Blindness (Harvest Book)

Amazon.com

In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he "were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea." A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor's office. Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum--guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape. So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege, written with a dearth of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. At first this may seem challenging, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.

In this community of blind people there is still one set of functioning eyes: the doctor's wife has affected blindness in order to accompany her husband to the asylum. As the number of victims grows and the asylum becomes overcrowded, systems begin to break down: toilets back up, food deliveries become sporadic; there is no medical treatment for the sick and no proper way to bury the dead. Inevitably, social conventions begin to crumble as well, with one group of blind inmates taking control of the dwindling food supply and using it to exploit the others. Through it all, the doctor's wife does her best to protect her little band of blind charges, eventually leading them out of the hospital and back into the horribly changed landscape of the city.

Blindness is in many ways a horrific novel, detailing as it does the total breakdown in society that follows upon this most unnatural disaster. Saramago takes his characters to the very edge of humanity and then pushes them over the precipice. His people learn to live in inexpressible filth, they commit acts of both unspeakable violence and amazing generosity that would have been unimaginable to them before the tragedy. The very structure of society itself alters to suit the circumstances as once-civilized, urban dwellers become ragged nomads traveling by touch from building to building in search of food. The devil is in the details, and Saramago has imagined for us in all its devastation a hell where those who went blind in the streets can never find their homes again, where people are reduced to eating chickens raw and packs of dogs roam the excrement-covered sidewalks scavenging from corpses.

And yet in the midst of all this horror Saramago has written passages of unsurpassed beauty. Upon being told she is beautiful by three of her charges, women who have never seen her, "the doctor's wife is reduced to tears because of a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, mere grammatical categories, mere labels, just like the two women, the others, indefinite pronouns, they too are crying, they embrace the woman of the whole sentence, three graces beneath the falling rain." In this one woman Saramago has created an enduring, fully developed character who serves both as the eyes and ears of the reader and as the conscience of the race. And in Blindness he has written a profound, ultimately transcendent meditation on what it means to be human. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

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.

Customer Reviews:

truth or fiction?.......2007-10-06

I read this book a few years ago and found it to be a great work of fiction. I was completely engrossed from page one. Then Katrina hit New Orleans and the book took on a whole new meaning.The similarities were astounding. Highly recommended.

To my dismay..........2007-09-16

I didn't get the impression at all that T. Burke (an earlier reviewer) would like Dan Brown's pedestrian writing simply because he disliked Saramago's BLINDNESS. I am a writer who leads writing workshops for university students and I dissuade student writers from trying to write like Saramago who, to my dismay, has even been compared to the brilliant Kafka! For I, too, find Saramago bewilderingly lugubrious, obvious, unsubtle and boring to read. For great stylists I would suggest to students (and to everyone!) that Kafka, Conrad, Austen, J. M. Coetzee, Hemingway, and Evelyn Waugh are much better stylists. And more complex thinkers as well. So is the great Colette. So is extraordinary Sylvia Plath. So is the German woman who wrote the brilliant A WOMAN IN BERLIN under the pen name Anonymous...

Wow, what a powerful book.......2007-09-13

I felt like I lived through the horrific events with these people which reminds me of Swan Song, where you see human reactions to a changing world. I love reading heavy dramas about human behavior and how people think, but this one REALLY brought out feelings and thoughts that I probably thought, but could never articulate.

I had to reread some passages over, as I couldn't believe how he could put these feelings we all have into words. It was hard to get into long paragraphs with no quotation marks and sometimes I dreaded picking up the book, as I knew it was so heavy and slow reading, but I finished it a week ago and am still thinking about the characters and situations. The ending was surprising too! Please read this if you like heavy dramas.

incredible.......2007-09-05

one of my favorite books of all time.

amazing read. brilliantly written.

annoying writing style.......2007-09-01

When I finish a book, I come to [...] to see what else I should be reading, I found the review for Blindness about a month ago and was very excited to read it, so I bought it, I also bought The Road by Cormack McCarthy, which was a bit similar both in subject matter and writing style, by the way, do you like this writing style, I hope so because Blindness uses it, there are barely any periods, no quotation marks yet lots of conversations, guess who's talking, I can't!

Anyway, the writing style drove me absolutely crazy. Blindness and The Road apparently don't believe in using quotation marks or periods. Makes it real fun to read conversations by the books characters. Ugh!

As for the Blindness story, I read a lot of reviews where people were turned off by the animalistic lengths to which humans would go had their sight suddenly been taken away. Actually, I had no problems with that. I would submit that if the population's sight was yanked from them, we'd revert to animals. Look what happens when the law, government, health care, and shelter are taken away (Katrina, LA Riots), anarchy abounds. I completely think this would happen. Rape, murder, hording of food, greed, looting would take over. Those that think differently are living in a fantasy world. Especially in the US. Holy smokes, it'd be chaos with guns everywhere. So this part worked for me.

What didn't really work for me was definitely the writing style (already mentioned) but the last third of the book. Without giving anything away, the story just kind of goes flat after the Asylum. The ending also seemed to not be explained well enough. Why did it turn out like it did? Probably for the sequel.

Also, Saramago seemed to get REALLY REALLY bogged down with citing proverbs and philosophies from other sources. It's great to know that stuff, but to go on endlessly about them, trying to relate them to the character's thoughts became an exercise in stamina for the reader. It's great to be descriptive, but keep it relevant for goodness sake.

Also, why this is a Pulitzer Prize winner is also beyond me. It's a good book in an almost Night of the Living Dead type of fashion, but a Pulitzer??? Come on! Maybe we should raise the standards a bit.

Sorry, but I just didn't find this book to be that relevant.
Also, I checked out the sequel to this book. Written with the same, crummy sentence structure. I WON'T be picking that one up.

The Truth Will Set You Free: Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self

Average customer rating:

Be careful what you ask for
Great focus on underlying causes, but not as practical as I hoped.
This book will break down your internal walls of silence
A great book, a great author!
alice miller should be required reading for parents

The Truth Will Set You Free: Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self
Alice Miller
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Developmental Psychology | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting
The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting
Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries
For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

ASIN: 0465045855
Release Date: 2002-12-17

Book Description

Returning to the themes of her classic Drama of the Gifted Child, the famed psychoanalyst examines the consequences of cruelty to children and offers ways we can heal our early psychic wounds.

More than twenty years ago, a little-known Swiss psychoanalyst wrote a book that changed the way many people viewed themselves and their world. In simple but powerful prose, the deeply moving Drama of the Gifted Child showed how parents unconsciously form and deform the emotional lives of their children. Alice Miller's stories about the roots of suffering in childhood resonated with readers, and her book soon became a backlist best seller.

In The Truth Will Set You Free Miller returns to the intensely personal tone and themes of her best-loved work. Only by embracing the truth of our past histories can any of us hope to be free of pain in the present, she argues. Miller uses vivid true stories to reveal the perils of early-childhood mistreatment and the dangers of mindless obedience to parental will. Drawing on the latest research on brain development, she shows how spanking and humiliation produce dangerous levels of denial, which leads in turn to emotional blindness and to mental barriers that cut off awareness and the ability to learn new ways of acting. If this cycle repeats itself, the grown child will perpetrate the same abuse on later generations--a message vitally important, especially given the increasing popularity of programs like Tough Love and of "child disciplinarians" like James Dobson. The Truth Will Set You Free will provoke and inform all readers who want to know Alice Miller's latest thinking on this important subject.

Customer Reviews:

Be careful what you ask for.......2007-08-07

Miller's main premise is that God set up mankind for the fall. The truth is that God allowed the tree of knowledge of good and evil to co-exist next to the Tree of Life. Man was given a choice. Choose your own way or choose life. Man has been paying for its choice ever since....

The same goes for discipline. Miller wants to give reason to just let children do what they want to. Go ahead and do that if you want, but I am writing to warn that this thinking is destructive to the soul. Of course we have choices, but there are good choices and bad choices. As parents, it is up to us to help our children make good choices. When there are bad choices, discipline is in order. Use your best judgement what type of discipline in necessary in that situation.

Children will grow into adults and make their own decisions without our intereference eventually anyway. Hopefully by good parenting, they will learn that there are consequences to their actions. You will not be responsible to administer correction any longer, but their future spouses will, the legal system, their employers, their friends, people on the road driving next to them. Hopefully they will make good choices.

Peace. Read something like Dobson, it will help you.

Great focus on underlying causes, but not as practical as I hoped........2007-07-22

Alice Miller goes into a facinating and undoubtably true acount on how we are often are own worst enemy. We often poison ourselves with comfortable lies that end up causing more damage than we realize both spiritually and physically.
The Truth will Set you Free, is a wonderful title for the books content. As someone who has been mediating almost daily for the past several years I have grown to develop an awareness of myself that I did not have in earlier years. So I put Alice Miller to the test. After a mediation session I stayed sitting and relaxed and began to think Aloud the following statements pausing for 3 minutes between each one. 1- He was the best father in the world and he loved me very much growing up. 2- My father never loved me and wouldn't have cared if I died. 3- Though he did care and provide, my father was a pathetic man who loved himself much more than he ever loved me. When I said the first two statements, I felt an inner tension in my gut and upper spine. When I claimed the last one the tension released completely. That's because the last statement was the true one, regardless of how hard it might be to admit. But such tension is subtle and not detectable by most people at first. Alice Miller states that we often take the lies told to us by society and family and embody them, but our bodies/subconscious CANNOT be lied to. And our bodies carry around the toxic lie until finally we find ourselves getting sick. Facing truth may hard for your mind to bear initially, but it's the only thing that alleviates pain in the soul and body in the long run. The only problem I have with this book it offers almost no practical guideline as to what someone can DO to get to the truth. It mentions therapy briefly. Meditation I know works to, but it took me a long time before I grew to an awareness of subtle little shifts in emotion and the body like what I experienced in the 'experiment.' The type of people who would buy this book most likely have already faced their emotional blindness on some level and are looking to learn ways to enhance that- and that practicality is what this book is missing. Still a fascinating and potentially enlightening read.

This book will break down your internal walls of silence.......2007-01-04

I read this book carefully & slowly. I will not be the same again, in that I will no longer go through life, with my eyes closed. Emotionally, this book has freed me to a great extent. I believe then, that it can do so for anyone who is honest & open.

A great book, a great author!.......2006-07-23

Alice Miller's books about the realities of childhood trauma, cruel parenting and how to overcome it are wonderful, brutally honest, and freeing. I recommend any book by Alice Miller.

alice miller should be required reading for parents.......2006-03-16

Alice Miller, the best explanations for the direst of situations locked inside us as we grow up

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?

Average customer rating:

So that's why . . .
not credible
An Empowering Way to Reframe Painful Challenges in Our Lives
Some of life's challenges explained.
Why Human Challenges Exist!

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?
Robert Schwartz
Manufacturer: Whispering Winds Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spiritual | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World
Power of the Soul: Inside Wisdom for an Outside World
Journey Of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief
Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives

ASIN: 0977679454
Release Date: 2006-12-16

Book Description

Courageous Souls explores the premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges, prior to birth for purposes of spiritual growth. The book contains ten true stories of people who planned physical illness, having handicapped children, deafness, blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, losing a loved one, and severe accidents. Because very different life challenges are often planned for similar reasons, readers who have not faced these specific challenges will nevertheless see themselves - and their motivations as a soul - in these stories. As readers come to realize that they themselves planned their lives, suffering that once seemed purposeless becomes imbued with deep meaning. Wisdom may be acquired in a more conscious manner; feelings of anger, guilt, blame, and victimization are replaced by acceptance, forgiveness, peace, and gratitude.

Customer Reviews:

So that's why . . ........2007-10-08

If you ever want to get into the backside of your pre-birth planning of your life challenges, read Courageous Souls by Robert Schwartz. Want to know why you attract illness, accidents, birth defects? Want to know why you chose a life of alcoholism or drug addiction, or are around someone who has? Read this book. The stories, while may start out slow at first, are powerful and insightful. Just stick with them. Robert uses mediums who are able to access multiple guides at one time, and your primary guide and listen in on conversations between you and your soul group.

not credible.......2007-09-30

I got to p. 300 and started reading another book. I found this book painstakingly slow to read, the information provided by the mediums: farfetched, and the conclusions drawn by the author, hard to swallow. Often, when mediums are tired, their accuracy rate diminishes. I never heard of any of the mediums used in this book. Robert Schwartz makes everything so complicated when the subject matter is really quite easy to understand. The book just doesn't flow easily and it's not a page turner in my opinion. I'm a believer, but this book really is a waste of time and money. Read Journey of the Soul by Michael Newton, PhD. Instead of using mediums, he enters the superconsciousness of his clients and elicits information from them directly about their experiences on The Other Side.

An Empowering Way to Reframe Painful Challenges in Our Lives.......2007-09-17

It has been said that asking oneself the question, "Who was I before I was born?" can teach us the most about our true spiritual identity -- yet few of us have been so enlightened as to have heard the full reply. COURAGEOUS SOULS takes this starting point one step further by exploring just how we may have crafted our entire life around all of our life circumstances -- both the high and the low points.

What sets Robert Schwartz's book apart from other books about spirituality, reincarnation and the afterlife is his organized use of intuitive readings as companion pieces to accompany the various life stories he includes. These intuitive sessions provide a deep sense of interconnectedness and unconditional love shared in our lifetimes which we sometimes lose sight of, as well as insights into how we continue learning life lessons from one life to the next. The stories include descriptions of people who have experienced tremendous suffering who are greatly inspired and relieved to see an underlying sense of purpose and meaning to all they have gone through.

COURAGEOUS SOULS is an exceptional book for anyone interested in exploring the true nature of their spiritual identity, who is willing to keep an open mind regarding the value of some of the most painful challenges we humans face in our lives on Earth; this is highly recommended reading for anyone seeking to reframe and find deeper meaning from the painful challenges, setbacks or hardships in their lives.

Some of life's challenges explained........2007-09-06

.
Before I even finished reading this book, I ordered more and had them sent to my friends. This book is amazing.

Told through many soul journies, Robert Schwartz brought in the talents of true mediums who were able to discover decisions that these people made before they were born - again. He did not use just one medium, but several, and they are listed in the back of the book. The individuals who shared their stories are also listed with email addresses -- and if they are able and have the time they will answer your questions.

This book came to me at a time I really needed to be reminded of my own experiences through many lives and the time between our next life. The stories are beautiful because they are able to explain why certain tragedies happen to a person.

I highly recommend this book, especially to those with open and searching minds.

Why Human Challenges Exist!.......2007-08-28

Courageous Souls is highly recommended to anyone trying to understand the suffering, tragedy or loss that has caused them to question life, death and/or God. And who among us is not inflicted by such challenges and questions in our lifetime? In my eight years researching life after death, spirituality and life purpose, I have discovered no better explanation of why human challenges exist than what is so eloquently written in Robert Schwartz's book.

Bob Olson, [...]

Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (Theory & History of Literature)

Average customer rating:

Deconstruction minus the jargon
Not de Man's best work
No more intentional fallacy
A Boring and Pedantic Book
de man

Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (Theory & History of Literature)
Paul De Man
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Literature & Fiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust
The Resistance to Theory (Theory and History of Literature, Vol 33)
The Rhetoric of Romanticism
Aesthetic Ideology (Theory and History of Literature)
Of Grammatology

ASIN: 0816611351

Customer Reviews:

Deconstruction minus the jargon.......2005-07-01

In this book, Paul de Man examines major European literary theorists of the twentieth century like Blanchot, Poulet, Lukacs, etc. and shows through his incisive insights, how each theorist while trying to explain the origin of the 'work' or of literature remained blind to what lies outside the purview of his thoeretical system, because the very logic of theorization always excludes something. Of particular interest is his critique of readings of Rousseau. Accordingly, some of the theorists he discusses are mainly Rousseau scholars.

Not de Man's best work.......2005-05-27

This book is a good introduction to Paul de Man's writing. I'm not unbiased, since he was one of my instructors at Yale in the 70s. I am aware of the controversy surrounding him because of his personal life and collaboration with the Nazis in occupied Belgium, but that is extraneous to this book.

The strength of the book is its accessibility. De Man was reaching out to a more general audience than in the works published later in his life and posthumously by his many admirers and students. That having been said, it lacks some of the impact and depth of his other writings. Still, for someone looking to find out what all the fuss is about Deconstruction, this is the place to start.

No more intentional fallacy.......2002-07-06

Paul de Man's "Blindness and Insight" stands as one of the cornerstones in contemporary literary criticism. Not only does De Man understand the essential open-endedness of every text, but also he is right when asserting the prior role of the reader in that open-endedness of every text and the rejection of the intentionality on behalf of the author. As Wlad Godzich asserts, "De Man does not read then to constitute his identity or that of the text, nor to reach some beyond of the text, by whatever name it may be called. He seeks to locate the blind spot of the text as the organizer of the space of the vision contained in the text, and the vision's concomitant blindness."
The intentionality of the author highly acclaimed by the New Critics is, from now on, collapsed. As a reader in favor of the active role of the reading process I must say this is a valuable work to understand the process of critical reading.

A Boring and Pedantic Book.......2001-12-01

by a soulless man. De MAn understands nothing about the texts he reads, adn the reason for this is that it is clear that he has no real love of literature.

de man.......1999-03-11

I must confess a sympathy for de man. He usually gets pilloried by the right and everyone who is for truth, justice and the american way, but his readings of texts are very precise. There is a certain mathematicism in de man, such that his interpretations can be stated very quickly and don't require the accumulation of much detail. For instance, his discussion of the second discourse as an allegory and the contrast of painting to music is very interesting, although I suspect that he borrows alot from Benjamin (who I have not read). The structure of the 2nd discourse is the argument of the 2nd discourse--very elegant and precise. Ultimately wrong, but there you go. Unfortunately, the precision has the effect of reducing texts to their form. For instance, if we know that "leonine Achilles" is a metaphor, and then think the structure of metaphor, we know nothing about why Achilles is compared to a lion, we know nothing more about Homer or the Iliad. De man is ultimately precise but dull.

Average customer rating:

A Gray New World
Science, Medicine, and Art, skillfully blended
It is a Worthy Read
Not Sacks' best, but inspiring & enjoyable
A mini-vacation for the scientifically curious

The Island of the Colorblind
Oliver Sacks
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Anatomy | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
Seeing Voices
A Leg to Stand On
Migraine

ASIN: 0375700730
Release Date: 1998-01-12

Amazon.com

In his books An Anthropologist on Mars and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks details the lives of patients isolated by neurological disorders, shedding light on our common humanity and the ways in which we perceive the world around us. Now he looks at the effects of physical isolation in The Island of the Colorblind. On this journey, he carried with him the intellectual curiousity, kind understanding, and unique vision he has so consistently demonstrated.

Drawn to the Micronesian island of Pingelap by reports of a community of people born totally colorblind, Dr. Sacks set up a clinic in a one-room dispensary. There he listened to patients describe their colorless world in terms rich with pattern and tone, luminance and shadow. Then, in Guam, he investigated a puzzling neurodegenerative paralysis, making housecalls amid crowing cockerels, cycad jungles, and the remains of a colonial culture. The experience affords Sacks an opportunity to elaborate on such personal passions as botany and history and to explore the meaning of islands, the dissemination of species, the birth of disease, and the nature of deep geologic time.

Book Description

Oliver Sacks has always been fascinated by islands--their remoteness, their mystery, above all the unique forms of life they harbor. For him, islands conjure up equally the romance of Melville and Stevenson, the adventure of Magellan and Cook, and the scientific wonder of Darwin and Wallace.

Drawn to the tiny Pacific atoll of Pingelap by intriguing reports of an isolated community of islanders born totally color-blind, Sacks finds himself setting up a clinic in a one-room island dispensary, where he listens to these achromatopic islanders describe their colorless world in rich terms of pattern and tone, luminance and shadow. And on Guam, where he goes to investigate the puzzling neurodegenerative paralysis endemic there for a century, he becomes, for a brief time, an island neurologist, making house calls with his colleague John Steele, amid crowing cockerels, cycad jungles, and the remains of a colonial culture.

The islands reawaken Sacks' lifelong passion for botany--in particular, for the primitive cycad trees, whose existence dates back to the Paleozoic--and the cycads are the starting point for an intensely personal reflection on the meaning of islands, the dissemination of species, the genesis of disease, and the nature of deep geologic time. Out of an unexpected journey, Sacks has woven an unforgettable narrative which immerses us in the romance of island life, and shares his own compelling vision of the complexities of being human.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

A Gray New World.......2006-03-21

Oliver Sacks has created a lump of delight in his book, The Island of the Colorblind. After having a sincere interest in the topic of colorblind people, Sacks travels to Micronesia to visit with and better understand the victims of achromatopsia (a form of colorblindness) on the island. He takes with him a man by the name of Knut, who also has achromatopsia. They journey all over Micronesia, encountering numerous people living with the disease and thriving. They perform tests to assess the magnitude of the disease on the islands. Sunglasses and visors are passed out to the inhabitants to help them live their lives to the fullest. In the end, Sacks states that though the achromatopes of Micronesia are on a physical island, they also belong to the emotional island of achromatopes everywhere.

I found this book increasingly interesting with each passing page. The detail of his observations and the total immersion into the culture made it a joy. I agree with most other reviews in saying that the 50 page, illustrated notes at the end of the book make it much easier to understand the culture of the area and all that is happening around Sacks. His extensive citations tell me that he has truly researched all of his facts. I, like the above review, do not understand how people could not find this book humorous and delightful.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a challenging read. The words are large and there is much scientific talk. If you are interested enough in the topic to figure out the words, the book will be truly amazing. Colorblindness is such an underrated illness and it was wonderful to get an inside look.
-Micah

Science, Medicine, and Art, skillfully blended.......2005-08-31

The Island of the Colorblind provides what Sacks readers expect: serious neurological cases, a humane appreciation for the patient, and an artistic sensitivity. We learn about several societies where the gene for colorblindness has become established and how that has affected the cultures of the people.

The Cycads presents a scientific mystery story that demonstrates again Sacks' observational care.

I recommend this book for anyone with scientific or medical interests.

It is a Worthy Read.......2005-05-09

Another brilliant book By Dr. Oliver Sacks, this time about a community of color-blinds on a tiny island in the Pacific called Pingelap. He revels in this book that he has a fascination for Islands and when opportunity comes he packs off for this tiny island with two of his friends. One of his friends is from Norway (a psychologist) and himself achromatopic (completely color blind).

To reach the island they have to do a lot of island hopping and this account itself is worth reflection. There are army bases and nuclear test sites on the tiny island they stop by and the author has reflected well on these issues, their implications and their experiences with army when they get stranded once.

There is a strange quality about Dr. Sacks writing. He can make you wonder and almost enter the lives of the people he talks about. He has done so in his book `The man who mistook his wife for a hat...' and he has done it again in this book. We can probably never even imagine what it is to be color- blind, won't even reflect on something like this, after all we are so caught up in our normal lives. Consider a simple problem of recognising a ripe fruit with out being able to know the colour! But people do adapt and probably as Dr Sacks says they get over compensated in some other way.

The author and his friends get to meet many such people and try to provide the medical opinion but much more than that they get involved with the people, their daily life, their hopes and frustrations. And by the gift of his writing he can take you there too. Just pick up the book. It is not only about color-blinds in a medical sense but about their lives as a whole. And while reading don't ignore the notes to all the pages given at the end of the book. They are many a times much more interesting than the main text. I agree it makes reading a bit cumbersome but it is well worth it.

Not Sacks' best, but inspiring & enjoyable.......2002-08-25

In between visiting terminally ill patients, Dr. Sacks goes snorkeling and hiking through tropical rainforests in the Micronesian islands, sharing his thoughts and experiences with his readers.
About one quarter of the book is footnotes.
I enjoyed "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" a lot more.
(If English isn't your mother tongue or if you're not a college graduate I suggest you have a good dictionary nearby as you read. It also helps to look up some of the diseases he talks about at Yahoo! Health. Also look for images of the flora he discusses at Google Image Search.)

A mini-vacation for the scientifically curious.......2002-08-03

I had not read Sacks before and was laid up in the Peninsula hospital in Burlingame. This book was lingering on the shelf at home and I had my wife bring it to me. Soon the beige walls and IV tubes dissapeared and I was fighting the humidity of the tropical south pacific. This book reads like a travelogue, a report on achromatopsia (congenital colorblindness), the lytico-bodig (an alzheimers/parkinsons like condition), and the fern-like batonical oddity of cycad trees, among other things. The description of the ruins of Nan Madol was awesome. Where one reviewer found this literary style to be 'rambling,' I found it to be deliciously lazy and ambling. Sacks employs the device of digression with a pace that sort of stones you. Maybe this motif was influenced by the kava Sacks took on Pohnpei.

In any event, the book opens by delving into the congenital malady of acute colorblindness known as achromatopsia. Sacks learns of a little micronesian island with a large population of sufferers and follows his nose there with a couple of buddies, one of who is himself achromatopic. Soon we are on a small plane island hoping our way to the tiny atoll called Pingelap. You can virtually feel the tropical breeze reaching up your shorts. The description of achromatopsia is excellent. One almost imagines oneself as colorblind, seeing the world in a new perspective. Indeed, the light sensitive achromatopics here are often employed as night fishermen due to the advantage of their sensitive night vision, to catch flying fish in the phosphorescent waters of the warm Pacific. Sacks' attitude toward pathology is most admirable. He truly sees the afflicted as no more or less than whole people with differences, not partial or disfunctional people that are not normal. All of the afflicted in this book are examined respectfully and equitably as functional, whole, living organisms instead of sick and inferior. Geniune pathos appears where warranted but never condescendingly.

Next we're off to the volcanic island of Pohnpei and the megalithic ruins that remind us these islands "were once the seat of monumental civilizations." More achromatopics are encountered here, along with the acculturational clash between these Pacific island cultures, a collection of population bottlenecks colonized by Southeastern Asians, and Europeans. We visit the rainforest and encounter delicate, endemic, flourescent ferns, and forests of sakau, the local psychopharmacological substance of choice.

Then it's off to Guam to study the neurological disorder called the lytico-bodig of mysterious etiology. The island practice of consuming the toxic seeds of local cycad trees is supected as a cause of this condition, but it is unclear if it's caused by the eating of paste made from cycad tree seeds or is genetic in origin, as it seems to run in families. Sacks reaches into his experience with encephalitis induced coma patients and L-DOPA treatment in exploring the lytico-bodig. We also meet up with the ecological tsunami of the brown, tree-climbing snake which has consumed all the birds on Guam.

The last island is Guam's small neighbor Rota, where islanders take Sacks into the jungle in search of cycads, where we also find the leafless Psilotum nudum, whose ancestor was "the first plants to develope a vascular system, to free themselves from the need to live in water." Also visited are giant land crabs with claws powerful enough to open coconuts.

Maybe it's because I was trapped in a hospital, but I thoroughly enjoyed this travelogue, investigative science, and wistful reminiscence of the biological and cultural underpinnings that have brought us to this place in the present.

Walking by Faith: Lessons Learned in the Dark (Workbook)
Average customer rating:
Walking by Faith: Lessons Learned in the Dark (Workbook)
Jennifer Rothschild
Manufacturer: LifeWay Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Perfect Paperback

General | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Theology | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Lessons I Learned in the Dark: Steps to Walking by Faith, Not by Sight

Walking By Faith: The Music Captured Live

FINGERPRINTS OF GOD

Lessons I Learned in the Light: All You Need to Thrive in a Dark World

Fingerprints of God: Bible Study Workbook

ASIN: 0633099325

Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening
Average customer rating:

Poetry of Blindness

Not as good as the last one

Invaluable.

Eavesdropping

Walking the Ear Labyrinth

Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening
Stephen Kuusisto
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Planet of the Blind

Only Bread Only Light

Halls of Fame: Essays

On Looking: Essays

Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans

ASIN: 0393058921

Book Description

A memoir of blindness and listening rendered with a poet's delight by the author of the acclaimed Planet of the Blind.

Blind people are not casual listeners. Blind since birth, Stephen Kuusisto recounts with a poet's sense of detail the surprise that comes when we are actively listening to our surroundings. There is an art to eavesdropping.

Like Annie Dillard's An American Childhood or Dorothy Allison's One or Two Things I Know for Sure, Kuusisto's memoir highlights periods of childhood when a writer first becomes aware of his curiosity and imagination. As a boy he listened to Caruso records in his grandmother's attic and spent hours in the New Hampshire woods learning the calls of birds. As a grown man the writer visits cities around the world in order to discover the art of sightseeing by ear. Whether the reader is interested in disability, American poetry, music, travel, or the art of eavesdropping, he or she will find much to hear and even "see" in this unique celebration of a hearing life.

Customer Reviews:

Poetry of Blindness.......2007-05-13

Kuusisto writes his life like a painting. He is blind and yet his descriptive writing sees more than most sighted people. He brings us to the point of wonder at his ability to"see." His descriptive hearing elevates the reader to the level of music and poetic irony. I can't wait to read more.

Not as good as the last one.......2007-01-04

If you're looking for a sequel to the author's famous 1998 memoir PLANET OF THE BLIND, this isn't it, no matter how they try to market it as such, and indeed called it a "memoir" in its subtitle is pretty misleading according to the Fair Packaging Act. PLANET OF THE BLIND has everything, an intense, nearly unbelievable story of growing up nearly blind and yet trying to pretend to be sighted, and underneath it all it was a story of being mainstreamed and constantly told that everything would be all right and that if you only tried harder you'd be just like any other boy. The journey was all in discovering that no, what society was telling you was just not true and that you needed help all your life. Help you never got. Lessons in braille and a guide dog more like.

Eventually young Kuusisto began living a productive life, freed from his twin demons of obesity and anorexia, and became recognized internationally as a master of disability studies and as a poet. As a poet, he's not one of my favorites, but he's certainly well known in the field and has the respect of many. The present book is sort of a gallimaufry, a compilation of different essays about all different things, and it would be an understatement to say it lacks the focus of PLANET OF THE BLIND. In fact it doesn't have much narrative drive at all. Mostly we hear about different trips Steve has taken, to different places all over the world, and also we hear about his experiences listening to music. You'd think that after all the discussion of compensation in POTB, that being blind might make a person more sensitive to music, but EAVESDROPPING proves that this is not necessarily the case.

As a commonplace book, however, EAVESDROPPING works besutifully, for Kuusisto has a knack for remembering and quoting many of the wisest and funniest sayings he has heard over the years. "Hearing poetry starts the psychological mechanism of prayer," he avers, quoting from Theodore Roethke and whether or not you believe Roethke's formulation it's nice to hear the sentiment put so succinctly. At times the book descends into a laundry list of memorable shows he went to: "a Frank Zappa concert in Montreal in the dead of winter; my favorite reggae band, Toots and the Maytals, in New York; Carnbegie Hall for the tenor Jose Carreras; Placido Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera; Bob Dylan on a rainy summer night outdoors; Vladimir Horovitz in Chicago . . ." I can't even type any more, it's too boring. But overall a beautiful book filled with memorable little apercus from one of our greatest writers.

Invaluable........2006-12-12

EAVESDROPPING: A MEMOIR OF BLINDNESS AND LISTENING tells of a blind poet who had to cope with a life without sight - but it's much more than just another memoir of coping. EAVESDROPPING asks - and answers - the essential questions of why and how go on with life without sight, providing an emphasis on the author's travels and what he could experience on these journeys sans sight. Chapters tell not how to cope with being blind, but how to get the most out of life under conditions of affliction and change. Invaluable.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Eavesdropping.......2006-11-10

With an excellent style of writing, the blind author and English professor gives insight into the world as experienced without clear vision. It is a delightful read, informative and inspiring.

Walking the Ear Labyrinth .......2006-09-10

"Eavesdropping" invited me to enter the sacred labyrinth of the inner and outer ear. Through a series of searingly honest self-reflective essays that read like tone poems, I found myself led on a deep listening journey to a center where blindness sparks illumination. In one of my favorite tales, "The Twa Corbies," the author says that "according to Aaron Copeland, informed music listeners listen on three planes." The power and beauty of this book is that it achingly and joyfully evokes multi-level
listening through life's soundscapes.

"The first level is sensual." Kuusisto introduced me to Caruso's soaring arias on an ancient victrola; the inhalations of Finnish speech and the exhalations of baseball enthusiasts filling the gaps between field action; gaggling crows; the pathos of Bach and the angst of Heiskanen,an old Finnish singer, self-exiled to Sweden. The author's gift for Haiku-like lyrical descriptions surprised my eardrums into listening in delightful expanded ways to sounds for the outer ear.

The second plane is expressive,"giving meaning behind the composer's score." Underneath the author's sensual eavesdropping is: the loneliness in grandmother's attic while high C's sing; the lostness that comes with exploring crow's chaotic cawing; the family dysfunction of all night footsteps in the kitchen; friendship that companions Cuban music in counterpoint to the hiss of volcanic steam fissures in Iceland; and the love that allows independent listening and shared visions with his wife in Venice. I found that this voyage on interior ear currents of honest self-listening and sharing opened passageways to deep eavesdropping.

"Finally there is the 'musical'plane,the speciality of trained musicians," which rests on concentration that is knowledge based on an understanding of instruments in conversation. Stephen Kuuisto has honed his eavesdropping skills to that of a
self-taught expert listener. His book guided me to want to listen to my own, others and the world's conversations about blindness; the globalization of culture; the effect of technology on communications;and everything else that makes up
our soundscapes of understanding each other.

In the Epilogue of "Eavesdropping." Steve describes a place where bells in steeples rang out from many directions, singing songs of trust and possibility despite his lack of total clarity of where he was or what comes next. It is a sacred journey that he invites us to take which leads one into the center and out with new appreciations and perspectives. If you choose to read his book and walk the labyrinth of the inner and outer ear with him, I feel that you will hear the guiding ring of the bells too.

Dancing in the Dark: A Guide to Living With Blindness and Visual Impairment

Average customer rating:

This is a great book
Save Your Time

Dancing in the Dark: A Guide to Living With Blindness and Visual Impairment
Frances Lief Neer
Manufacturer: Wildstar Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Disability | Specialties | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Touch the Top of the World: A Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther than the Eye Can See: My Story

ASIN: 0963783904

Book Description

A direct, good humored, non-threatening reference guide for living in a frightening situation. It is for people affected personally as well as professionally. Dancing in the Dark includes a resource directory and primer to understand the language of visual impairment.

Customer Reviews:

This is a great book.......2003-05-29

I work with an agency serving visually impaired persons. For years, we have read excerpts aloud from this book to our independent living training classes for persons with vision loss. We have received nothing but rave reviews about this book and numerous complaints that it could not be obtained on cassette tape. It is a very worthwhile and realistic book about one woman's experience of vision loss, which resounds with many visually impaired persons.

Save Your Time.......2002-12-31

While there are a few useful suggestions, most of the material in this book is dicouraging and false. Blind people can and do all things sight persons do, without many of the issues discussed in this book. People navigate restrooms without help, eat in restaurants without making a mess of themselves or the table without extra plates and napkins, and so much more. "Touch the Top of the World" by Erik Weihenmayer, is a much more accurate description of blindness.

Average customer rating:

Another great piece
THE BLOOD FLOWS
Whao...
Volume 6 - It's eh

Alice 19th: Blindness Volume 6

Manufacturer: VIZ Media LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Manga | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Lost Word (Alice 19th Vol. 7)
Alice 19th, Volume 5: Jealousy (Alice 19th)
Alice 19th, Volume 4: Unrequited Love (Alice 19th)
Alice 19th, Vol. 3: Chained
Alice 19th, Volume 2: Inner Heart (Alice 19th)

ASIN: 1591162432

Customer Reviews:

Another great piece.......2006-08-31

This volume is very thrilling, and anticipating. Romantic, and a great B-4 the climax volume. This well drawn and detailed volume consists of revealed charecters, and epic pasts. i.e. Chris's past, and how he got his swallow.
Shaky parts: A bloody arrow-through-hand scene, brief nudity, but not like volume 4, and a car accident.
-Mangafreak

THE BLOOD FLOWS.......2005-03-05

Holed up in the Metropolitan Building skyscraper, Mayura seems to be coming back around to her real self. But it might be too late because the Master of Maram, Darva, is consuming her body at a frightening pace. Our heroes must make a last-ditch attempt to reach her inner heart before she is killed. Good thing that two new Lotis Masters have appeared on the scene to help them, the American Billy, and Mei Lin from China. They will still have to deal with Darva's minions and also their own inner demons as they struggle to reach Mayura before time runs out.

This volume was more my speed because Watase's ill attempts at humor which tend to ruin her dramatic scenes are largely absent. There's also a little more blood and murder than in the other installments and less froo-froo. The highlight of "Blindness" has to be that we learn a little more of the pasts of some of the supporting characters. Watase says that she had originally planned to cover all of the characters but space demanded otherwise. It would have been a better series if she had.

Whao..........2004-11-22

I think the other volumes before this one have had more action and adventure. Here we see A LOT of story and typical Watase shocking twists. I'd rate this a 5 just because of Frey! Anyway, it's very good. I was pretty impressed that this was the 6h volume, cause once you finish it, it's REALLY hard to believe that it will all suddenly finish in the 7th volume. Well, let's see what's waiting for us there. As to Volume 6: Good Art, excellent characters, wonderful twists, not so much laughter as in previous volumes, but quite okay, and well, tons of character stories. With those guys, no, actually, JUST with Frey, this book is more than worth it. So go ahead, read, and let's hope the last volume is GOOD.

Volume 6 - It's eh.......2004-09-16

Despite this being the penultimate volume of the manga, with the lotis masters battling to save Mayura from Darva, I still am left with the feeling that not much happened. Several of the characters have to battle the darkness of their past, during which we learn more about them, but it feels rushed and really doesn't have much of an impact. The ease with which the characters are able to overcome these things thanks pretty much only to Alice's tearfully shouted words of encouragement, is a little hard to accept, even with the whole suspension of disbelief that's required for a magical girl series.

If I had to cite the strongest reason for recommending this manga, I would probably say that the boys (particularly Frey) are pretty. The story is so-so, and if the art were likewise, I probably wouldn't have continued with it as far as I have. That said, having invested all this time and money, I am at least mildly interested to see how the inevitable ending is achieved.

Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness

Average customer rating:

This is a powerful book
This book has stayed with me for years
Touched by John Hull
Moving memoir
A stunning picture of what it is like to become blind

Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness
John M. Hull
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Religious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Special Needs | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Planet of the Blind
Sight Unseen
On Sight and Insight: A Journey into the World of Blindness
Long Time, No See
My Path Leads to Tibet: The Inspiring Story of How One Young Blind Woman Brought Hope to the Blind Children of Tibet

ASIN: 067973547X
Release Date: 1992-06-02

Book Description

Shortly after John Hull went blind, after years of struggling with failing vision, he had a dream in which he was trapped on a sinking ship, submerging into another, unimaginable world. The power of this calmly eloquent, intensely perceptive memoir lies in its thorough navigation of the world of blindness -- a world in which stairs are safe and snow is frightening, where food and sex lose much of their allure and playing with one's child may be agonizingly difficult. As he describes the ways in which blindness shapes his experience of his wife and children, of strangers helpful and hostile, and, above all, of his God, Hull becomes a witness in the highest, true sense. Touching the Rock is a book that will instruct, move, and profoundly transform anyone who reads it.

"John Hull goes a long way toward taking us with him through his descent into total blindness...He lets us see with no trace of self-pity or self-praise how blindness has become far him a genuine acquisition, an unforeseeably rich gift that has made of him what so few of us are: excellent watchers and hearers of the world...triumphant in the teeth of ruin". -- Reynolds Price

Customer Reviews:

This is a powerful book.......2007-08-08

I can't remember ever reading anything quite as compelling. I'm not going blind nor do I have any cognitive disabilities. However, if you are a practicing meditator as I am and are interested in the nature of consciousness itself, you will be quite intrigued with this highly descriptive account of both the visual and non-visual aspects of perception. If this book doesn't inspire you to start thinking outside the box, nothing will. That been said, the average reader will find this to be an unforgettable, beautifully written book well worth reading. Highly recommended.

This book has stayed with me for years.......2007-05-26

In place of the word "unsentimental" often used to describe this book I'd use "Lynchian", as in David. Blindness is just the starting-off point: The book is really a luxuriant journey into the *other* four senses and the heightened reality one begins to feel -- for instance how the white noise of a sudden rain can throw your outdoor echolocation into turmoil and immobilize you at some random place. With all respect to anyone looking for a good book on the disability, this one is for the artists.

Touched by John Hull.......2005-09-04

On the front cover Oliver Sacks is quoted: "Staggering. . . the most extraordinary, precise, deep, and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read." But this book is primarily a message of facing change and developing methods for coping. Of compensating, of reaching out, of accepting your plight and going forward. You sense the author's despair and frustration, but he manages to see his difficulties as challenges. He engages you in the struggles he faces and overcomes. After all, he has a wife and four children, he lectures and attends conferences. Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of all, for me, was how he faced giving a lecture when he could no longer read notes. He eventually learned how to write his speech in his mind so that he could simply read one page as the next ones were being formulated. I pictured it as something like the beginning of a Star Wars movie. John Hull has somelthing to teach us all.

Moving memoir.......2002-10-21

Heard the taped version of TOUCHING THE ROCK by John
Hull, a moving memoir of a university lecturer who slowly
lost his vision over a period of several years . . . he recorded
his thoughts in a diary, and I must admit to being touched
about how both he and his family dealt with his
condition . . . even typing this brings teary thoughts to
mind . . . imagine having seen a child as a youngster,
then not being able to see her again as she grows up . . . or
never having seen another child from the time he was
born . . . it makes me want to hug my daughter, Risa . . . and
to appreciate all that I do have!

A stunning picture of what it is like to become blind.......2002-01-20

This book was given to me as a gift a few years ago, and while I am neither going blind nor am actually blind, I found many of the ideas and experiences and thoughts and feelings expressed in this book to be very similar to my own. I have some particular cognitive difficulties (prosopagnosia, often called "face blindness") which give me a rather different outlook on life from most people, and I was amazed to see just how much in common my outlook on life was when compared with the author's life experiences. Well, maybe I wasn't that surprized, but it was still an eye-opening (no pun intended) experience for me to read this book in that context.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this book very very much. It reads more like a personal journal or diary than an actual book, and that gives the whole book a very personal experience when reading it.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books