A unique and moving account of one man's struggle to come to terms with losing his sight.
'It's a gift. Not a gift I want, but it is a gift'
Days before the birth of his first son, writer and academic John M. Hull started to go blind. He would lose his sight entirely, plunged into darkness, 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 despite the darkness.
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.
Notes on Blindness was the basis for a major documentary in 2016.
About the Author
John Hull was Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham. He died in July 2015.
Industry Reviews
"There is wisdom on every page... a gift to the whole of humanity" -- Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of 'The Last Act of Love'
The incisiveness of Hull's observation, the beauty of his language, make this book poetry; the depth of his reflection turns it into phenomenology or philosophy -- Oliver Sacks
He lets us see with no trace of self-pity or self-praise how blindness has become for him a genuine acquisition, an unforeseeably rich gift that has made of him what so few of us are: excellent watchers and hearers of the world ... triumphant in the teeth of ruin. -- Reynolds Price
Beautiful. -- Melanie Reid * The Times *
This is a courageous book about the ability of the human mind and soul to reorganize around changed sources of information. In losing his sight, John Hull learned how much he had loved seeing, and how much he could love other means of interacting with the world. His poignant and wise description of his rebirth as a blind man is thrilling and disturbing, written in incandescent prose, and demonstrates an exhilarating passion for life itself. -- Andrew Solomon
Full of the richness of our experience on the planet ... Hull records his daunting and dark, enlightening and different world with an awareness that leaves you reeling - and the better for it. -- Kerry Fowler * Sainsburys magazine *
Praise for the documentary: 'Articulate, eloquent and soul searching -- Mark Kermode
I am haunted by his voice and how he uses his eloquence to convey what it means to go blind as well as the miraculous adaptations that can be made -- Lavinia Greenlaw
This is a courageous book about the ability of the human mind and soul to reorganize around changed sources of information. In losing his sight, John Hull learned how much he had loved seeing, and how much he could love other means of interacting with the world. His poignant and wise description of his rebirth as a blind man, written in incandescent prose, is thrilling and disturbing and demonstrates an exhilarating passion for life itself. -- Andrew Solomon
