With another presidential election on the horizon, Jose Saramago’s recent novels constantly creep into my psyche. His Nobel Prize for Literature winning novel “Blindness” and his follow up “Seeing” become eerie foreshadowing in U.S. politics in ways George Orwell’s “1984” could only hope.
Why Saramago is the best
His writing style is awkward and difficult to read. But it’s done on purpose. It slows the reader down, make them think. Also, because he refuses to use quotation marks or proper names, he plays with the reader’s understanding of who is talking and where the story is taking place.
Jose Saramago never gives his characters real names. In “Blindness “, “the doctor” and “the doctor’s wife” are the “names” of the two main characters. He also never tells you the country of origin. Also purposefully. His books suggest humans are not as altruistic as they seem and democracies are not as democratic as they appear. If Saramago were to provide a country name, readers would only assume Saramago was speaking about that country and that country alone.
Why Saramago matters right now
With another presidential election looming and U.S. public disheartened by the economy, ongoing wars, and ugly political battles in Washington, D.C., Saramago’s “Seeing” may come true.
The premise of “Seeing ” is simple: Election Day. Rather than one party or person winning, more than 80% of the electorate casts “blank votes”. What happens next shows the disturbingly true nature of government, even precious democracy. Saramago points out that your right to vote as you choose in a democracy only stretches as far as you are the only one willing to express that right. When citizens en masse choose to express their rights as a collective, even democratic governments will show their true colors: that government, no matter how “democratic”, are not about the citizens or about the masses’ will; governments are about power and holding that power.
A great novelist
Novels are thought experiments based on small ideas like “What if nearly everyone went blind today?” or “What if everyone cast ‘blank votes’?” Saramago perfects this art.