Well-crafted essays on blindness and sightedness that clarify for
the sighted not only what it's like to be blind but what it's like
to be perceived as blind. "I am legally blind" is how the visually
impaired Kleege introduces herself both to her writing class
students and to her readers. At age 11 macular degeneration robbed
her of a large measure of her central vision, but it did not
prevent her from graduating magna cum laude from Yale or from
pursuing a career as a writer and teacher of writing (at Ohio State
University and the University of Oklahoma). She shares her personal
story with telling anecdotes about her early attempts to appear
sighted, about drawing for her artist father, of using her
peripheral vision to view paintings in a museum, and of a visit to
the home of Louis Braille to pay tribute to man who developed the
reading and writing system that has given her a freedom that none
of the new technologies for the blind could provide. The teacher in
Kleege doesn't stop with personal anecdotes, however, for here her
intent is clearly to instruct the sighted about what blindness
means and what it doesn't mean. She analyzes how the blind have
been portrayed on film (Scent of a Woman, Wait Until Dark, Places
in the Heart, etc.) and in literature (Jane Eyre, The Light That
Failed, Oedipus Rex, etc.), demonstrating how blindness has often
been equated with a pitiful helplessness, loss of sexuality, and
even as appropriate retribution for some monstrous crime. Her
argument that filmmakers regard blindness as their worst nightmare
and therefore treat the blind disparagingly fails to persuade, but
her perplexed musings on what eye contact really means are
intriguing, and her vivid descriptions of her own visual
experiences are fascinating. Not always a comfortable read -
there's a fair amount of irritation expressed here - but certainly
an eye-opening one. (Kirkus Reviews)
This elegantly written book offers an unexpected and unprecedented
account of blindness and sight. Legally blind since the age of
eleven, Georgina Kleege draws on her experiences to offer a
detailed testimony of visual, impairment -- both her own view of
the world and the worlds view of the blind. "I hope to turn the
reader's gaze outward, to say, not only Heres what I see but also
'Here's what you see, to show both what's unique and what's
universal", Kleege writes.
Kleege describes the negative social status of the blind,
analyzes stereotypes of the blind that have been perpetuated by
movies, and discusses how blindness has been portrayed in
literature. She vividly conveys the visual experience of someone
with severely impaired sight and explains what she can see and what
she cannot (and how her inability to achieve eye contact -- in a
society that prizes that form of connection -- has affected her).
Finally she tells of the various ways she reads, and the freedom
she felt when she stopped concealing her blindness and acquired
skills, such as reading braille, as part of a new, blind identity.
Without sentimentality or cliches, Kleege offers us the opportunity
to imagine life without sight.
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