Peel me a Book
Let's Peel
Blindness
Not quite a medical thriller about an epidemic or a dystopia built on spectacle.
Perfect if you want to feel society dissolve into chaos when sight disappears — and see how fragile civilisation truly is.
Synopsis
“If you can see, look. If you can look, observe.”
A mysterious “white blindness” sweeps through an unnamed city. One by one, people lose their vision — and with it, their sense of order. The afflicted are quarantined, but inside the wards, fear turns to violence and cruelty. Only one woman still sees, carrying the unbearable burden of witness. Saramago’s prose runs breathless, with little punctuation, forcing you into the chaos he describes.
Reading it is like groping in the dark, clutching at sentences that spill and swarm around you.
Mood:
brutal · allegorical · claustrophobic · relentless
Tone:
unpunctuated · sardonic · prophetic · visceral
It Feels Like
Body:
nausea, awe, and the sting of being human among humans.
Tempo:
a pounding, unbroken march with no pauses to rest.
Texture:
rough cloth dragged across your skin.
A Little Taste
“The city was blind. The blind had ceased to be the exception, they were the rule, the normal condition. In every street, in every square, in every house, in every room, wherever one turned, there was blindness, as if the world were covered by an implacable whiteness. And fear, which had first been directed at the afflicted, now grew within those who could still see, fear that tomorrow it would be their turn, fear that perhaps they were already infected without knowing it, fear of the very air they breathed. And when they finally lost their sight, they found themselves lost inside themselves, with no more compass than the memory of what it had once meant to see.”
The Aftertaste
Breaks apart any illusion of civility in crisis.
Forces you to question whether sight = understanding.
Leaves you haunted by what you saw, and what you missed.
Peel With a Drink
o be read in a glass you cannot see through — filled with a dark, bitter Madeira. You drink blindly, never sure what flavour will strike next.
The act of drinking becomes trust, or terror.
Peel with a Beat
Peel me a Book
Or Try:
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
who fractures identity through silence and fragments rather than mirrors.
Let's Peel
Blindness
Not quite a medical thriller about an epidemic or a dystopia built on spectacle.
Perfect if you want to feel society dissolve into chaos when sight disappears — and see how fragile civilisation truly is.
Synopsis
“If you can see, look. If you can look, observe.”
A mysterious “white blindness” sweeps through an unnamed city. One by one, people lose their vision — and with it, their sense of order. The afflicted are quarantined, but inside the wards, fear turns to violence and cruelty. Only one woman still sees, carrying the unbearable burden of witness. Saramago’s prose runs breathless, with little punctuation, forcing you into the chaos he describes.
Reading it is like groping in the dark, clutching at sentences that spill and swarm around you.
Mood:
brutal · allegorical · claustrophobic · relentless
Tone:
unpunctuated · sardonic · prophetic · visceral
It Feels Like
Body:
nausea, awe, and the sting of being human among humans.
Tempo:
a pounding, unbroken march with no pauses to rest.
Texture:
rough cloth dragged across your skin.
A Little Taste
“The city was blind. The blind had ceased to be the exception, they were the rule, the normal condition. In every street, in every square, in every house, in every room, wherever one turned, there was blindness, as if the world were covered by an implacable whiteness. And fear, which had first been directed at the afflicted, now grew within those who could still see, fear that tomorrow it would be their turn, fear that perhaps they were already infected without knowing it, fear of the very air they breathed. And when they finally lost their sight, they found themselves lost inside themselves, with no more compass than the memory of what it had once meant to see.”
The Aftertaste
Breaks apart any illusion of civility in crisis.
Forces you to question whether sight = understanding.
Leaves you haunted by what you saw, and what you missed.
Peel With a Drink
o be read in a glass you cannot see through — filled with a dark, bitter Madeira. You drink blindly, never sure what flavour will strike next.
The act of drinking becomes trust, or terror.