Literary fiction · Book club
Blindness book club questions
Here are 11 book club questions for Blindness by José Saramago, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. Copy them, print them, or bring them up one at a time.
An epidemic of white blindness — contagious, sudden, unexplained — sweeps through an unnamed city.
José Saramago · 1995 · 7h 0m
Full summary and key takeaways →The 11 questions
- 1.
No character has a name. Did that prevent you from building the normal attachment to individuals, and if so, is that a flaw or the point?
- 2.
Saramago's prose style requires real adjustment. Once you had adapted, did the style feel like it was doing necessary work, or like a stylistic signature being asserted for its own sake?
- 3.
The ward with the blind criminals who organize control of the food is the moral center of the novel. What do you think Saramago believes about whether this outcome was inevitable?
- 4.
The doctor's wife can see. She lies about it. At what point in the novel, if any, did you think she should tell people?
- 5.
The epidemic is never explained. Does that ambiguity make the allegory more powerful or more frustrating?
- 6.
The sexual violence in the asylum is rendered with deliberate bluntness. Did this feel like an honest account of what happens in power vacuums, or like Saramago pressing too hard on a horror?
- 7.
The novel has been compared to Lord of the Flies and to Camus's The Plague. Where does it land relative to those — more hopeful, more despairing, more sociologically precise?
- 8.
By the end, when sight begins to return, do you feel the novel has earned the suggestion of recovery, or does the damage feel too total?
- 9.
Saramago is a committed socialist and his suspicion of social institutions is part of the novel's moral architecture. Does knowing that change how you read the book's argument?
- 10.
The doctor's wife is the only moral agent with full information. Does the novel make a claim about whether clear-eyed witness is itself a form of power?
- 11.
If you read Seeing, the quasi-sequel Saramago wrote in 2004, how does the continuation change your reading of this novel's ending? If you haven't, do you intend to?
How to run the discussion
- Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
- Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
- Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
- Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.
Themes worth steering toward
If the conversation stalls, these are the threads that usually restart it.
Common questions
What are good book club questions for Blindness?
Here are 11 book club questions for Blindness by José Saramago, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. The strongest openers ask what each reader noticed rather than what they concluded, and the discussion usually turns on social breakdown, human dignity under pressure, power and exploitation.
How long should a book club discussion of Blindness last?
Most groups run 60 to 90 minutes of actual discussion. That is roughly six to eight questions, not all of them, so pick the ones that suit your group rather than working down the list in order.
What are the main themes in Blindness?
Social breakdown, Human dignity under pressure, Power and exploitation, Vision and moral clarity, Collective survival. Those are the threads most likely to divide a room, which makes them the useful places to steer a discussion that has gone quiet.
Picking the next one? See books like Blindness or questions for other book club picks.
