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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of Theroux's best, May 23, 2005
I have been a Theroux reader for a couple of years. When I saw the book I grabbed it. The plot sounded a little odd. I was not sure that I would like it, but I took the chance. I was not disappointed.
A couple of pages in I was hooked. The book starts off with a journey taken incognito by Steadman, a famous but
"has-been" author. The descriptions of his fellow travellers are spot on, particularly the boastful Californians and Janey, the Brit.
Steadman, the narrator and central character, voluntarily descends into darkness, first geographically, then literally and erotically. One wonders, as with some of Theroux's other work, how close it is to real experience.
At times Steadman, who oftens listens and observes, but rarely speaks, is accused of being voyreuristic. As the reader it almost feels like you are in the bedroom with Steadman and Ava. You feel like Steadman - the voyeur.
I read the book in two days. It was difficult to put down.
The only disappointing part of the book was that Part 6, which has to cover a fair bit of ground, was only 6 pages long and Part 5 dragged a little.
A highly original and wonderful story.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting antihero, July 28, 2005
In "Blinding Light," Slade Steadman has lived the life of a wealthy recluse on Martha's Vineyard from the income generated from his phenomenally successful book "Trespassing." In the twenty years since the publication of this travelogue about traveling without benefit of a passport, he has not been able to write another book. He decides to take a drug tour to the Ecuadorian jungle in the hopes that this will inspire him to create the novel he is meant to write. The drug he takes there, known as datura, or the tiger's blindfold, simultaneously provides blindness and extraordinary clarity of inner vision. He smuggles the drug back into the States and uses it for controlled blindness in order to gain heightened awareness and insight into his past so that he can write a semiautobiographical novel. He becomes addicted to it as he dictates his novel to his lover Ava.
Steadman then comes out of seclusion to attend social functions and to go on a book tour, while pretending that his blindness is permanent rather than temporarily drug-induced. Eventually, however, the drug no longer works in a predictable way. His visionary blindness begins to give way to a much darker blindness while the secret of his success is in danger of disclosure. The character of Steadman is an interesting one. Acting the clairvoyant blind man, he swaggers, mind reads, brags of his omniscience, and impresses everyone up to and including President Clinton. He is an antihero as egotistical and colorful as Paul Theroux's Allie Fox, and is destined for as hard a fall.
This story is full of metaphor and symbolism. There are sleep masks, blindfolds, festival masks, and blind people. There are constant references to light and darkness, awareness and ignorance, sight and blindness. The best scenes are those in the Ecuadorian jungle, and they are reminiscent of Theroux's "The Mosquito Coast." The most tedious are those in Steadman's house as he dictates the erotic scenes for his novel and acts them out with Ava. These sexual narratives and flashbacks are overwrought and add little to the story. If they had been trimmed back considerably, I would have rated the book five stars instead of four.
Eileen Rieback
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blinding Visions, June 17, 2005
I've been a Paul Theroux fan for almost 20 years now (the first book of his I read was HALF MOON STREET in 1986, and what few I haven't read, I just haven't got to yet but will), and I believe that BLINDING LIGHT is one of his best.
Everything I love about his writing is here: exotic (but at times painfully uncomfortable) travel, garish and obnoxious characters, graphic but intimate sexual episodes and power plays (against the backdrop of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, no less!). And, since this is fiction, Theroux can weave a mysterious drug into the plot that is fantastic and fascinating.
The novel has such an authentic feel that, from reading Theroux's other works, I wondered how much of it actually happened. The opening travel chapters felt like his nonfiction travel books. I can easily see Theroux, who grew up and (as far as I know) maintained a residence in New England, appearing at high-powered celebrity parties at Martha's Vineyard. He even makes a brief mention of growing up at a swimming pool. The added interest in his works, for me, has always been to wonder whether "this really happened" or not.
BLINDING LIGHT is one of his best.
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