And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos
by John Berger
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'Those who read or listen to our stories see everything as though through a lens. This lens is the secret of narration, and it is ground anew in every story, ground between the temporal and the timeless In our brief mortal lives, we are grinders of these lenses'. When John Berger wrote this apparently unclassifiable book, it was to become a sensation, translated into nine languages and indelible from the minds of those who read it. This stunning work is a shoebox filled with delicate love show more letters containing poetry and thoughts on mortality, art, love and absence, capturing moments in time that hover above Berger's surprising landscapes. From his lyrical description of the works of Caravaggio and profound explorations of death and immigration to the sight of some lilac at dusk in the mountains, this is a beautiful and most intimate response to the world around us. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I love how this book refuses to play nice with genre. Might as well call it a shout-out to haibun, but that's just a convenient approximation.
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 creative. Also, it would have worked better if individual sections were not so obviously divided by format. Unlike Vizenor, the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are not seamlessly blended together into an unnameable whole.
Beautiful, powerful, thoughtful.
John Berger is my literary boyfriend. He's that awesome. Enough said.
Este inclasificable libro une con lucidez la profundidad del trabajo ensayístico de John Berger sobre el arte con la riqueza emocional de su trabajo narrativo y poético. Por primera vez se sirve de sus modos de ver para examinar su obra, sus emociones, y cuestiona aspectos trascendentes como las razones que nos llevan a amar. Las respuestas de Berger, misteriosas por su sutileza, son esperanzadas y necesarias. En este libro, posiblemente su obra más íntima, el autor pasa revista a una serie de experiencias que son tan esenciales, tan familiares (el amor y el tiempo, la ausencia y la distancia, el arraigo y el alejamiento) que casi hemos olvidado la manera de sentirlas en nuestra vida.
Oct 5, 2017Spanish
Immagini
Questo libro, dono di una carissima amica, mi segue... anzi mi sta accanto, da diversi mesi ormai. E' lì appoggiato per terra vicino al letto ed ogni tanto la sera, tra un romanzo e l'altro o comunque quando ne sento la voglia, lo riprendo in mano e leggo o rileggo qualcosa. Ci sono brani o meglio, "immagini" che ho letto e riletto più volte e che rileggerò ancora, perché mi affascinano e mi commuovono e non saprei neanche dire perchè:
un gattino completamente bianco,
la foto di cinque operai turchi,
un dipinto di Rembrandt...
due corpi che fondendosi in un abbraccio definitivo si decompongono.
Questo libro, dono di una carissima amica, mi segue... anzi mi sta accanto, da diversi mesi ormai. E' lì appoggiato per terra vicino al letto ed ogni tanto la sera, tra un romanzo e l'altro o comunque quando ne sento la voglia, lo riprendo in mano e leggo o rileggo qualcosa. Ci sono brani o meglio, "immagini" che ho letto e riletto più volte e che rileggerò ancora, perché mi affascinano e mi commuovono e non saprei neanche dire perchè:
un gattino completamente bianco,
la foto di cinque operai turchi,
un dipinto di Rembrandt...
due corpi che fondendosi in un abbraccio definitivo si decompongono.
Mar 31, 2011 (Edited)Italian
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149+ Works 17,127 Members
John Peter Berger was born in London, England on November 5, 1926. After serving in the British Army from 1944 to 1946, he enrolled in the Chelsea School of Art. He began his career as a painter and exhibited work at a number of London galleries in the late 1940s. He then worked as an art critic for The New Statesman for a decade. He wrote fiction show more and nonfiction including several volumes of art criticism. His novels include A Painter of Our Time, From A to X, and G., which won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Booker Prize in 1972. His other works include an essay collection entitled Permanent Red, Into Their Labors, and a book and television series entitled Ways of Seeing. In the 1970s, he collaborated with the director Alain Tanner on three films. He wrote or co-wrote La Salamandre, The Middle of the World, and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000. He died on January 1, 2017 at the age of 90. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Och likt fotografier, min älskade, våra ansikten snabbt förbleknar
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