"Why a classic portuguese novel should be on your to-read list" By Sarah Ládípọ̀ Manyika (Via OZI.COM) - 26/11/2017 - com incidência na tradução "Blindness" obra de José Saramago (original "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira")

"Why a classic portuguese novel should be on your to-read list"

By Sarah Ládípọ̀ Manyika (Via OZI.COM) - 26/11/2017

A presente critica literária pode ser consultada e recuperada aqui

em http://www.ozy.com/good-sht/why-a-classic-portuguese-novel-should-be-on-your-to-read-list/81687

"We’re starting a new feature at OZY Books: the building of a global bookshelf. Every other month, our book section editor will pick a selection we think you might enjoy. It might be one you’ve never heard of, or perhaps about a place you’ve never visited. We start with a classic: Blindness, by José Saramago, has stood the test of time. There’s something for everyone — plot, philosophy, allegory, passion, despair and triumph.

SO WHAT’S THE STORY?

A plague of blindness descends on an unnamed city. Within hours, internment camps are erected to keep the blind and contaminated away from the rest of the population. Chaos ensues both inside and outside the camps as more people turn blind. Only one person doesn’t go blind, and she is both witness to the atrocities and guide to her small group of friends. Her words become the group’s maxim: “If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.” This is a story about power, greed and courage and how individuals and governments respond to crisis. It is, at its core, about what makes us human.

WHO WROTE IT?

Saramago, the grandson of pig farmers, was born in 1922 into a peasant family. A curious fact about his birth: The village clerk, possibly drunk when filling out the birth certificate, wrote “Saramago” instead of the true family name, de Sousa. Saramago means “wild radish” in Portuguese, which in retrospect seems apt for someone who came from a poor peasant background, published his first book only in his fifties and then went on to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Perhaps the wild radish also says something about the sharpness of Saramago’s character — he was known as a prickly personality, a staunch atheist and a lifelong member of the Portuguese Communist party.

WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?

First, some readers of Blindness claim the book is insensitive to blind people, portraying them as a metaphor for moral depravity. Others (including the author when he was alive) refute this critique, saying that it’s about a population that fears the blindness and what happens in the chaos that ensues. There’s also a problem of punctuation or, rather, the lack thereof in the book. Punctuation to Saramago was like traffic signs: “Too much of it distracted you from the road on which you traveled.” To which some critics have wondered, Sure, but too little and you wind up hopelessly lost.

THE CHAOTIC AND POSTAPOCALYPTIC WORLD 

THAT IS CURRENTLY BEING PORTRAYED IN 

MANY BOOKS AND TV SERIES IS WHAT SARAMAGO 

GOT RIGHT MANY YEARS EARLIER.

WHY NOW?

The world may not have witnessed a plague of blindness, but illnesses such as Ebola and Zika have triggered panic reactions akin to those described in Blindness. The chaotic and postapocalyptic world that is currently being portrayed in many books and TV series is what Saramago got right many years earlier. Blindness speaks to our world today, in which societies realign themselves and rules are dramatically changing. And the blindness referred to in this novel is not just a physical one. As one of the characters remarks: “I don’t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.” Issues pertaining to the abuse of power, whether in the political realm or otherwise, are as pertinent today as they always have been. Whether in Los Angeles or Lagos, we still turn a blind eye to predatory and misogynistic behavior; we still see (and don’t see) the use of sexual assault and rape as weapons of war; and we still pretend not to see, all around us, the glaring injustices that are hiding in plain sight. This is a book that tackles tough subjects and gives us complicated and flawed characters that defy simplistic right and wrong, bad and good, judgments."

“Blind. The apprentice thought, ‘We are blind,’ and he sat down and wrote Blindness to remind those who might read it that we pervert reason when we humiliate life, that human dignity is insulted every day by the powerful of our world, that the universal lie has replaced the plural truths, that man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow creatures.”

José Saramago in his Nobel Lecture, 1998

"Janela Aberta" do antigo RCP de Aurélio Gomes - ...quando Saramago apareceu de surpresa no programa

Já aqui tinha mencionado (abrir link abaixo) o episódio em que José Saramago e Pilar del Río, surpreenderam com a sua visita, Aurélio Gomes e restante equipa, numa emissão do programa "Janela Aberta" do extinto Rádio Clube Português. Esta emissão, dizia respeito à estreia do filme "Blindness", baseado na obra "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira", e que a dupla radiofónica que conduzia o programa, interagia com o seu auditório com vendas colocadas, criando uma simbologia e paralelismo metamorfoseado com a história principal do filme e da obra.

Este post, vem agora recuperar e completar o meu anterior, com a inserção das palavras de Saramago a propósito da visita e que estão inscritas no blog do "Caderno" e no livro. Também não podia de deixar a minha palavra de admiração ao trabalho desenvolvido por Aurélio Gomes, e que faço por acompanhar. 

Aqui, link do post anterior
em, http://desaramago.blogspot.pt/2014/11/aurelio-gomes-teve-surpresa-de-receber.html

Aqui, link da inserção do texto de Saramago no blog,
em, http://caderno.josesaramago.org/11750.html

(fotografia com Aurélio Gomes e Teresa Gonçalves, recolhida do blog de Laurinda Alves)

"R.C.P."

"As iniciais significam Rádio Clube Português, creio que não deverá haver um português que o ignore. Hoje, dia 13 de Novembro, que é quando escrevo estas breves linhas, resolveu o R. C. P. dedicar parte da sua emissão à estreia de Blindness, o filme dirigido pelo realizador brasileiro Fernando Meirelles a partir do meu Ensaio sobre a Cegueira. Pilar, que só produz ideias boas, achou que deveríamos fazer uma visita de cortesia à estação e aos apresentadores da «Janela Aberta», que assim se chama o programa em causa. Lá fomos a coberto do mais absoluto sigilo e certos de ir causar uma surpresa que não seria desagradável. O que não imaginávamos era que a nossa surpresa poderia ser ainda melhor. Os dois apresentadores estavam cegos, tinham os olhos vendados por um pano preto… Há momentos que logram ser, ao mesmo tempo, emocionantes e prazeirosos. Foi o caso deste. Deixo aqui a expressão da minha gratidão e do meu profundo reconhecimento pela prova de amizade que nos deram."

Quinta-feira, 13 de Novembro de 2008

em, "O Caderno"
Caminho, 2.ª edição

Marco António Guimarães - "Blindness" - Bach Preludio M1 (OST)

Aqui, via Youtube, em https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgzx_yqeXes

"Uakti, a Brazilian instrumental quintet formed in 1979, (Aguas de Amazona, Mapa & I Ching) and heard on Paul Simon's album The Rhythm of The Saints, provide this evocative score. Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo star in the highly anticipated Blindness based on the internationally best-selling novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago. From Academy Award® nominated director Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, City of God) comes the compelling story of humanity in the grip of an epidemic of mysterious blindness. The journey shines a light on both the dangerous fragility of society and the exhilarating spirit of humanity. Blindness has a screenplay by Tony Award® winner Don McKellar and features and ensemble cast that includes: Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven, The Hours) and Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac, Reservation Road), with Danny Glover (Dreamgirls, The Color Purple). Blindness recently debuted to critical acclaim at this years Cannes Film Festival. It opens the Toronto Film Festival this September. U.S. nationwide opening is October 3rd."

Banda Sonora Original de "Blindness" - Marco António Guimarães (Quinteto Uakti) - "Drama 3 M1"

(Banda Sonora do filme "Blindness")

Marco António Guimarães - Blindness OST - "Drama 3 M1"

"Uakti, a Brazilian instrumental quintet formed in 1979, (Aguas de Amazona, Mapa & I Ching) and heard on Paul Simon's album The Rhythm of The Saints, provide this evocative score. Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo star in the highly anticipated Blindness based on the internationally best-selling novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago. From Academy Award® nominated director Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, City of God) comes the compelling story of humanity in the grip of an epidemic of mysterious blindness. The journey shines a light on both the dangerous fragility of society and the exhilarating spirit of humanity. Blindness has a screenplay by Tony Award® winner Don McKellar and features and ensemble cast that includes: Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven, The Hours) and Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac, Reservation Road), with Danny Glover (Dreamgirls, The Color Purple). Blindness recently debuted to critical acclaim at this years Cannes Film Festival. It opens the Toronto Film Festival this September. U.S. nationwide opening is October 3rd."

Crítica literária, de Ursula K Le Guin, no "The Guardian" ao "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira" (15/04/2006)

(cartaz do filme "Blindness", baseado na obra "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira")

Recupero a crítica literária, de Ursula K Le Guin, no "The Guardian" ao "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira" (15/04/2006).

Aqui, o link, em http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/apr/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview16

Destaco, das suas palavras, o assombro com que foi confrontada ao ler esta obra de Saramago. 

Para primeira impressão, confessa-se assustada, ao que, não se dando por vencida, aborda outros livros do escritor, para o entender, para o enquadrar e perceber a sua posição perante a mensagem a transmitir.

(Ursula K Le Guin, aqui pequena biografia, via Wikipédia, 

em http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin)

"Some years ago a reliable friend told me I should read José Saramago's Blindness. Faced with pages of run-on sentences and unparagraphed dialogue without quotation marks, I soon quit, snarling about literary affectations. Later I tried again, went further, and quit because I was scared. Blindness is a frightening book. Before I'd let an author of such evident power give me the horrors, he'd have to earn my trust. So I went back to the earlier novels and put myself through a course of Saramago.

It's hard not to gallop through prose that uses commas instead of full stops, but once I learned to slow down, the rewards piled up: his sound, sweet humour, his startling imagination, his admirable dogs and lovers, the subtle, honest workings of his mind. Here indeed was a novelist worthy of a reader's trust. So at last I could read his great book - or his greatest until its sequel.

Accepting his Nobel prize, Saramago, calling himself "the apprentice", said: "The apprentice thought, 'we are blind', and he sat down and wrote Blindness to remind those who might read it that we pervert reason when we humiliate life, that human dignity is insulted every day by the powerful of our world, that the universal lie has replaced the plural truths, that man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures."

This, on the face of it, is an odd description of Blindness, for in that book it is powerless people who insult human dignity - ordinary people, terrified at finding themselves and everyone else blind, everything out of control. Some behave with stupid, selfish brutality, sauve qui peut. The group of men who seize power in an asylum and use and abuse the weaker inmates have indeed abandoned self-respect and human decency: they are a microcosm of the corruption of power. But the truly powerful of our world don't even appear in Blindness. Seeing is all about them: the perverters of reason, the universal liars. It is about government gone wrong.

Very evidently Saramago's novels are not simple parables. It would be rash to "explain" what all the people (but one) in the first book were blind to, or what it is that the citizens of Seeing see. What's clear is that they're the same people, it's the same city, a few years later: one book illuminates the other in ways I can only begin to glimpse.

The story begins with those ordinary citizens, who not so long ago regained their sight and their tranquil day-to-day lives, doing something that seems quite unconnected with vision or lack of it. It is voting day, and 83% of them, after not going to the polls at all in the morning, go in the late afternoon and cast a blank ballot.

We see the dismay of bureaucrats, the excitement of journalists, the hysteria of the government, and the mild non-response of the citizens, who, when asked how they voted, refuse to say, reminding the questioner that the question is illegal. The satire is at first quite funny, and I thought it was going to be a light, Voltairean tale.

Turning in a blank ballot is a signal unfamiliar to most Britons and Americans, who aren't yet used to living under a government that has made voting meaningless. In a functioning democracy, one can consider not voting a lazy protest liable to play into the hands of the party in power (as when low Labour turn-out allowed Margaret Thatcher's re-elections, and Democratic apathy secured both elections of George W Bush). It comes hard to me to admit that a vote is not in itself an act of power, and I was at first blind to the point Saramago's non-voting voters are making. I began to see it at last, when the minister of defence announces that what the country is facing is terrorism.

Other ministers oppose him but he gets what he wants - a state of emergency, then the exodus of the government, by night, from the capital city, which is declared to be under siege. A bomb is exploded (by terrorists, of course, as the media report), killing quite a few people. An attempted evacuation of the 17% of voters who marked their ballots ends in failure, as the government forgets to tell the troops blocking all the roads to let the refugees through. The so-called terrorists in the city, still mild and peaceable, help the refugees carry back upstairs all they tried to take with them - the tea service, the silver platter, the painting, grandpa ...

The humour is still tender but the tone darkens, tension rises. Characters, individuals, begin to come to the fore - all nameless except a dog, Constant, the dog of tears from Blindness. The ministers jockey horribly for power. A superintendent of police is sent into the city to find the woman who did not go blind when everyone else did four years ago, sought as the link between the "plague of white blindness and the plague of blank ballots". The superintendent becomes our viewpoint and mediator; we begin to see as he begins to see. He brings us to the woman, the gentle light-bearer of the first book. But where that story began with an awful darkness that slowly opened into light, this one goes right down into the dark.

José Saramago will be 84 this year. He has written a novel that says more about the days we are living in than any book I have read. He writes with wit, with heartbreaking dignity, and with the simplicity of a great artist in full control of his art. Let us listen to a true elder of our people, a man of tears, a man of wisdom."

Ursula K Le Guin