Uplifting, ruminative memoir by a history professor who went blind
in middle age and regained his sight 15 years later. In 1941, the
20-year-old Hine (History Emeritus/UC Riverside) was told that his
arthritis-induced eye condition of uveitis would eventually blind
him. Thirty years later, it did, by "blocking" the surgery
necessary to remove the cataracts that had slowly covered both
eyes. But with all those years to prepare, Hine found his descent
into darkness less a horrific ordeal than a challenge he met
through intelligent adaptation. He learned Braille and how to
navigate with a walking cane, and shifted his historical researches
to ones relying less on obscure primary source material. Hine's
account of his blind years is notable mostly for its calm,
especially when detailing the inevitable suffering - for instance,
in his relationship with his teenage daughter. More compelling is
his description of regaining his sight - suddenly, almost
miraculously, through an emergency operation requiring removal of
one cataract to prevent catastrophic glaucoma. On March 25, 1986,
Hine went under the knife - and the next day he could see his
beloved wife, "her silver hair shining, her loving face and eyes
smiling." The author recorded his new life in a journal, liberally
quoted here ("Thursday, March 27. The kitchen cupboards as I opened
them this morning were like jewel cases") as he considers the
effects of blindness on body image and sex; comments on how other
blind people, from Resistance leader Jacques Lusseyran to painter
Andrew Potok, have dealt with their disability; discusses possible
advantages of blindness (e.g., an immunity to visual status
symbols); examines societal attitudes toward the blind; and
expresses his "overwhelming gratitude" at again being able to see.
Not an illuminating classic like Lusseyran's And There Was Light,
but a pleasingly thoughtful, quietly courageous report from one
who's lived his life both sighted and blind - but never, it seems,
with blinders. (Kirkus Reviews)
Robert Hine knew he was going blind. Yet he finished graduate
school, became a history professor, and wrote books about the
American West. Then, nearly fifty, Hine lost his vision completely.
Fifteen years later, a risky operation restored partial vision,
returning Hine to the world of the sighted. 'The trauma seemed
instructive enough' for him to begin a journal. That journal is the
heart of Second Sight, a sensitively written account of Hine's
journey into darkness and out again.
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