The traffic jam is building behind the first commuter, until somebody from the long line behind the first character moves over to the car causing all the blockage, and discovers in horror that the man they have all been hooting at is blind as an owl, and is totally helpless.

This is the beginning of Blindness, a superb novel by Portuguese winner of the Nobel award for literature, Jose Saramago, now sadly passed, a novel that frequently reminds me of how a sudden affliction can change the way we behave with ourselves and with each other.

In Blindness it soon becomes clear that nearly everyone in that town (no name places, no country, no people names, no dates, no season) is going blind, and in a short time a new order is established where practically everyone is blind, and a new hierarchy and social order establishes itself along the lines of the limitations imposed by the mass blindness.

Some members of the society are apparently able to see a little better than others, and this gives them a slight advantage, although they pretend to be as blind as any other member; and others develop alternative faculties that set them apart from their peers.

Everyone who has some advantage or other, though blind, finds a way to pull a fast one over the others and to maximise their gains, especially when it comes to accessing goods and services whose supply is becoming strained by the affliction that has struck the whole town.