SOURCE: "Now You See It, Now You Don't," in London Observer, November 2, 1997, p. 17.

[In the following review, Mars-Jones finds Blindness an "extraordinary novel" of linguistic and theoretical experimentation.]

Jose Saramago's extraordinary novel [Blindness] tells the story of what happens when people start to go down with 'the white evil', a strain of contagious blindness with the peculiar symptom that its victims are plunged not into darkness but an unseeing light. The first casualty refers to 'milky sea' destructively bathing his vision.

Initially, the victims of the white evil cope with their situation individually, but when it becomes clear that the condition is infectious, they are interned in what was once an asylum. Anyone who has been in contact with them is held in an adjoining wing. The authorities undertake to supply food (and cleaning equipment—little use without sight) but otherwise leave the newly blind to run their...