Non-visual Language and Descriptive Blindness

Abstract

This chapter considers works by Hervé Guibert, Jean Giono, Romain Villet and Lucien Descaves which use blind characters to sensitize the reader to the descriptive power of non-visual language. In Blindsight, Guibert uses visually impenetrable language to stimulate his readers’ other senses, whereas in The Song of the World, Giono mobilizes the presence of a blind character to signal his use of non-visual description throughout the novel. Thompson’s detailed reading of Descaves’ extraordinary novel of blindness, The Trapped, reveals not only that non-visual description is a highly effective way of communicating with a non-blind reader but that Descaves includes Braille in his novel in order to temporarily exclude his sighted readers.