“It was a kind of intellectual packing, stuffing premonitions into the rucksack of print before heading out on a journey.” (85)
The decision to focus this biography of John Berger entirely on his work was a refusal to corrupt the clarity of vision with which his work can be examined, and an act to provide Berger the dignity of a scholar without surrendering to a tabloid sense of drama about his life. It is also a decision that allows the structure of the book to be a flight rather than a chronological drudgery. I learned an incredible amount about Berger in a way that was natural and layered, coming to the general direction of what Berger thought eventually. This book did a great deal to contextualize things for me, and to provide a great deal of detail on eras of his work I had no idea about: the composition of G and his collaborative work and his early Marxist art criticism, for example.
There is much here to admire and emulate, not the least of which was Berger's absolute coherence to a set of values continually developing yet informed by a vast amount of experience and gathered knowledge. An image that really stuck with me was the idea of him throwing a grenade into a contemporary understanding of something and walking away to let everyone else pick up the rubble. It’s beautiful and freeing to be able to have an idea without having to follow it down every rabbit hole for the satisfaction of those who would poke holes and throw stones. Similarly, the idea that his theoretical ideas and approach were so common sense that they have now been seamlessly woven into the fabric of our modern culture is certainly something to admire. To create in a beautiful new way consistent with an empathetic set of values is not as impossible as I sometimes fear. ( )