Review of Blindness by José Saramago

Saramago's style is just totally unreadable. I generously gave the book two chapters, skipped ahead to the middle and end, and discovered that it's like this throughout the entire book: run-on sentences, dialogue offset only by commas and never separated by paragraphs, nary a quotation mark to be seen. Now, I don't mind when an author subverts a few grammatical rules to make a point or enhance his or her style. Totally disregarding them, on the other hand, is just sadistic.

Since this is a translation from the original Portuguese, I'm willing to accept it's not entirely Saramago's doing. However, after some further reading, it looks like this is Saramago's "signature style", so I shall place the blame at his feet.

Blindness may or may not be a fascinating story, but I'm not going to subject myself to that torture in order to find out. A plot summary will have to suffice.