Blindness - Jose Saramago

It's been two days since I finished Blindness. And I thought two days would be enough time to really process what I thought of this one. But here I sit, two days of thinking of what to say, and I'm still not really sure.

That I even decided to pick up this book and start it is a real accomplishment. I tried so hard to read Saramago's History of the Siege of Lisbon last year. But once the dog started narrating I was just done. And I couldn't get past Saramago's lack of paragraph breaks for dialogue. I guess the story just wasn't interesting enough for me to do so much work to figure out what was talking.

But in this case, Blindness was interesting enough, and horrifying enough, and realistic enough. (No dogs narrate in this one). The book starts with a man suddenly going blind at an intersection. Despite the honking cars, he's paralyzed by indecision and cannot find a way to get out of his car. He's disoriented. A "good samaritan" helps him home and into his house (and then steals his car -but don't worry that guy goes blind too, so Karma). 

The blindness begins to spread. The government, also paralyzed by fear, decides to stick the blind and those they've come in contact with in an unused former mental asylum. They deliver food three times a day. Otherwise the blind are left to fend for themselves. More and more afflicted begin to arrive. The conditions are deplorable. No working toilets, no clean water. 

And then, one group of the blind begin to terrorize the others. Until, well, I don't want to give too much away. But it's actually painful to read, but again not totally foreign because sometimes epidemics do not bring out the best in people. And just because people are afflicted does not mean that they are honorable or even worthy of assistance. Being blind brings out the worst in people in some cases.

The interesting parts are how Saramago really nails all those things we rely on sight for. The blind don't even recognize each other. People they've known or been intimate with are strangers. It's altogether pretty fascinating. 

Again, I'm not a big fan of how Saramago constructs his dialogue. It's confusing and irritating, but in this case, I didn't mind a little extra work to get it done. So, I can see why he's a nobel laureate, and I kind of forgive him for that Lisbon thing.

4/5 Stars.

It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways - Dallas & Melissa Hartwig

You are what you eat. Basically. It's hard to argue with some of the main precepts in this book. Added sugar is bad for you. Eating too much of the wrong thing is bad for you. Vegetables are good for you. I did enjoy the science background of the information. It's important to have that as well. Although I do think sometimes they emphasize the science that supports their conclusions and dismiss the science that does not rather summarily. 

My sister "discovered" the Whole 30 this year and I was at first skeptical. No wine? That sounds terrible. But I've had a bit of my own transformation with food this year and the Whole 30 takes it a couple steps past what I was already doing. So this doesn't seem quite as scary as it would have earlier in the year. 

You can check out their website for all the nitty gritty (click here). But I appreciate their "tough love" concepts that basically acknowledge our complicated and emotional connection to food. The Whole30 seems strict so it's probably not as accessible to some people. I think that's okay. Sometimes we need some tough love to look at what we've been eating and how we got that way. Taking a break from all that for 30 days is a great way to really examine what we put in our bodies. 

Here's a good quote from the book that's pretty hard to argue with: “There is no food neutral; there is no food Switzerland—every single thing you put in your mouth is either making you more healthy or less healthy.” 
― Melissa Hartwig

Here's the basics. 30 days. No dairy. No gluten. No alcohol. No legumes. No grains (not even rice or quinoa). Just meat, vegetables and fruits. And after 30 days, slowly reintroduce small amounts of these things to see how you do. What makes our bodies feel the way they do. There are apparently thousands of anecdotal good results with this program. And while I usually dismiss anecdotal evidence, large amounts of anecdotal evidence start to represent trends and more solid evidence in my mind. This is a way to address chronic inflammation, immune and bowel diseases and a host of other conditions. 

So after listening to the book. I'm not "sold" but I'm definitely going to try it starting January 1st (I'm realistic enough to know I won't make it through Christmas without eating a cookie) and I'll use my body as its own laboratory to figure out how the food I eat affects me. If it works for me, then it works and then I'll be "sold." I'll post an update January 31st.

4/5 Stars.

The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz

I was concerned that Lagercrantz wouldn't be able to capture the odd mix of action and exposé that marked the earlier Millennium books. I was thankfully wrong. 

This book finds us with our two friends, Lisbeth Salander and Mikhail Blomkvist again on the hunt of a story. Mikhail's little magazine has suffered a bit since its last scoop and is now partly owned by a larger media corporation which has threatened to show Mikhail the door. He's lost his stuff. His writing is tired and so is Mikhail. 

Lisbeth, however, has been busy. She's been trying to track down her erstwhile sister Camille, who she suspects has picked up where their horrible father left off. In order to get the information she needs, she sneaks into the NSA to find get the dirt on her sister's organization. In the meantime, there is a Swedish computer genius and his autistic son Franz and August Balder, who get caught in a struggle for Franz's technology. Franz is murdered while Mikhail is on his way to interview him. 

And if that was then end of the conspiracy, this would be a poor Millennium novel indeed. It goes deeper than that and of course Salander is in the mix on it all as well. Mikhail and Lisbeth maintain a loose affiliation and friendship and it's nice to see them work together again. 

There were a couple sections of exposition that may seem slow, but that again is also characteristic of this series. This is a solid action/conspiracy drama, perfect for fans of the first three novels. I can't write any more without giving away the goose.

3.5/5 Stars.