SOURCE: "Zero Visibility," in New York Times, October 4, 1998, pp. 1-4.

[In the following review, Miller praises Blindness as a novel of great compassion and wisdom.]

Traffic at a red light. The lights change, the cars move off, all except one that remains blocking the middle lane. A man inside is shouting the same three words again and again: "I am blind." Distraught, he is accompanied to his home by a kindly stranger. But this good Samaritan is also a car thief. Having taken the blind man home, he steals his car. A short time later he too is blind.

What is this malady? The first blind man consults an ophthalmologist. He tells him the blindness is not dark but a brilliant, impenetrable white. The doctor examines the man's eyes, but there are no lesions, no signs of disease. In his apartment that night the puzzled doctor sits up...