I find it very difficult to adequately summarise John
Berger’s G. This may partially be due to the difficulty in
categorising John Berger, who can at once be described as a painter, art
critic, novelist, essayist and sociologist.
Berger has contributed much to a number of varied fields and his
knowledge of multiple subject areas imbues his work. G. is
a sweeping novel that spans genres and at times appears to blur the lines
between fiction and fact.
The novel begins in Italy in 1898 and follows the life of
the eponymous G. across Europe, as he loves then leaves a succession of
women. Written in the picaresque genre (by
definition a novel which follows a rakish character in his or her exploits,
such as Don Juan or Daniel Defoe’s Moll
Flanders), the narrative at times backs away from G. to focus on the
historical or political situation in Europe at the time. Berger also sometimes breaks from the story
completely to discuss abstract concepts with the reader, such as the
appreciation of the female form or the expression of love. At times he uses ‘I’ to break down the
barrier between himself and the reader and bring himself into the tale, rather
than being a purely incidental third person narrator. I confess that I found these forays into
Berger’s philosophy to be quite distracting from the development of the
narrative. Whether Berger intended for
this to be the effect is unclear, but I feel that rather than adding an extra
layer of meaning to the work this comes across as baffling in its
pretentiousness.
This is an accusation that I would level at the novel as a
whole. The lack of coherence between
these breaks and the central tale render the narrative disjointed and
unfocussed. Perhaps if I knew more about
artistic theory I might appreciate some of these abstract meditations, but they
are incomprehensible to the layman and make the novel seem opaque and
inaccessible.
Other elements of Berger’s story are disappointing. G.’s tale unfolds at unerringly different
paces; Berger at times spends pages describing a single afternoon, building up
a truly beautiful descriptive picture of a scene, but then spoils it by rushing
crucial elements of the story (G.’s death in particular feels like an after-thought
that was hurried along in order to meet a publisher’s deadline). The sweeping historical viewpoint, while at
times interesting, has a didactic air about it which gives Berger the feel of a
lecturer attempting to impose his views on his readers rather than
independently presenting the narrative.
At times I felt that Berger was attempting to tell me how to think, to
convince me that only his world view was the correct one. I didn’t understand elements of what he was
trying to say but I am not the type of person who enjoys having views imposed
upon me!
G. is not an
unsatisfying read. If one ignores the
frequent deviations from the plot and takes the story at face value, it is
fairly entertaining. I doubt however that
this is all that Berger intended for his work and, given the number of awards
that it won, I suspect I may have missed something important that critics with
greater knowledge than I were able to interpret. I think that it has all the charm of an epic
blockbuster movie; it may be massive in scope and may have won lots of
plaudits, but I found it impossible to warm to in the same way as other novels. G. is
not the kind of book that one can curl up with and enjoy; it sees itself as
being far too grand for that.
