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4.26 of 5 stars
In an extraordinary distillation of his gifts as a novelist, poet, art critic, and social historian, John Berger reveals the ties between love and ... read full description

reviews

Jan 04, 2009
Bryan rated it: 4 of 5 stars
You should read writers that the writers you love love. Gerald Vizenor always seems to work a mention of John Berger into his texts.

This was brilliant and expressed quite a few ideas about time far better than I ever could have expressed them myself. A collection of philosophical sketches, poems, and essays about nature of love, time, space and separation, it still leaves a little something to desired. Though prose are meticulously constructed, I require something a little more crea More...
Sep 25, 2011
Cynthia rated it: 3 of 5 stars
Picked this up from time to time as it stayed on my nightside table till I'd finished it.
Visual culture is a minefield & it is instructive to have someone coaching you on your own process of seeing...
Jan 10, 2009
Rachel rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Weaving between prose and poetry, John Berger manages to get to the heart of love, distance, and loss. An amazing read. At least monthly, I pick it up to reread my favorite parts.
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Oct 02, 2010
Joana rated it: 4 of 5 stars
He lies with his head between her legs. How many millions of men have lain like this? How many women, placing a hand on their heads, and smiling reflectively, have thought of birth? Everything here is re-enactment, everything here is return. Home is the return to where distance did not yet count.
Mar 30, 2008
Jude rated it: 5 of 5 stars
this was my first book of Berger's and still the one i love the most. his passions illuminate my own, or open me up to new ones.
it is a combination of poetry and prose that mirrors those elements in everyday experience, everyday willingness to experience as fully as possible.

in my own day to day i wander in and out of the past, the lines of reference and connection sometimes so demanding and yet so ephemeral i wonder if everyone lives this way and how do we bear it?

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0 comments like (3 people liked it)
Sep 07, 2011
This was an accidental find for me in a secondhand bookshop. On first reading I thought it was disturbing and rather fragmented. It wasn't the first John Berger book I've read, so I felt challenged and gave it a second read. Then a third. Every once in a while I keep going back to it because it continues to draw me in. There is sadness, longing, rebirth, an all-embracing sense of the fragile world we find ourselves in this work that is laid out like big pieces of a puzzle that do not seem t More...
2 comments like (1 person liked it)
Feb 02, 2010
Hannah rated it: 5 of 5 stars
There is someone who recommended this book to me, who I sometimes feel stands from me across an unbridgeable gulf of love and loss. Reading this book, I imagined us reading it facing each other from opposite sides of the world. This book was pretty beautiful and certainly thought-stirring, and it also made me feel very alone.
Sep 22, 2008
Anthony rated it: 4 of 5 stars
A gorgeous and very unique work; it moves from personal and introspective prose to lyrical free verse to academic prose without seeming fragmented. The discussion of Caravaggio totally changed the way I see "Boy Being Bitten by a Lizard". Recommended to me by Mylinh. Thanks :-)
Aug 29, 2008
James rated it: 5 of 5 stars
I read this again and again and again when I was Estonia years ago--on the one hand I only had a small pile of books, but on the other I really love Berger's humanist aesthetics--hovers somewhere in the company of Kundera and Rilke. Good stuff.

Jan 29, 2012
Karenina added it
Ho davvero stima di Berger ma ho trovato questo volume troppo frammentario e pretenzioso. Ho pensato che forse bisogna essere innamorati o perlomeno non completamente disillusi per apprezzarlo in pieno, riproverò in tempi migliori.
Sep 18, 2008
Gary added it
Rensch recommends. Library?
Oct 09, 2008
Mark rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Lovely, insightful, comforting.
Feb 12, 2012
Rank rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Feb 08, 2012
Sajid marked it as to-read
Feb 07, 2012
Jo marked it as to-read
Feb 08, 2012
Mark rated it: 4 of 5 stars
Feb 03, 2012
Jack marked it as to-read
Jan 31, 2012
Clint rated it: 2 of 5 stars
Jan 31, 2012
Laurie rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Jan 31, 2012
Guneygil rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Jan 26, 2012
Laura marked it as to-read
Jan 19, 2012
Alfalfa added it
Jan 17, 2012
Abby marked it as to-read
Jan 15, 2012
Georgina marked it as to-read
Jan 12, 2012
Eric rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Jan 08, 2012
Ganab rated it: 4 of 5 stars
Jan 07, 2012
Nonameplace rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Jan 03, 2012
Jill marked it as to-read
Jan 07, 2012
Allye rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Dec 31, 2011
Deborah rated it: 4 of 5 stars