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." Inthis 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 WilberBook Description

Customer Reviews (335)

interesting but not profound
This book had an interesting premise and some great action.I enjoyed the growing suspense in the hospital as the "Lord of the flies" action played itself out.However, at the end of the novel I wasn't sure what the point of the book was.Good but not great.

Still thinking about this story years later
I read this book 2 years ago and I still think about the story. The writing is as such that you almost feel you are a character in the book, stumbling and grabbing at anything, anything that will give you an answer. It wasn't too long, it wasn't too short, and everything in it is needed to complete the story. The most amazing thing about this book is that it could happen, and probably would happen. In some cases, it may have already but we don't know it.

'The voice is the sight of the person who cannot see.'
The reader has a number of choices in reading this novel.It can be read as an allegory about the fragile state of civilisation in adversity.It can also be read as a wonderfully imaginative work of prose.Perhaps it can be considered as an apocalyptic narrative: with mass blindness as an apocalyptic event.

The novel starts with a single incidence of sudden inexplicable blindness.The blindness quickly spreads.Soon, blind people are being contained within an old asylum as though, somehow, containing those who are blind will stop the spread of blindness.While this strategy fails, the time we spend with our seven central characters while confined enables us to experience the breakdown of what most of us would consider civilized behaviour.Are there echoes of `Lord of the Flies', and of `The Day of the Triffids'?Perhaps, but `Blindness' goes in another direction.One character (the doctor's wife) is still sighted, and this gives our central group certain advantages while at the same time providing the reader with a credible narrator.

This is not an enjoyable novel, although it does end on a note of hope.The recovery of vision makes me more inclined to read `Blindness' as an allegory, but I hesitate to apply the label exclusively.Some of the imagery is superb: the `dog of tears' will remain with me for a long time.


Jennifer Cameron-Smith

for acolytes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"...but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probably, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt."

Never felt myself particularly captivated by this particular novel.Nothing about it grabbed me and aside from the quote above, nothing about it really resonated with me.Perhaps it was the style -- the incredibly long paragraphs full of improbably long sentences, the dialogue interspersed throughout, Like so, different speakers connected by commas, Like so.Not as hyper-extended as Marquez, but that was the rub that I got.

Take a Step Back
Criticisms regarding an overly augmented prose style aside, the question the reader is left with, after enduring page after page of perfectly explicable horrors resulting from the plague of blindness, is not so much, why was humanity stricken with blindness, but why did it regain its eyesight?To observe that the plague of blindness is representative of a moral blindness may be an over-simplification, but it is one that is not too far off.Again, to observe that the one character who does not go blind becomes a sort of philosopher may be a bit simplistic, but it is a reasonable assumption based upon her actions vs. those of the other characters in the book.

Why then is humanity allowed to regain its eyesight after the period of blindness?Can it be that the emphasis is not on the bulk of humanity at all, but on the philosopher, and those who choose to be guided by those with insight vs. those who wander?

Saramago may be guilty of wordiness, he may even be guilty of a shallow appeal to the aesthetic of intellect vs. true substance; but he certainly touches upon some aspects of humanity that too many authors tend to ignore altogether.The most moral character in this book still retains the darkest shades of humanity, and the most despicable character still retains his personhood.At best, Saramago's writing in this book is poetic, at worst, frivolous.When we look at each individual brushstroke, we cannot help but notice the flaws, the pieces of canvas showing through; but when we stand back and look at the work overall, we cannot help but conclude it is a near masterpiece, one at least worthy of our time and consideration. ... Read more

Book Description
Andrew C. McCarthy takes readers back to the real beginning of the war on terror--not the atrocities of September 11, but the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993 when radical Islamists effectively declared war on the United States. From his perch as a government prosecutor of the blind sheik and other jihadists responsible for the bombing, Andrew McCarthy takes readers inside the twisted world of Islamic terror. ... Read more

Book Description
Many people believe that merely by opening their eyes, they see everything in their field of view. In Inattentional Blindness, Arien Mack and Irvin Rock make the radical claim that there is no conscious perception of the visual world without attention to it. The phenomenon of inattentional blindness has theoretical importance for cognitive psychologists studying perception, attention, and consciousness, as well as for philosophers and neuroscientists interested in the problem of consciousness. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Poetry of Blindness
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
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.
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
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
"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 wherebells 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Resource for friends and relatives of the blind.
When my mother went blind, I had no idea of what to do to help her adjust, or what it was like for her to be blind.What Blind People Wish Sighted People Knew About Blindness told me everything I needed to know to make mymother's transition into blindness easier.It also helped me know what todo when around a blind person to be helpful without being in the way.

Iwould recommend this book to anyone with a blind friend or relative. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Deconstruction minus the jargon
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
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
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
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
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'trequire the accumulation of much detail. For instance, his discussion ofthe second discourse as an allegory and the contrast of painting to musicis very interesting, although I suspect that he borrows alot from Benjamin(who I have not read). The structure of the 2nd discourse is the argumentof the 2nd discourse--very elegant and precise. Ultimately wrong, but thereyou go. Unfortunately, the precision has the effect of reducing texts totheir form. For instance, if we know that "leonine Achilles" is ametaphor, and then think the structure of metaphor, we know nothing aboutwhy Achilles is compared to a lion, we know nothing more about Homer or theIliad. De man is ultimately precise but dull. ... Read more

Book Description
This is a 3-in-1 reference book. It gives a complete medical dictionary covering hundreds of terms and expressions relating to color blindness. It also gives extensive lists of bibliographic citations. Finally, it provides information to users on how to update their knowledge using various Internet resources. The book is designed for physicians, medical students preparing for Board examinations, medical researchers, and patients who want to become familiar with research dedicated to color blindness.If your time is valuable, this book is for you. First, you will not waste time searching the Internet while missing a lot of relevant information. Second, the book also saves you time indexing and defining entries. Finally, you will not waste time and money printing hundreds of web pages.Download Description
This is a 3-in-1 reference book. It gives a complete medical dictionary covering hundreds of terms and expressions relating to color blindness. It also gives extensive lists of bibliographic citations. Finally, it provides information to users on how to update their knowledge using various Internet resources. The book is designed for physicians, medical students preparing for Board examinations, medical researchers, and patients who want to become familiar with research dedicated to color blindness.If your time is valuable, this book is for you. First, you will not waste time searching the Internet while missing a lot of relevant information. Second, the book also saves you time indexing and defining entries. Finally, you will not waste time and money printing hundreds of web pages. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Does not provide helpful hints for coping.
I was disappointed with this book. While it is an entertaining biography of Mr. Roberts' experiences as a teacher to the blind, it does not provide much useful information regarding how to cope with blindness. It doesdemonstrate that blindness can be overcome with proper training so that ablind person can live a "normal" life. Most of the examples sitedare quite dated. ... Read more

Book Description
Returning to the themes of her classic The 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 The 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 everywhere, and her book soon achieved cult status and became a backlist bestseller.

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's vivid true stories 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. This denial, necessary for the child's survival, leads to emotional blindness and finally 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, warns Miller-a message vitally important, especially given the increasing popularity of programs like Tough Love and of "child disciplinarians" like James Dobson and other religion-driven psychologists. 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

best responce from amazon ever
proffessional vender!! book was NEW just as he advertised. received the book quickly. I am enjoying reading this book right now on a cold winter's night.

Thou Shalt Be Aware
The terrorist, the mass murderer, the anorexic . . .
At the very beginning of human history, well before the Ten Commandments, we were presented with a supreme and destructive commandment."Thou shalt not be mindful of the things done to you or the things you have done to others."For thousands of years, this "commandment of ignorance" has undermined our education and our childrearing, and has prevented us from telling good from evil.And although evil is learned and is not innate, it is reproduced with each new generation.When we deny our childhood wounds, we will inflict them on the next generation--unless and until we act in favor of knowledge."Only by knowing the truth can we be set free."
Alice Miller continues to impress and inspire.The Truth Will Set You Free (published in Europe as Eve's Awakening) challenges us to reflect about our secrets and our shortcomings.Miller exposes one of society's dirtiest secrets--that we are "emotionally blind" to the abuses suffered by prisoners of childhood.Innocent children--no matter their country, class, or generation--are neglected, humiliated, abused.Small children cannot survive such truths and can only repress them.But, because "the body never forgets," one's cauldron of pain seethes in the unconscious.
Fortunately for these young victims, psychological defenses offer partial protection against pain and anxiety.But repressing childhood traumas leaves mental barriers, an inner void, and the emotional blindness that prods one to harm themselves and others.These young victims become the suicides and psychopaths, the criminals and killers, the prostitutes and self-mutilators . . . as well as the everyday parents who abuse us "for our own good."All are trapped in unconscious compulsions to reenact their destructive childhood dramas on themselves and others.
Throughout this work, Miller questions the Bible.She notes that the Bible contains much that is fine and true, but much "poisonous pedagogy" as well.We must have the courage to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge, to question that which is illogical.Is obedience a virtue?Is curiosity a sin?Is ignorance of good and evil an ideal state?Miller argues that it is our duty to overcome childhood wounds and to acquire knowledge--by overcoming our defenses and our "emotional blindness"--so that we may come to know good from evil, and thereby become more fully responsible for our actions.We are responsible for future generations, too, so we must love and protect all children, no matter the hostility, condemnation, or ostracism that we may encounter.
But how can we overcome our "emotional blindness"?Not through medication, not through meditation, not through relaxation training.Only by embarking on an indispensable journey of self-discovery, in which we confront our childhood traumas and uncover our early emotions.Telling the stories of our childhood allows us to break down walls and reclaim banished knowledge--but only in the presence of an enlightened witness.We benefit from simple regressions, and even from momentary glimpses, into our childhood experiences.A picture of our childhood gradually emerges.And when we discover personal truths, we regain our vitality, our sensitivity, our ability to love.
Many of these ideas, suggests Miller, are supported by recent brain research.There is new knowledge about psychobiological defenses, and about the damage caused to individuals by stress, trauma and neglect.She credits Joseph LeDoux, Debra Niehoff, Candace Pert, Daniel Schacter, and Robert Sapolsky for the discovery that early emotions leave "indelible traces" in the body.
But despite these important scientific discoveries, we have yet to change the way we treat children.Miller is optimistic that legislation and parental education can and will reduce violence to children.This "principle of prevention" will cause our mentality, and our society, to change in stages.Such legislation has already advanced in Sweden, Germany, and South Africa.
Throughout this important new book, we are reminded of Miller's previous and seminal insights:that every criminal was humiliated, neglected or abused in childhood; that only people beaten as children feel the compulsion to beat their own children; and that the world's worst tyrants had childhoods marked by extreme cruelty and humiliation.They had no empathic helpers, no enlightened witnesses.Dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu and Mao, for example, unconsciously reenacted their childhood situations on the political stage.They defended against their pain first through denial, and then through the idealization of their parents.They came to glorify violence, and eventually took revenge on whole nations and peoples as a way of getting even for the cruelty they had once experienced.At one very important level, it is society's blindness to suppressed childhood pain and rage that makes war possible.
Also included in the current volume are brief critiques of the avoidance of childhood in six fields--medicine, psychotherapy, politics, the penal system, religion, and biography.Several new case studies (including the psychoanalyst Harry Guntrip) appear, and important insights are offered into corporal punishment, eating disorders, and circumcision.Finally, several important new books and web sites are recommended to readers.

a re-tread of her wonderful and classic point of view
It's hard not to give anything by Alice Miller five stars, because I think she's the greatest psychology writer out there today - at least the one who's influenced my personal growth and my work as a psychotherapist the most - BUT...But, this book just isn't her greatest, and I found the same problem with it that I found with her last few books...that they're really just a re-tread of her old themes, and her ideas just aren't expanding that much further than those presented in her early classics (For Your Own Good, Drama of the Gifted Child, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware).Granted, this book has its little gems, little case studies here and there in which she expresses her point of view from a slightly new angle, little lines in which she hits the nail right on the head, but if you read her classics and you avoid this book you won't be missing much.

That said, if this is the first (or only) Alice Miller book you come across, you really won't be let down.And perhaps that's her point.In each of her books she presents a concise version of her whole point of view, as if to make sure you don't miss it.And since her point of view is truly classic, so is each of her books regardless of its repetitious nature...this one included.

Overcoming Childhood Abuse
Before reading further, please be aware that this book deals with extreme examples of beatings and sexual abuse of children.The details are not made any more graphic than is necessary to the argument, but the examples will be disturbing to most readers.

Dr. Miller argues that childhood abuse is more prevalent and damaging than appreciated by most.Many victims cannot easily remember that they were abused.Others experienced personality twists that caused them to identify positively with the abuseand abusers as signs of love.The victims often victimize their own children in the same ways, and find their personal relationships inhibited by the obedience patterns imposed by parents and other authority figures.She goes on to argue that the damage is permanently recorded in the brain, and can encourage criminal behavior by leaders and individuals.Dr. Miller approaches the subject from a psychotherapist's viewpoint, but with little jargon.The book is designed for "readers who want to think about their lives and test new ideas . . . ."

The core of her argument is that children need the loving support and freedom to express who they feel comfortable being.When parents and other authority figures use physical punishment, humiliation, and other ways of securing compliance, the result is a person will a reduced to her or his own nature and reduced emotional intelligence.She goes on to connect these experiences to the murders by tyrants (Hitler, Stalin, and Milosevic) as well as the aggrandizing actions by other leaders (like Frederick the Great and Napoleon).She ties German willingness to follow orders in the Holocaust to German child-rearing practices.

In examining religious texts, religious practices, medical practices, educational institutions, and how professionals talk about their own parenting, she identifies physical abuse in childhood as a taboo subject in advanced societies.

Her prescription is that the effects of childhood abuse can be ameliorated by having helping witnesses (people who affirm the child as good and worthy of love while the abuse is going on) and enlightened witnesses, often mental health professional (people who help explore the childhood memories with interest and understanding).

Be prepared to have some of your most fundamental beliefs challenged.Dr. Miller takes on the traditional Old Testament view of God and the nature of sin, opposes male and female circumcision, decries many standard child toilet training and punishment practices, and favors the elimination of all corporal punishment of children (including hand slapping).

On the positive side, she describes the childhood experiences of Jesus and Gorbachev as models.

For professionals in all fields, she also encourages a caring look at childhood experiences of those with standard illnesses as well as those in prisons.I was particularly impressed by her argument that biographers should attempt to learn the details of any physical or emotional abuse that the subject may have experienced as a child.

This book evoked a lot of different reactions in me.First, as a matter of personal taste, I agree with using love and encouragement rather than physical punishment as a way to help children develop good habits.So she was preaching to the choir in having me as a reader.Second, at an emotional level, I found the book stirring up lots of vivid childhood memories that I had probably not thought about in 40 years.In thinking about those memories, I drew new meaning from them . . . both about how I had interpreted them as a child and what they meant about both adults and me.I felt freer as a result.That's an unusual reaction for me to have to a book.Third, at a logical level, I found the arguments over done.Everything seems to be viewed only from the perspective of child abuse.Surely, most kinds of unfortunate adult behavior also have some other causes.

I do admire and appreciate the consistency and energy she has applied to making people more aware of this issue.I certainly learned a lot, and am glad that I did.

After you read this book (and I hope you do), think about someone you have met who has physically or emotionally abusive reactions to problems.Consider how you might make that person aware of the ideas in this book in a caring way.This action could be the beginning of helping them overcome the effects of what might have been caused in part by childhood abuse.

Smile, approach with kindness, and give a hug!

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I only saw the movie
i want to read the play because i think it will probably be a lot better than the film which i was really looking forward to and did enjoy, but not as much as i thought i would. Uma Thurman and Juliette Lewis are two very great actresses and they prove this again in this film, but the writing of the screenplay and the direction lacked something... Im excited to read the actual play though. ... Read more

Book Description
Today, most intellectuals agree that (a) Christianity hasprofoundlyinfluenced western culture; (b) members from differentcultures experiencemany aspects of the world differently; (c) theempirical and theoretical studyof both culture and religion emergedwithin the West.The present study argues that these truisms haveimplications for theconceptualization of religion and culture. Morespecifically, the thesis isthat non-western cultures and religionsdiffer from the descriptions prevalentin the West, and it is alsoexplained why this has been the case. The authorproposes novelanalyses of religion, the Roman `religio', the construction of `religions' in India, and the nature of cultural differences. Religionisimportant to the West because the constitution and the identity ofwesternculture is tied to the dynamic of Christianity as a religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

most misunderstood
This work is most misunderstood by those who approvingly cite this, and by those who criticize this work. This misunderstanding has nothing to do with the structure of the book, but everything to do with the nature of any scientific hypothesis. The author has *not* criticized the concept 'religion' because the latter is western:do we think the concept of positron is western?And this book is not a critique of essentialism: entire natural sciences are `essentialistic.' `culture' is not monolithic; of course, species is not monolithic either, yet is amenable to study.What properties of Christianity are ones by virtue of which Christianity is a religion? Here Sweet Willman, in his criticism of the book, presumed that the properties of Christianity = the properties of religion. There are others who criticize it because it conflicts with their intuition.Of course, the author explained the necessity of experiencing religion in India.

Coming back to what the book does: the author identified a set of problems through historical research. Any theory of religion has to solve these problems.The author proposed a hypothesis of religion that solves these problems, and further explains the experience of believers; that shows why one can't study, say, Christianity as religion without being a believer. Then it is showed, one is compelled to do theology in order to study Christianity as a world view. Given this, the author shifted the study to a different level of abstraction: religion as that which generates a configuration of learning. This hypothesis sheds light on various issues: skepticism of Antiquity; origin of natural sciences in the West; vacuous debates of all sorts of relativism; cultural differences; theories of actions; etc. In other words, this theory does generate more problems, and can solve the same problems-in the long run.

The author nowhere did mention that `Hinduism', `Buddhism' etc. are not `something' else but not religions; whatever conceptual gestalts these entities `Hinduism' etc. refer to are non-existent in the way unicorn is.

An excellent book: read it.
It is not often that one reads a book that changes one's outlookdrastically. This is one such book. I am really impressed. Sooner or later,the ideas propounded in this book will prove to be a major challenge tomany disciplines like anthropology, religious studies, and such like.

An excellent book: read it.
It is not often that one reads a book that changes one's outlookdrastically. This is one such book. I am really impressed. Sooner or later,the ideas propounded in this book will prove to be a major challenge tomany disciplines like anthropology, religious studies, and such like.

A Clear Stream of Reason
Although the theory on religion that is submitted in this book is generally found to be highly controversial, Balagangadhara's arguments are so strong that one cannot simply dismiss this theory as intellectual'spielerei'. His account identifies crucial constraints on Western thinkingabout other cultures and the social world in general, and convincinglyexplains why even 'giants and geniusses' have not been able to surmountthese constraints. I heartily recommend this fantastic book. In thelegendary words of one reader: "it might even change your worldview." ... Read more

Book Description
Blinded in an accident on his way home from boarding school, John Haye must reevaluate his life and the possibilities for his future. His stepmother--worried that, blind and dependent, he'll spend the rest of his life with her--wants to marry him off to anyone who will take him, provided she's of the "right" social class. Contrary to her hopes, John falls in love with the daughter of the town drunk (who is also the town parson). She whisks him off to London, where in this strange city he is confined to a room above a major thoroughfare while she gets on with her life.

BLINDNESS was first published when Henry Green was an undergraduate at Oxford. Highly praised as a master of high-modernism, Green went on to write eight other novels, including CONCLUDING and DOTING. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Promising.
John Haye, a rich adolescent in his final year at an English boarding school is accidentally blinded. He returns to his country home to live with his stepmother. He befriends Joan, who lives with her alcoholic ex-minister father. His step-mother dispproves of Joan. They split up.
The description of the unlikely accident and the medical details are sparse and show no evidence of research or firsthand knowledge. (This was written in 1926 and writers didn't bother much with research then). I got the impression that Green had decided philosophically how someone would react to blindness and made his character's reaction fit that preconception.
It's the sort of English novel in which the only people with jobs are servants. Joan and her father live in abjects poverty (partly because of his expenditure in gin) but no one ever mentions the w- word.
I think you need some previous familiarity with English writing of the period to enjoy this. The first few chapters are set in an upper class boarding school, then the scene changes to a great country house with lots of servants around. It's Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell territory.
There are some great characters. The monstrous step-mother, blind in her own way, is a wonderful comic creation.The Prospero/Miranda relationship of Joan and her father is touching. The descriptions of rural scenes are wonderful.

Those who will not see
This is a very simple story about a pretty ordinary young man from the English gentry class who loses his eyesight in a tragic accident.Poor guy.Fortunately for the reader of _Blindness_, this accident does not turn John Haye into a saint.

Now, you've all seen books and articles and TV shows about unfortunate victims who adjust to their new state and become an inspiration to all about them - lead them to victory or clarify their understanding of the good life or something like that.If that's your cup of tea, _Touched by an Angel_ is on soon.

Rather, this novel is for those who are interested in what blindness might actually be like, with or without eyes.Indeed, John starts out this novel with his sight intact, and uses it mostly to make foolish or cruel judgments about his fellow students, his dormitory manager, his family and his schoolwork.After his accident his powers of observation actually improve as far as his sensitivity to his environment is concerned, but his knowledge of himself and his fellow human beings remains pretty sparse.

His opinion of his stepmother changes every few seconds, whether she's with him or not.He meets a girl named Joan, falls hard for her, and tells himself the entire story of her life - all the while insisting upon calling her by the wrong name.He considers his country home desperately boring until he gets to London, by which time that same country home turns in his mind to a virtual paradise.This kid is a mess.

While John is thus kidding himself, of course, the characters who can see are doing just the same thing.John's stepmother can't make up her mind from moment to moment whether to marry John off or keep him with her, or what to do with him - or herself, for that matter.John's old nurse doesn't seem to realize whether or not John has changed at all from the time he was an infant.John's would-be girlfriend Joan, daughter of an alcoholic former parson, thinks of the local men as the more attractive if they look as though they could hurt her, and can't make up her mind whether she admires her father or loathes him.As for that alcoholic father himself - well, you get the idea.None of these people, even those with eyes, can see anyone as they are.

But the novel is more than just an exercise in cheap irony.Henry Green drew high praise from all of his contemporaries for at least one very important reason; he described life as exactly and honestly as possible.He may have created in John Haye a bit of a bonehead, and a self-indulgent bonehead at that, but he also created an amazingly clear world for him to live in and a beautiful way of describing it.And eventually, it's that same gift for genuine observation and sensitivity that saves John Haye from a completely self-pitying life and seems to give him some kind of redemption.In short, this is the story of a bonehead who learns to quiet his mind and just watch the world.

So Green restricted himself to plain facts - accurate description of the physical world, his characters' inner thoughts - and refrained from any authorial judgment of any of his people.He gave us true portraits of men and women from all social classes, with all their virtues and all their shortcomings.And in limiting his writing to mere reportage, he successfully guided his readers through a blind man's world and showed us the true meaning of blindness itself.No mean feat for a college undergraduate.

Benshlomo says, To see the facts is the beginning of wisdom. ... Read more

Book Description
The three-volume life-story of the Egyptian intellectual Tahah Husayn (1889-1973) is a landmark in modern autobiography, in Arabic letters, and in the literature of blindness. This justly celebrated text, however, has never been subjected to the sustained literary analysis here presented by Fedwa Malti-Douglas. Born into a modest family and blinded in childhood, Husayn nevertheless conquered first his own and then a European educational system to become one of his country's leading modernizers. Professor Malti-Douglas shows that the personal, social, and literary reality of the hero's blindness gives the autobiography its unity and force. Blindness and Autobiography is not only a rich explication of al-Ayyam but a pioneering study of the interaction between a severe physical handicap and the autobiographical process. It adds a new perspective to the contemporary discussion of the cultural uses of the body.

The first part of the book explores blindness and society, from the evolving conflict between personal and social conceptions of the handicap to the way blindness redefines the more familiar issues of traditional versus modern, East versus West. The second section examines the relationship of blindness to the autobiography's ecriture, rhetoric, and narration. ... Read more