper reading to study and learn. As a reader I am grateful for the concept of literary critique to discover and enjoy one more layer of reading.

After (I don't know) days of living confined to the institution, a purposely-set fire kills some inmates but the others must somehow escape or burn to death and it is at this point where the doctor's wife tells the others that she can see as she attempts to lead them out to safety. The soldiers are gone, the gate is open, they are finally free. Saramago's prose hasn't exactly set me afire, but there are some nice words here:

We've all had that feeling of being in a strange place, the image comes to mind of getting off a plane in a country you've never been to before. Or hiking up a hill and arriving at the crest to find miles of open horizon to view. The boundaries of a confined but known arena often offer more freedom than the open expanse of the unknown.

Boundaries then, are made in the mind as well and are as restrictive as a wooden fence or barbed wire strung out along a defined space. The individual will each have his own response based on likes and dislikes, comfort zones, spirit of adventure, city versus country preferences, etc. In Saramago's world of blindness however, I doubt any reader could fail to understand the fear of the openness outside the gates.

As with all apocalyptic or disaster stories the characters face obstacles that force them to face themselves first. The name of the game is always survival. The ethics involve personal versus community, wrong versus right considering circumstances (something that ethics claims should not be in play), sick versus healthy, children first, strong versus weak, and basically, just how far a character will go to survive (the literary "getting what one wants desperately").

In this novel, there are a series of conflicts and resolutions. With the drama focusing on blindness, we would consider that to be the cause, the reactive behavior following to be the effect. We no longer care–nor do the victims–what caused the blindness. In place of a fight or flight instinct (that may be a parallel story happening outside the walls of the mental institution storyworld) there is a fight or accept situation being asked daily. Food, leadership, sex; these are the main needs of the people and how they must act upon these needs is the question.

When a single group seeks control over the masses, the blindness, likely because they have not gotten used to it quite yet, is what stands as an obstacle between the moral and the immoral behaviors of both the bad guys and the good guys. The good guys are willing to sacrifice their valuables and then their women (this from almost all the guys and all the women) in order to eat since the bad guys have all the food and a gun. Life is still too precious to risk despite the filth and degradation the victims of first blindness, then incarcerations, now the bullying tactics of a clearly immoral group (NOTE: I question how'd these 20 blind men find each other and end up all in the same ward? Is it another case of mob mentality, or what is best for the group?).

When one crosses the line of accepted behavior, societal or personal, is it justified as a one-time deal? Is the future (survival) even considered or is the present the important impetus? What of the past, the deeds done that one would never have considered without the pressure of the situation–does one return to one's moral stance or has the line hardened to prevent return…

One cannot read this story without questioning one's own judgments in trying to imagine what one would do in similar circumstances–an easy armchair choice when it's not real.

Cormac McCarthy does that; just when you round a bend you see a tree that looks a little odd…

What Saramago does however is to get the reader riled up on his own and then calm him down. I have found that some of the things that have me making faces in disbelief–like after the previous posting's scenario and when the doctor's wife is so damned understanding she helps her husband back to his own bed–are dealt with in a finer depth a page or two later.

In this instance, as the doctor's wife gently consoles the girl with dark glasses and shares her secret of her vision, there is an empathy between the women and yet I wonder if on some dark level in the doctor's wife she isn't saying "Ha! I watched the whole thing, bitch!"

I think Saramago likes to play with human nature and push people to a point where not only his characters but the readers go through some mental adjustments.

With a small group of men–all from one ward–taking over the distribution of food and demanding payment of all valuables (and, they have a gun), there naturally comes about a societal structure different from the outside world as well as different from what little had been established within the wards.

But the valuables have run out. So the thugs are asking for women.

Saramago gives us no intimate reaction to this, just reports the discussion as the battle of the sexes comes into play and how much male ego can stand, feminine proprieties are offended, and the overwhelming dedication to survival and the cause.  All understandable, and Saramago sort of loses me on the thin line of sociology as it is a rather cold display of what I would assume to be a more dramactic situation, but this sort of got to me more, the doctor's wife once more awake while others in the ward are (supposedly) asleep:

There has been some kind of arrangement made that certain wards will serve their women up first. There has also been some kind of agreement that the men in the wards that send out the women will be taken care of first rather than all the women going off to serve the one horny ward. And, of course, there have been some folks that have coupled out of need for comfort.

But the doctor? I don't know exactly how long these people have been sequestered together, whether a matter of days, weeks, or months, but why is the doctor racing over to "the girl with dark glasses" when he has a truly terrific and loving wife by his side? He knows she can see. He must have known she wasn't beside him in bed when he got up. What the hell's wrong with him? Yes, he knows that his wife will eventually be going off to service one of the thugs, but he claimed that even though his ego was damaged, he understood the necessity.

I don't know. When even the good go bad, and frankly, I don't see why they've let it get to this point, I wonder if Saramago's message on human nature is more negative than reality.

Maybe it's just because I'm in a pissy mood, but I'm not buying this story.

For one thing, Saramago is rather particular about numbers and distances and yet I can't quite grasp how two wings of three wards each, each holding maybe twenty people or so comes out to three hundred people.

Or, the fact that when the last large load of a couple hundred people were moved in, the not-yet blind were of course prevailed upon to give up space and yet we don't really have any but the doctor's wife and possibly a gunman who still can see.

Or the mixup in food distribution, the lack of any medical supplies given to the people, the too-soon attitude of the outside world to have given up on the afflicted, the seeming lack of affiliation as new people are brought in—knowing full well that it appears to spread by some form of contagion, the willingness to give all valuables to one man with a gun when by sound alone they could have overcome him, the lack of the doctor's attempt to find out why his wife can still see, the layout of the courtyard where it seemed to be enclosed by the wings and yet the doctor's wife is out there one night and sees the soldiers at the gate (this I could well be misreading), and a few other things that generally do not quite add up to a picture that is well-painted by the author.

There is also no real interaction between the characters, and this, with Saramago's choice to not quote dialogue takes one out of the story, much like watching a play. There may be a good reason for all this in the scheme of things, as Saramago would be hard pressed to quote dialogue when the characters remain nameless but are referred to instead by "the first blind man," "the doctor's wife," "the man with the black eye patch," etc.

There is, of course, as with all stories about epidemics or devastation of some sort, the ethical and moral questions that come up when man's nature is questioned in a survival situation. From the very beginning of the book when the thief kindly drove the blind man home and then stole his car we saw the inherent evil that comes with opportunity. Saramago takes this further; he gives us pause to consider the spiritual and the concept of punishment:

The soldiers have delivered food and left it in the hallway, halfway between the two wards holding the afflicted and the possibly contaminated and the above scenario is one where the seeing folk are considering taking the food after some of the blind (who according to the rules were to be fed first) have been shot when the soldiers felt threatened.

But these people are hungry and in their minds, survival fights ethics. What I wonder about, however, is that the contaminated are seemingly unconcerned that their particular loved one (the reason they themselves were confined in quarantine) may be in the pile of bodies and blood.

Another stumbling block here for me; this story is told in third person omniscient which enables (and answers my question of the previous post) him to tell the story from his own frame of reference and abilities. However, he is aware (obviously, since he's the one who tipped us off) that the doctor's wife still has her vision. But here, in a reflective mood, he states:

With the intimate "Take the doctor's wife, for example," as if the narrator is speaking directly to the reader ("you, take the etc."), he is inviting us to trust him. Yet we know that he is fully aware of the doctor's wife's ability to see.

There is another change in this passage; that of tense. From past, the narrator states:

True, the passage may be conversationally acceptable, but I do wonder if this has some deeper suggestion of meaning; whether it was planned for a purpose by Saramago. It could be, of course, merely something lost in the translation as well.

Just posted an entry on Hypercompendia when the thought occurred to me that the storyworld of the mental institution and a bunch of blind people trying to find their way around within it was perfect for the Interactive Fiction mapping story mode.

While the Interactive part is not quite what the medium requires with reader input, the structuring of the narrative and the movement of its characters within their blind environment was exactly what IF demands. A quest: find bathroom, requires turns down hallways and memorizing the paths and what is experienced along the way.

There is something else that dawned on me in writing the post; how necessary is the vision of the doctor's wife to the story? If she could not see, would the narrator's hands be bound as well to blindness of the setting and other characters? How would that have played out?

UPDATE: Okay, a page or two further explains that the guards possibly missed the transfer of five folk from one ward to the other, but it doesn't explain why the five meals for the original six. Unless…knowing there is one man who is critically ill makes it all right to not provide him food. But this is speculation–good for the reader to do.

I'm notorious for overlooking details despite my close reading of a story, but one thing caught my eye.

There were originally six people confined in the afflicted ward, then in the morning, five more people that had been in the "possibly contaminated" ward and were thrown out to join the afflicted. That makes eleven total. Yet the accommodations of food left are for five people. Not six, as for the original group, nor had that group already eaten.

Things like this bug me.

Saramago's narrative voice sounds almost unnaturally formal and prissy following Junot Diaz's Oscar Wao, but this particular eloquence in describing a very ladylike prostitute's meeting in a hotel with her client is, well, a hoot.

Saramago has already led us to a couple more cases of blindness, and here, with the young woman, he has so very easily turned orgasm into the affliction without the character's awareness. Neat.

Saramago starts off the story in a familiar place, in traffic stopped at a red light. We begin to feel the restlessness of the drivers, the pedestrians, the anxiety that comes naturally with watching movement that at intervals, comes to a halt, bidden by a change of colored lights.

He then eases us into a conflict, that of one driver not moving at the change to green light. He gives us a list of possible reasons as he brings us closer to the car, the driver waving frantically. And then the moment:

Ah, so by page 2 we already understand the title of the novel. The anxiety we felt at the sudden inexplicable stop in flow of traffic that mimics the halt in what we've come to expect in reality, is released by being given the information.

But the story is just beginning, and we understand that, despite this one buildup of tension that is resolved; we know why, we know the answer. We move on to the next situation as it dawns on us.; the man cannot see to drive himself home and must depend upon a passerby to assist him. In the background looms the real tension: why did he suddenly go blind–and not just normal blind–but a whiteness instead of the blank slate of black we've understood blindness to be.

Okay, Saramago then leads us through the man's accustoming himself to his home environment while he waits for his wife to come home. There is a knocked-over vase of flowers that splinters and cuts him even as the hardwood floor is being damaged from the water. They call and make an emergency appointment with an opthamologist and discover that the Good Samaritan has in fact stolen the man's car. Plenty of action, plenty of tension and conflict, and plenty of emotional reaction as the man wonders what has happened and his relationship with his wife (loving) is seen through their movements.

Somehow we know that this story will not be a simple one for that one detail bothers us more than the horror of McCarthy's dark judge: why is his blindness white?

Saramago has also chosen to not only disregard quoted dialogue, but runs on his sentences into each other in a unique manner:

While it is relatively easy to follow the dialogue and understand who is speaking, I wonder at the purpose other than to quicken the pace of the reading to follow a more realistic conversational pattern. Though Saramago handles it well, I dread thinking about what the copycat, less experienced writers will do with this style