No, I am not blogging to tell you all that I have suddenly gone blind. Although, if I had a Braille keyboard, I’d probably blog it rather than having to call everyone I’ve ever known. I guess that’s a good reason to keep reading. You may miss a major life event if not…

Anyway, Blindness is the book I just finished. It was awesome! It was originally written in another language which can sometimes make for tricksy reading as things really do get lost in translation. However, this translator did a good job. Actually, as I read when I finished the book, the two translators did a great job as the first one died halfway through the translation process and another had to take over. What are the odds of that? But here’s a post mortem well done from me to you, original translator! (yes, that would be more meaningful if I included his name, but I don’t have the book with me, so it will have to be an anonymous wish)

Back to the topic at hand. This book is about this epidemic of sudden onset blindness that sweeps through the country and what the government does in response and the terrible things people do to one another even in the worst situations. The best and worst thing about this book is that it’s so sad to think how true it is. There is good and evil out there and the evil doesn’t suddenly go away when it’s faced with a crisis, rather it tends to show you just how bad it can be. Yes, that’s the message of the book I read. But before you start sending me anti-depressants, know that there is also some hope mixed in. It was quite good and is soon to be a movie with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. I’m pretty excited about it.

My only complaint about the book has to do with formatting.

“This is how a normal book would write a quote,” Brianne said.

“You are right, Brianne,” stated her faithful blog readers.

This is how a Blindness chose to write quotes, oh that seems strange, yes, this is how they did it, rather than separate people’s speaking by quotation marks and line spaces, they crammed it all together with commas and only the very rare clue as to who had spoken the previous words, said Brianne. Wow, that really does seem hard to read, yes it was blog readers, it really was.

You can see how this might make for some tricky reading as I had to use context clues to try and figure out who had said what in some cases. It also caused me to have to use my spectacles more than I’d like to in one reading. Alas, old age.

However if you can get past this, it is a very interesting read. The author sometimes launches into side commentary to the reader as if he is sitting in the room with us and we are all watching a movie of what is happening together. I found that quite enjoyable. Sadly, unless the movie has a narrator (which most movies do not-and i think is a big mistake) we won’t be getting this commentary.

I’m now reading book two in the Septimus Heap series. I find that when I read something a little too true to life and slightly disheartening, I like to follow it up with something in a completely different and happier genre. Therefore, I’m back to the children’s books for this read. I’ll let you know soon how that worked out for me but it’s sure to be good as already there have been carniverous trees and man-eating wolverines. Who could ask for anything more?