Seeing

"Seeing", by Jose Saramago is in the genre of great books like Orwell's "1984" that deal with the efforts of States of all political persuasions to control and manipulate the lives of their citizens.Such States don't have to be totalitarian regimes. Liberal democracies also go to great lengths to "condition" their citizens in the face of perceived threats. They also engage in questionable human rights and legal practices in dealing with those threats. The current war on terrorism fits this mould exactly, but it is nothing new to those of us who lived through the Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s.Books like "Seeing" serve as a salutary reminder that governments are not always on our side, and it behoves us to be very vigilant to avoid erosion of our rights in the struggle against terrorism, communism or whatever "-ism" is the current fixation.There is also an uplifting theme in this book, and that is the bravery of insiders who dare to tell the truth to the public, regardless of the cost to themselves. That gives us hope that, in the end, justice will emerge from the murky morass of expediency.In "Seeing" 80% of the voters in the capital city of some imaginary country turn in blank votes at the national elections. This shocks the government, so they re-run the election. But the proportion of blank votes goes up to 83%. The politicians in charge now fear that some kind of vast anti-government conspiracy is afoot.In order to punish the citizens of the capital and unmask the conspirators, all government services move out of the city and it is placed under a state of siege. The interior minister also arranges for a bomb to go off in a train station and to be blamed on the still unknown conspirators.None of this works, so the political leadership looks for a scapegoat to take the blame.Police spies are sent into the besieged city to find evidence that the blank voting was a big conspiracy against the government, but they don't hear anyone talking about blank votes. When they report this to their boss he says "That's a good sign. The proof that there is a conspiracy lies precisely in the fact that no one talks about it."Ideologues and fundamentalists of the left and right should read this book and re-think the basis of their own zealotry. Of course they never will, because such folk never seek to question their unshakeable beliefs. If they read books at all, they prefer books that confirm their fears and hatreds.Readers who are concerned about truth and morality in politics and the cynical erosion of our liberties by those in power should read this book. Perhaps it will give us courage to speak out about practices that in our hearts we know to be wrong and destructive of our liberties.The book is written with little conventional punctuation. Dialogue does not have quotation marks and frequently one speaker's words run into another's with only a comma to separate them. This style serves to depersonalise the narrative and is quite effective, but it does make reading a little difficult.

Seeing is the follow-up to Saramago's critically acclaimed novel, Blindness. While Blindness was metaphorical and surreal, it was also literal - the characters in the novel literally went blind. Seeing feels much more, almost completely, metaphorical though the events that comprise the story are very real. In Seeing, the government begins plotting against it's own citizens when the results of a national election reveal that a majority of the population has cast blank ballots. Neither the controlling right party, the opposing left party, nor the central party, gain a majority. The government is both enraged at this act of subversion, and scared. An emergency election the following week produces similar results and the government's efforts to root out the traitors and subversive elements produce no leads. Though no evidence of organized subversion is found, and though no unrest can be seen in the streets, the government decides to act quickly and authoritatively to root out what it sees as a dangerous cancer growing in the population. Through ill-advised measure after ill-advised measure, the government escalates its war against the unseen traitors, going so far as to abandon and quarantine the city. Weeks into the crisis, an anonymous letter is received by the government which links a key actor from the Blindness crisis, to the current one. A team of undercover officers is dispatched to find, interrogate, and neutralize the suspect. The government turns increasingly desperate, increasingly willing to break the law, manipulating events and the press in order to, if nothing else, turn those citizens loyal to the government against those who are behind the conspiracy. Ultimately the government's cynicism towards its citizens is overshadowed by it's miscalculations about them.Overall, an interesting read but truthfully not the best example of what Saramago offers. That's the view from a fan.

Anything I say will not do justice to this book. A friend recommended it and I started reading it without knowing anything about it and I'm so glad that I did.

A city wide electoral revolt prompts the state to look for someone to blame. Read it as a parable. It's brilliant

This is a social novel by portugais author! If I want to be honest, I should say this book is one of the best social novel I have ever read. Description of scence, topic and the way of growing the topic is amazing... I strongly recommend to everyone to read this book

A book every person who wants to be mature to vote in a "democratic elections" should read this book.I can absolutely recommend it.It arrived on time and in the described quality

盲人の王国では〜？誰が王なんでしたっけ〜？（そういうことわざ）みたいなのを想像したんですが違う！小説なんて先を予想するだけ無駄無駄の無駄。何も考えず身を任せろ。冒頭も激熱ですが、どうオチるのか気にしながらの後半がまた激熱です。