Against my better judgment, I purchased your Nobel Prize-winning novel Blindness over the long holiday weekend. I expected to find the riveting story of a city facing an epidemic of contagious blindness. Instead I’m faced with page after page of unreadable blocks of text separated by nothing more than commas and periods. Where are the semicolons? The hyphens? The paragraphs, for God’s sake? Who do you think you are, James Joyce?
May I remind you, sir, this is 2008. Hour upon hour of “The Hills” reruns has left my brain so atrophied and frail it’s barely able to pass the electrical signals that allow my heart to continue beating. Mr. Saragmago, I demand a rewrite.
Now I don’t want to make this request of you without offering some assistance. That would be uncharitable. So in the collegial spirit of a fellow writer, I offer a selection from the original version of Blindness (New York: Harcourt, 1997) and my own suggestion for revision.
From the original:
“As he moved in the direction of the sitting room, despite the caution with which he advanced, running a hesitant hand along the wall and not anticipating any obstacles, he sent a vase of flowers crashing to the floor. He had forgotten about any such vase, or perhaps his wife had put it there when she left for work with the intention of later finding a more suitable place (Saramago, 6).”
I offer instead:
“He walked down the hall, carefully running his had along the wall. Suddenly he knocked over a vase. 'Funny,' he thought, 'I don’t remember that being there. Maybe my wife put it there before work.' "
You’ll notice that I said exactly the same thing as you in half the number of words. Drill down, Mr. Saramago. Drill down. You may also notice I stated exactly what the character was thinking instead of merely implying. It’s a subtle change that I think your audience will appreciate.
Now that I think about it, instead of going to the trouble of rewriting an entire book just so it’s accessible to the masses, why doesn’t someone make Blindness into a big-budget Hollywood movie starring Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore? That way I could watch the movie without having to concern myself with a challenging format or pesky subtext. Shoot, I could watch the movie and then tell all my friends I read the book and preferred it to the film. Nobody will ever know! Wait… What? Oh, excuse me. Blindness, a film by Fernando Meirelles, in theaters September 26th? I apologize, Mr Saramago. Please disregard the previous 250 words. Loved the book, by the way.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
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