It might be said that Seeing is a timely novel. In Britain, election turnouts have been falling, while across the world environmental and anti-globalization groups have mobilized against governments and international organizations.

However, this provocative and sometimes frustrating book is not purely political; it is odder than any shout of anguish. And, as Saramago's narrator admits, "here we have further proof of the limited range and structural weakness of all sarcastic remarks, lampoons, burlesques, parodies, satires and other such jokes with which people hope to wound a government".