A Deprivation of Sense

I just finished reading this novel - it was shocking, challenging, vivid, and moving. It's no wonder it was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. It's like nothing I've ever read before. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone - the themes and the commentary stretch across the years and assert their relevance regardless of the time.

I was skeptical while on the first page, reading the work of an author who uses no quotations, relatively little line indentations, and excessive commas. But by page two, I was hooked; Saramago had sucked me in with his detailed writing. It felt like I was sitting on the street corner, watching the first man go blind and lose his primary means of sensing the world around him.

It's one of those books that each reader will get something different out of depending on where they are and what they are dealing with in their life. But it is books like this one that make me love reading so much more than watching TV or a movie; the story is so much better, and open to so much interpretation. It might not be a book to take out and read on the beach over summer (well, I would do it, but that's not to say it would be everyone's first choice), but it's definitely one to add to a "To Read" list.

Very, very thought-provoking to say the least.