Find of the Week

Seeing
by José Saramago (2004)

José Saramago, one of my favourite authors, died a few months ago. His death prompted me to pick up one of his later novels and read him again. The premise of Seeing is delicious: In a semi-fictional state sometime in the recent past, a federal election is held. At the polling booths, election volunteers are alarmed at the low voter turn-out. In fact, not a single person enters the polling stations until lunch time. When they do finally come to vote, all at the last minute, the officials momentarily relax and conclude that bad weather was to blame for the slow start to Democracy. But when the votes are tallied, it appears that an overwhelming majority of the populace has cast a blank vote. Government officials are confused. Another election is called and the result is worse than that of the first. The government panics, the police impose curfews and the suspicious are interrogated.

On the eve of this country's federal election, I momentarily considered featuring Saramago's Seeing as the Find of the Week but finally decided against it. It seemed too obvious, too topical, but also, too hopeful. The events of the novel result in terrible consequences, but there's something incredibly romantic about the idea of a social institution falling apart; a finely tuned, precision mechanism that can't deal with a perfectly reasonable outcome of its own objectives. And now that we find ourselves in a similar, though less poetic, momentary state of uncertainty, it feels like this book should really be sent out to you Desire-ites out there.