Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness

Shortly after John Hull went blind, after years of struggling with failing vision, he had a dream in which he was trapped on a sinking ship, submerging into another, unimaginable world. The power of this calmly eloquent, intensely perceptive memoir lies in its thorough navigation of the world of blindness -- a world in which stairs are safe and snow is frightening, where food and sex lose much of their allure and playing with one's child may be agonizingly difficult. As he describes the ways in which blindness shapes his experience of his wife and children, of strangers helpful and hostile, and, above all, of his God, Hull becomes a witness in the highest, true sense. Touching the Rock is a book that will instruct, move, and profoundly transform anyone who reads it.

"John Hull goes a long way toward taking us with him through his descent into total blindness...He lets us see with no trace of self-pity or self-praise how blindness has become far 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

Author: John Hull
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 06/02/1992
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 8.30h x 6.08w x 0.63d
ISBN: 9780679735472

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/11/1992

About the Author
John Hull (1935-2015) was the author and editor of several works on religious education, theology, and disability including Sense and Nonsense About God and God-Talk with Young Children: Notes for Parents & Teachers. Additionally, he served as Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham. Hull's work on disability research developed due to his personal blindness--a condition he developed in 1980. He documented his experience in Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness.