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Notes on Blindness: A journey through the dark

Book
Notes on Blindness: A journey through the dark by John Hull, and Cathy Rentzenbrink (Media Editor)

As seen:

By John Hull, and and, Cathy Rentzenbrink (Media Editor)

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1 review

A rediscovered modern classic: a life-affirming account of one man’s journey into blindness

‘A gift to the whole of humanity’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

Days before the birth of his first son, writer and academic John M. Hull started to go blind. He would lose his sight entirely, unable to distinguish any sense of light or shadow. Isolated and claustrophobic, he sank into a deep depression. Soon, he had forgotten what his wife and daughter looked like.

In Notes on Blindness, John reveals his profound sense of loss, his altered perceptions of time and space, of waking and sleeping, love and companionship. With astonishing lucidity of thought and no self-pity, he describes the horror of being faceless, and asks what it truly means to be a husband and father. And eventually, he finds a new way of experiencing the world, of seeing the light.

Based on John’s diaries recorded on audio tape, this is a profoundly moving, wise and life-affirming account of one man’s journey into blindness.

‘Poignant and wise’ Andrew Solomon

Published in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

Reviews

08 Jun 2017

St Regulus AJ

This is a searingly honest account of an academic who becomes blind. John Hull had health problems from birth but the inevitable happened when his detached retinas could no longer be operated on and he sank into total blindness. As an academic in Cambridge, he gradually learned to cope but shares his thoughts with us which cover the during the first few years of his struggle to carry on his life, mainly centred on his young family. The prose is almost poetic at times as he begins to reach out wth his other senses to experience the word in a new way. I will seek out the documentary film of this experience which is imminently due for release. John tells us in words what he went through and I would like to see how he dealt with the situation as well.

A rare and honest book. It was good to know that he lived and lived life to the full into old age.

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