Seeing - by Pedro Saramago

Saramago’s style is not conventional but it’s illuminating. It made me understand that blocks of dialogue, chapter titles, character names and even usual punctuation rules aren’t requirement to convey a thrilling and smooth narrative.

The first part details the unusual way in which a town organically comes together to put its government and democractic system on the tip of its toes, in the least conventional but evident: through vote.

The rest is an essay on the effects of this premise. The clumsy and improvised attempts from the government of keeping its power quota, to which it’s blindly convinced it’s entitled to. Then the town’s actions in collective rebellion, which are so perfectly and organically synchronized that they manage to set in motion the repressive and dictatorial machinery of a government with a democratic front but essentially autocratic.

In the beginning, the story is narrated from the collective point of of view of both the town and the government. Then it focuses on specific characters and on how they react to each other’s actions. With emphasis on cabinet members, but then focus on a police commissar with the task of finding the source, real or fabricated, of the discontent. This leads him on a journey of finding his own clarity, after being exposed to the truth and individual justice. In my opinion it shows that the root of a rebellion are in our principles, and they’re spread through small actions, more than propaganda or grand scale rhetoric.