José Saramago

No, it's actually not.

It's actually, I'm so, 'cause sometimes it is, but I'm, I've just finished an amazing novel called Blindness by a Portuguese author called José Saramago, which is quite depressing.

It's about-

You shock me

Actually, Blindness.

I'm going to change my Blindness by Jose Saramago.

It's a great book about understanding politics in a very readable fictional way.

Excellent, excellent.

Um, so Russian literature, like the stuff I like to read actually has kind of on occasion like probably a clearer plot line than like maybe other stuff that I've read.

Um, like for instance like- Jose Saramago like wrote Blindness.

I kind of like that book.

It's really neat.

And I remember seeing it and being so thrilled back in 2016.

You know, I believe like José Saramago in seeing that wonderful novel written by that Portuguese writer, Nobel Prize winner in 1996, that we should blank out, that those of us who are not in the battleground states, that those of us who are in blue states or red states, that we should just leave the ballot blank.

As Melville's Bartleby Scribner says, I prefer not.

I can't stand either one of them.

Dickinson gives us that closure.

And then she gives us a Jose Saramago-ing dash.

The poet of paradox, still haunting us.

Thanks for watching our Crash Course Literature mini-series.

I think, I mean, James and I, w- this is the second time we've spoken about this book on this show.

But James and I have recently, um, read a book called Blindness by José Saramago, where one by one, everybody goes blind across society, and it does not end well for people.

Yeah.

And people do not conduct themselves well.

Turns out sitting on the bench with an ice pack can be as memorable as scoring the winning basket, if you're a philosopher in sneakers.

Nobel laureate Jose Saramago decries, losing the present to future fears.

If only politicians read Saramago, they'd understand that building tomorrow on today's ignorance is like constructing a skyscraper on quicksand.

If your body weight becomes your personal gym, prepare for your shadow to start charging rent for the extra effort.

This has been doomscroll.fm for Friday, the 11th of September, 2026, broadcasting like a lost pigeon with a megaphone.

For me, it comes from the fact that I truly love and am fascinated by, but also love, not just fascinated into like a, oh, you guys are so interesting.

Do you know what I mean? Like, there's this brilliant writer, Fernando Pessoa, you know, and he, and I think it was either Pessoa or Saramago, and I'm going to try to, you may have to cut this, but he says something really brilliant that to me rung so true.

And I'm going to paraphrase, but he talks about travel and how exhausting travel is for him.

Just truly exhausting because he goes, because when I travel, I live the lives of the people in every window, in every doorway, in every alley, in every house that I walk by.

Yes,

but I just came back from Portugal where I ruined my holiday by reading Blindness by José Saramago, which is the best book by the best author in Portugal.

And I passed on to James.

He wrote about it in his newsletter.