September 5, 2003
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A city is hit by an epidemic of “white blindness” which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man’s worst appetites and weaknesses-and man’s ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man’s will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.
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This is a novel I just started reading. I like to pick books from 100 Best lists. Sometimes I find ones I’ve never heard of. This one reminds me of what it’s like to work in a hospital where every day I see people who are terribly ill with some illness or other – children with no hair from chemo, weeping adults who have just been diagnosed with cancer, disfigurements galore. It doesn’t make all my little hurts go away, but it sure puts them in perspective.
Deep Thought: I think there should be something in science called the “reindeer effect.” I don’t know what it would be, but I think it’d be good to hear someone say, “Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.”
Comments (5)
Hello lionne! I’ve only recently discovered your writings, and I’m enjoying them very much. This book you’ve been reading sounds like a good one. I’m putting it on my list of good things to do. I worked in a hospital years ago, as a Cancer Registrar (keeping track of the patients’ statistics) – what a horror. I ended up caring too much and the hospital’s resident psychologist recommended I do something else. Now I own a bead store.
I feel at least in this small way I can bring light and love into peoples’ lives now, in spite of the pain in their lives.
Peace. ~Paloma
Hi Palomita,
You made such a good decision to go from cancer to beads. God bless those who can work every day with such suffering, but they all experience burnout at some point or other. Cancer nurses have learned over the years that they need to do various things to relieve stress and that they need to rotate to other duties from time to time. Me, I just do web pages for my ear, nose and throat department and other typing and computer related tasks. But what I pass in the hallways and see in my clinic lobby gives me pause each day. Also, it was typing patient chart notes about the head and neck cancer patients who were smokers that helped me stop smoking some 16 years ago. Andrea
That looks like a very interesting book!! {adding it to my list}
your Jack Handy deep thoughts crack me up every time.
There is just nothing like a good book. I’m reading one of Michael Crichton’s earlier ones now. I’ve never been much of a novel reader, but I may just become one after this. And on a final note, I have to agree with Alice, your deep thoughts are wonderful! Infinite Blessings