Seeing the World through Words

I visited the library a few days ago and checked out five books to help keep my summer mind occupied. The first was a book of flags in hopes of learning more about countries and cultures around the world. The second was a biochem textbook, but I've yet to find inspiration to prep for second year. I also picked up a collection of Peanuts comics ('61 - '62), and that definitely hasn't helped me to open the biochem textbook.

Another book is sitting beside the piano, featuring a hundred broadway hits - one a year from 1900 to 1999. There are a couple of nice pieces in there, and running through random pieces is good practice for sight reading. Plus, I tend to like broadway music =).

Unfortunately, I'm not much of an avid reader. Literature is far from my strongest areas of study (though I'm debating whether or not I should take it in third year) - Sporcle Literature is one of my least played categories and I'm very quiet when the topic appears on Jeopardy. Despite lots of reading in elementary school, my novel reading faded away when high school came along, and I haven't been able to rekindle that affinity with novels. But I still manage a novel once in a while, and the fifth book I picked up was Seeing, a stand alone novel based on the same city that was the setting of Blindness, a book I mentioned once or twice last year.

Blindness was one of the few non-school requirement books I read in my high school years. Granted, the main reason I read the book was to have a novel to write about for my Artsci supplementary application, but at least the book wasn't prescribed by a teacher. Dealing with themes about the darkest attributes of human nature and the struggle for a better society, while featuring the author's distinct writing style along with some dark imagery, Blindness tells the story of a city that is swept with an epidemic of sudden blindness, as panic, selfishness, and jealousy take a dominant role in one's decisions. Seeing takes place in the same city years after the pandemic (though it's not really a sequel) and focuses on the politics in the city during its elections. 

Last summer, I read All the Names, another book by the same author that focuses on themes around life and death. The author is well known for his controversial topics that usually highlight the darker sides of society, as even one of his books was blocked by his Portuguese government to become nominated for the European Literary Prize. Of course, censorship didn't keep his books from becoming published, and also didn't stop him from winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Here are some of his quotes, which reflect his opinions on the world, and on the significance of language in our lives:

“Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters.”

"Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought."

“Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.”

"We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other."

The author is a man of powerful words, and through his novels, he has showed me the beauty of language, reminding us of the need to continually work harder to express ourselves and to never be afraid of what we need to express.

I was sad to find out that José Saramago had passed away last week, on the 18th, at the age of 87. But he has left behind a legacy of words and inspiration - to the people of Portugal, and to readers around the world.   Hopefully, with more people like him, though language, we can better understand humanity and work towards a brighter future. For now, let's just work on understanding each other. 

Words to think about:

"Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are." - José Saramago, in Blindness

In Memory of José Saramago.