. 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.