British literature summaries - 2020

Short summary - The Country of the Blind
Herbert George Wells

There was a legend about a mysterious mountain valley in the wilderness of the Ecuadorian Andes, separated from the outside world after the eruption of a volcano. It was called the country of the blind. In the valley there was everything that a person could desire, and the settlers who had gone there lived freely. But a strange disease attacked them, it struck with blindness all newborns, and sometimes even older children. His vision faded so gradually that people barely noticed his loss. In everything except sight, they were strong and capable people.

But once a man from the outside world appeared in the community. It was a guide for the British who came to Ecuador to climb mountains. His name was Nunez. At night, he fell from a great height onto a steep snow slope and rolled down with a large snowfall. Everyone considered him dead. But he survived. Fascinated by the fantastic, mysterious beauty of nature, he lay silent. The next morning he went down for a long time, until he went out to a valley dotted with small houses. The lack of windows and the ridiculous coating caused Nunez to think of blindness. Then he became convinced that he had indeed ended up in the Land of the Blind, which the legend says. He remembered the old proverb: “In the Land of the Blind and the curve - the king”; and immediately decided that he would become their king, as the only one able to see. They did not know anything about vision; all words with this meaning have been erased from the language or have acquired a different meaning. Nunez tried to tell them about the big world, about the sky, about the mountains, but they did not believe him or did not understand anything. The outside world is just a fairy tale for children. In fact, the whole world is from the valley. A smooth roof over the valley; angels singing and rustling above their heads cannot be touched (birds). Time is divided into hot (day - they sleep) and cold (night - they work). Thus, Nunez’s expectation that the blind would bow before him in amazement did not materialize. The blind believed that he was just born from a rock, so he still does not know how and does not understand. Time is divided into hot (day - they sleep) and cold (night - they work). Thus, Nunez’s expectation that the blind would bow before him in amazement did not materialize. The blind believed that he was just born from a rock, so he still does not know how and does not understand. Time is divided into hot (day - they sleep) and cold (night - they work). Thus, Nunez’s expectation that the blind would bow before him in amazement did not materialize. The blind believed that he was just born from a rock, so he still does not know how and does not understand.

Nunez could always feel the beauty, and he wholeheartedly thanked the fate that she had endowed him with the gift of sight. But how light and free can be the movement of the blind, he learned only when he decided to affirm his will and raised a rebellion. He wanted in a fair fight to prove to them the superiority of the sighted. Following his decision, he already grabbed a shovel, and then he found out something unexpected for himself: that he simply could not calmly hit a blind man. But the blind realized that he had started and also grabbed shovels and stakes and began to move on him. Then he ran, not really knowing where to run. And the blind almost overtook him, he miraculously managed to hide behind the wall of the Valley of the Blind. There he spent two days and two nights without food and shelter. In the end, he crawled to the wall with the intention of making peace. He said that he was insane and asked to be taken back. He was accepted, but made a servant. His master was a good-natured man, imbued with him. Nunez fell in love with his youngest daughter, Medina Sarote. She was not much appreciated in the world of the blind, because she had chiseled features, her closed eyelids were not depressed and red, like the others in the valley — it seemed that they could rise again at any moment. She had long eyelashes, which the blind considered ugly. She, too, fell in love with him, and they decided to get married. But the blind were against it, because Nunez was considered an underdeveloped person who would disgrace their race and ruin their blood. One wise elder suggested a way out: you need to remove Nunez’s eyes to cure him of strangeness. For the sake of his beloved, he agreed, although in his heart he had not yet decided to part with his vision, because there are so many beautiful things in the world. On the last day before the operation, he said goodbye to his lover and walked for a long time. Nunez was going to just go to a secluded place and stay there until the hour of his sacrifice arrived, but looked up and saw morning — morning, like an angel in gold armor. He went forward behind the circumferential wall into the mountains.

When the sun was declining, he no longer climbed: he was far and very high. He lay calmly, and there was a smile on his face. Around him was the indescribable beauty of nature, but he no longer looked at this beauty, he lay motionless, smiling, as if satisfied already with the one that had escaped from the Valley of the Blind, where he was thinking of becoming king. The sunset burned out, the night came, and he was still lying, reconciled and contented, under the cold bright stars.