To the Wedding

by John Berger, Alexandra Fuller (Contribution by)

In To the Wedding John Berger offers us a sharply modern situation set in the traditionally pastoral and idyllic background of rural Europe. Beautiful, vibrant Ninon falls in love and becomes engaged to a young Italian, Gino, but soon before their wedding she discovers that she has contracted HIV through a brief encounter several years earlier. She tries to break the engagement but Gino, in an act of passionate and redemptive love, insists that the marriage will occur. The wedding itself, celebrated in a little village on the Po delta, becomes a magical feast in which all the novel's lost and searching souls, including Ninon's grieving father, Jean, and her mother, Zdena, a Slovakian intellectual who left Jean and Ninon many years earlier, are drawn into the joyful circle and regenerated by the power of Gino and Ninon's timeless love. Berger demonstrates that even the cruelest fate can be endured and even transcended through courage, love, and determination.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, British Literature

Audio CD

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a college text.

Later he was self exiled to continental Europe, living between the french Alps in summer and the suburbs of Paris in winter. Since then, his production has increased considerably, including a variety of genres, from novel to social essay, or poetry. One of the most common themes that appears on his books is the dialectics established between modernity and memory and loss,

Another of his most remarkable works has been the trilogy titled Into Their Labours, that includes the books Pig Earth (1979), Once In Europa (1983) Lilac And Flag (1990). With those books, Berger makes a meditation about the way of the peasant, that changes one poverty for another in the city. This theme is also observed in his novel King, but there his focus is more in the rural diaspora and the bitter side of the urban way of life.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The narrator is blind but he hears faraway voices… And voices tell him the story… And the story is a tale of sorrow…

Where is she suffering? I asked.
Everywhere, he said.
Perhaps a heart would be suitable? I eventually suggested, feeling with my fingers to find a tama in the tray and holding it out to him.
Is it made of tin? His accent made me think he was French or Italian. I guess he was my age, perhaps a little older.
I have one in gold if you wish, I said in French.
She can’t recover, he replied.
Most important is the oath you make, sometimes there’s nothing else to do.

One little mistake is enough to ruin the entire life.
There is a bride… And there is a groom… and there is a wedding… But despite anything the wedding is sad…

Gino and Ninon will be the first to dance. The bride, she will announce to him, is going to dance, would my husband like to join me? And they dance alone for everybody to see and remember.

Everyone wants to be happy but it is so easy to fall victim to one’s own mistakes and then there’s no happiness ever after.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 5 out of 5]

QUESTIONE DI SGUARDI


Henri Rousseau, detto il Doganiere: Festa di nozze. 1905

La scrittura di Berger mi ha subito avvolto, familiare, ma senza privarmi di stupore.
Questa volta mi ha sollevato e trasportato in un viaggio alla fonte del mito e del tempo.
Un viaggio fatto di nomi epici scelti con cura.
Di geografie dello spazio e della mente sapientemente intrecciate.


John Berger

Sono entrato in appartamenti fatti apposta per lunghe chiacchierate e ho conosciuto gente che non avrà mai il futuro per cui altri hanno sacrificato tutto il passato.
Ho attraversato spiagge disseminate di macigni grandi come me, tanta pietra intorno, in un tempo che sfiora l'eternità ma poi non riesce a tornarci dentro.
Ho percorso una terra sempre più piatta, che ...perde le sue pieghe come una tovaglia spianata dalla mano di una vecchia che nell'altra tiene piatti e posate.
Ho sentito risate che sembrano ...un mantello gettato sulle spalle delle parole appena dette.
Ho incontrato un ragazzo che riuscirebbe a vendere coriandoli alla porta del cimitero.

Poi, all'improvviso, irrompe la malattia, con un nome che spaventa, AIDS, il tutto diventa niente, e tutto quello che Ninon aveva da offrire, ...il dono divino, antico come il mondo, il balsamo per il dolore, il miele da assaporare, la promessa per sempre, il benvenuto di seta, l'accoglienza delle ginocchia aperte…, tutto questo le viene portato via.


Henri Rousseau, detto il Doganiere: La carriole du Père Junier. 1908, Parigi, Musée de l’Orangerie.

Eppure, non è nella letteratura che andrebbe cercata la sua grandezza - non per niente Elsa Morante definisce lo scrittore un uomo a cui sta a cuore tutto quanto accade, fuorché la letteratura.
Forme d’attenzione. Modi di vedere (Ways of Seeing), o appunto, questione di sguardi, proprio come la sua trasmissione televisiva che quasi cinquant’anni fa cercava di allargare il nostro sguardo, tentava di spiegare che andare controcorrente non era spaventoso (come, per esempio, scrivere all’insegna del politicamente scorretto un librettino a difesa del fumare, che definisce gesto condiviso e comunitario, non solitario e individualista) come si potrebbe frettolosamente definire: aprire gli occhi, guardare, interrogarsi, porsi domande, evitare i luoghi comuni, cercare risposte, ipotesi, aprire i sensi, non rinchiudersi né isolarsi (neppure se si vive in un paesino della Savoia francese di solo ottanta abitanti, come scelse di fare proprio lui).






Grünewald: l’altare di Isenheim, definito la cappella Sistina del Nord, conservato al Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar, alla quale Berger dedicò “Fra due Colmar”

[William2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's 1995 and Ninon will die. The beautiful young woman who's just started her sexually active life has contracted HIV, then still a medical mystery. But the man who loves her, Gino, marries her and cares for her. Though she tries to free him of what she sees as the burden, the tragedy of herself, he won't hear of it. The marriage feast is ecstatic, gloriously happy. The writing, its interplay of a dozen or so voices, reminds me at times of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. A lean and shattering tale. A deeply moving affirmation of love. The book's structural prowess dazzles. Literary fiction of a very high order.

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 5 out of 5]

* Reading this book was like looking at impressionistic tableaux for hours; like listening to Four Seasons of Vivaldi.

Let me sing of sorrow from the top of the mountain…

Her name is Ninon and she is about to get married to Gino. She is young and wild. She is loved.

When time is pulse, as music makes it, eternity is in the gaps between.

Her future should be ahead of her; bright and unconstrained.
Except, it isn’t.

I loved it when she laughed. It was like discovering a tree was still alive, although it had no leaves because it was winter.

The story is told by a blind Greek shopkeeper, but we also see it and feel its unraveling, through Ninon’s, her mother’s and her father’s eyes.

… and what a black mountain
Has blocked the world from the light.
It’s time—It’s time—It’s time
To give back to God his ticket.
-Marina Tsvetayeva

They are on their way to a wedding; a wedding which is mournful, yet filled with beatitude.
A wedding of love and sorrow; of life and death.

I can’t fly.
You’ve never flown, even in a dream?
Perhaps.
It’s a question of belief.
In that case there’s no harm in being on your ledge, is there?
You have to be frightened, he says.
Frightened I am.
Then you’ll fly…We’ve lost the habit.
Of flying?
No, of living on a ledge.
The sea’s very calm.
It’ll come back.
You mean one day I’ll get used to it.
Things become familiar without your getting used to them.
Despair is familiar, Tomas, don’t you think?…We only live once, don’t we? And today we have to—no, I have to—I have to live without hope.
… but not without hope, Zdena.

[tunalizade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bazı kitaplar insanın yüreğine dokunmayı başarabiliyor. Düğüne de bu başarıyı elde eden kitaplardan biri. Anlatılan hüzün öyle yumuşak bir dil ile aktarılıyor ki melankolinin içinde gözlerimizden süzülen yaşa hayret ediyoruz. Ve çaresizlik alıp götürüyor insanı her çevirilen sayfanın kokusunda. Okuduklarımız canımızı kağıt kesiğinden fazla acıtıyor.

Ben bu kitabı çok sevdim. Belki sevmek için çoğu kişiden daha çok bahanem var. Belki yaşanılan aynı acılar değil ama yansıması, vücutta yer bulması ve öküz gibi oturması yüreğe, beni derinden etkiledi.

İlk kez John Berger okuyorum fakat bu son olmayacak.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check goodreads, one friend has read it, none have written about it.

True he’s won the Booker, which could explain it. But on the other hand, surely one has a heart for his subsequent actions? Upon discovering that the Booker is a prize generated from slave money, he gave half of it to the Black Panthers. The other half was, I believe, earmarked for a project for farm labour in Europe. If all Booker prizer winners are guilty of sharing in the spoils of slavery, surely he comes off best of them.

Is it for the reason I think kicks in most often, he is in the period that is just before this one and therefore to be disdained. That is to say, a greater period of time between the reader and the artist may see him reinstalled. We despise the recent past.

Is it because he is communist and therefore holds an attitude to life currently scorned?

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Berger iyi ki sanat eleştirileri ve sanat tarihi yazılarına ara verip öykü ve roman yazmış diye düşünüyorum, yoksa böyle müthiş hikayelerden, edebiyat güzelliklerinden mahrum kalacaktık. “Düğünde” oldukça hüzünlü ama yaşanmışlık içeren bir öykü, tadı kaçmasın diye konusundan hiç bahsetmeyeceğim.
Duygusallığı gerçekçilikle yoğurup bu kadar güzel sunan yazar ya birdir ya iki Berger dışında. Okurken ara vermeden okursanız iyi olur, çünkü çok farklı bir kurgusu var ara vererek okunursa kitabın ruhunu yakalamak zor olabilir. Değişik bir teknikle yazmış öyküsünü J. Berger, anlatıcısından metaforlarına kadar çok değişik bir roman.
Mutlaka okuyun bence.

[〽️onicae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un uomo a cui sta a cuore tutto quanto accade, fuorchè la letteratura (Elsa Morante in pro o contro la bomba atomica)

Questa storia è iniziata la scorsa Pasqua. Proprio la domenica di Pasqua. A metà mattina l'aroma del caffè cominciava a spargersi nell'aria. L'aroma del caffè arriva più lontano quando il sole è alto nel cielo.

Sono parole della voce narrante: un ambulante greco che vende tamata (ex voto) in un mercato di Atene, nella centralissima Plaka. Una tavoletta votiva sarà acquistata da un uomo, di nome Jean, per la giovane figlia, Ninon. Questo l'innesco narrativo.

Berger trattiene il lettore ad Atene per poche pagine, il tempo necessario a dare una dimensione mitologica e universale alla sua prosa. L'ambulante non vede ma sa ascoltare e soprattutto sa narrare. La sua voce farà da megafono a una storia che si dipana oltre il mare: tra Parigi, l'ex Cecoslovacchia e l'Italia e che vede protagonista la giovane Ninon, malata in tutto il corpo.

Mi è stato portato via il dono di donarmi - dirà Ninon - Se offro me stessa, offro la morte. Per sempre fino a quando muoio.

Eppure, diversamente da quanto si potrebbe pensare, Festa di Nozze non racconta una storia di solitudine ma di alleanze e di solidarietà. A parlare non è la disperazione ma è la speranza. A prevalere non sono i sentimenti di odio e rancore ma è l'amore nel senso più ampio del termine. La narrazione si snoda in tante piccole storie, come tanti sono gli affluenti del Po il cui percorso Jean sembra seguire per raggiungere la figlia. Tutti confluiranno nella più grande storia di Ninon e Gino (personaggio immenso) e della loro festa di nozze celebrata in un paese sul Delta del Po, dove il lungo fiume si tuffa nel mare.

È un momento epico e magico la festa di nozze di Ninon e Gino, in cui il tempo sembra fermarsi. Si percepisce un profondo senso di tenerezza, di sincera partecipazione e la speranza che l'incanto non svanisca:

Lei esita un attimo, poi lo bacia sulla bocca, mentre lacrime di gioia le rotolano dagli occhi. - Che cosa faremo davanti all'eternità? - Ce la prenderemo comoda.

Ho recuperato un articolo di Marco Belpoliti, pubblicato alla morte di John Berger che definisce intellettuale controcorrente e autore poliedrico.

La dicotomia di Elsa Morante tra scrittore impegnato e letterato si adatta perfettamente a John Berger.
E' indubbio che sia stato un artista immerso nel suo tempo e attento ai dolori del suo tempo (Festa di Nozze è del 1995) ma la cifra distintiva di Berger sta in quell'inconfondibile stile poetico che rapisce il lettore e lo fa volare in una dimensione che rimanda al mito e che attraversa la singola storia narrata.

Brevissima nota personale: è uno dei regali più preziosi che ho ricevuto lo scorso Natale ed è il libro che ho scelto per salutare le belle letture del 2025.

[Myriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading John Berger always feels like a rare privilege.
‘To the wedding’ is not a straight story chronologically told, but an almost impressionistic, wrenching tale of two young lovers. Ninon has captured HIV and wants Gino to leave her. But while she is wrestling with the death she carries, Gino persists and persuades her to marry him knowing they might perhaps just count on two or three years. ‘We are going to live the years with craziness and cunning and care. All three. The three Cs. Matteo, the boxer, says I’m mad. He says I’m throwing my life away. That’s what most people do, I say, not me.’
The journey to the marriage unfolds itself in slow, separate treks (Ninon’s father Jean travels to Gorino (a small place near Venice, where the Po river meets the see) from France, Ninon’s mother Zdena starts her quest in Bratislava…
The fragments of the story are held together by the Greek narrator Tsobanakos (‘This means a men who herds sheep.’) who, like the blind clairvoyant Tiresias, obtains his information listening to the voices he hears, the visions he has… In his latest work, ‘Letters from A to X’, Berger equally describes a man who is almost blind but thanks to that sees also what’s in the distance: ‘Behind the thick lenses of his glasses his eyes are strange, because they are both concentrated and distant, as though they were looking at two things at the same time – at whatever is in front of him and, simultaneously, at the word or words representing it.’
For the reader who persists, as Gino persists, Berger has a gift in store: a breathtaking climax, a feast of romance and love, containing the images of death.
Gradually you get swept away on the tide of storylines bound for the same destination, coming together like the waters of the Po river, broad, slowly dragging it’s tail to the sea, to the place called Gorino, where the wedding will take place. ‘The ancients believed that the first act of creation was the separation of earth and sky and this was difficult, for earth and sky desired one another and did not want to separate. Around Gorino the land has become water to stay as close as possible to the sky, to reflect it as in a mirror.’
The introduction to this edition quotes Geoff Dyer who once said of Berger that he ‘reminds us of what most contemporary writing would have us to forget, which is that great writers are distinguished, ultimately, by the quality of their humanity.’
And therefore, reading (and rereading) Berger always feels like a rare privilege.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoutout to book buddy, Bob for telling me to read John Berger. Definitely more to come this year. So beautiful.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Há quinhentos anos, três homens sábios discutiam sobre qual era a vaga mais pesada neste profundo mar de sofrimento que é a vida. Um disse que é a doença e a dor; outro disse velhice e pobreza; o terceiro disse que era a aproximação da morte e a falta de trabalho. No fim os três concordaram que talvez a última fosse pior. Aproximação da morte e falta de trabalho."

Nem com a história dos sábios John Berger me convenceu...

Uma mulher, com uma doença fatal, vai casar-se. Os progenitores deslocam-se para o local da boda; o pai de mota e a mãe de autocarro e barco (estão separados).
Eu perdi o "comboio" a meio da viagem...


=================================

"Quando lemos uma história, nós a habitamos. As capas do livro são como um telhado e quatro paredes."
— John Berger



John Berger nasceu em Londres, Inglaterra, no dia 5 de Novembro de 1926 e morreu em Paris, França, no dia 2 de Janeiro de 2017.
Venceu o Prémio Man Booker em 1972, com o romance G.
Iniciou a sua carreira artística como pintor, que abandonou aos 30 anos dedicando-se à escrita por pensar ser a forma mais adequada de transmitir as suas ideias políticas e sociais. Vinculado ao partido comunista britânico, fez vários trabalhos jornalísticos de apoio ao regime soviético. Nos seus últimos anos distanciou-se da política, no entanto considerou-se sempre como Marxista.

[Hank1972 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A qualche decennio di distanza dalla lettura rimane sempre con me questa festa di nozze di Ninon e Gino, struggente eppur piena di vita , in quel luogo cosmico, all'intersezione fra cielo, terra e mare, nel delta del Po.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

To the Wedding is a small book that addresses the large issues of love, divorce, disease, separation and ideology common to late twentieth century life, in tenderly observant prose. John Berger, author of G, Pig Earth and many other novels, understands small kindnesses, great compassion and the joys of a shared life, not only between lovers but amongst a community.

A blind Greek storyteller relates a new tale he's heard about the wedding of a young girl, Ninon, and her beloved Gino, whose passion for Ninon knows no boundaries. Told from a variety of perspectives that our Greek initially hears, we listen to Ninon's dreams and plans for her future away from her small French village. We eavesdrop on her new life in Italy where she meets Gino and they both come to grips with a modern day monster. We hear Gino's father's objections, we hear Ninon's own objections while from above we watch and hear Jean, her father, travel on his motorcycle from France to Italy along the river Po. We also eavesdrop on Zdena, Ninon's mother, who's taking a bus from Bratislava to Venice, where she boards a ferry and meets Jean for the final leg of their journey.

I believe one reviewer called this book almost cinematic, a conclusion its lovely descriptions and short poignant vignettes might induce. Perhaps it would make a good movie, but Berger's insight and understanding of the human condition extends beyond what can be conveyed by cinematic "reality" to truth and to hope.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"With music, hope too enters the body."

This is a quick read about a wedding, told from various perspectives, and as it unfolds you realize that events are not as happy as a wedding would typically be. I wasn't really into it, with the quick snippets of thought and changing narration, until Zdena connects with a man on the bus, and suddenly it became this touching connected story.

"Life depends on it... none of us can stop. You pick up something here, you take something there, you wake up with an idea, you suddenly remember it's a long time since you tried that, and you go home and put what you go home with into the refrigerator. Every day you keep going."

"We're all living things which are hard to believe, things we never imagined."

"It is strange how the place, where music comes from, changes. Sometimes it enters the body. It no longer comes in through the ears. It takes up residence there."

[Nancy Rossman · Rating 2 out of 5]

POV shifts, time shifts, first person to third person in conversations.

I lived in Seattle from 1980-1995, a quite enjoyable time when Seattle was still rich in creativity and yet understated. So there were Rainier beer commercials that were just out there, a thrill to watch but often not able to comprehend. Many suggested that the writers sequestered, lit a joint, and then wrote the commercial. THAT is what this book felt like. Only those commercials were much MUCH better

[Fabio Luís Pérez Candelier · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Hacia la boda" de John Berger, novela que relata la historia de un reencuentro, del padre que parte de Francia en moto y la madre que lo hace de Eslovaquia en autobús, a la boda de Ninon, la hija, en Italia. Viajes que observan los problemas finiseculares del siglo XX; una trama coral a lo road movie con un estilo fragmentario y el estigma de lo que significó la epidemia del SIDA como telón de fondo.

[Aslı Can]

Berger, en sivri köşeli kayaları bile yumuşacık okşamayı bilecek içtenlik ve şefkate sahip sanki. Merkezine birkaç mutlu ve hüzünlü insanı ve Aids'i alan bir kitap, nasıl olur da bu kadar hafif bir esintiyle çarpar okuyana, şaşıyorum.

[Mariana Osorio Schlögl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a super sad premise: a father and a mother travel from opposite sides of Europe to the wedding of her daughter who is dying in Italy.
For me was more than just a book about grieving and grieving while the person is still alive (something that we tend to do in cases of terminal illnesses); was also a book about enjoying life while you can.
Other than Ninon (the girl who is dying) and her parents, we have Gino, the optimist and amazing fiancé, his father Frederico and a blind Greek who is also the narrator. Why is a blind Greek the narrator of this sad but beautiful journey through grief and acceptance? A narrator who is in another country and only briefly meets two of the characters? A narrator who can hear everything from everywhere? I don’t know. but it works. A pinch of well-done magical realism is always appreciated by me.
The small chapters and the jumping through space and time as well as the characters development is done beautifully and masterly. It’s a beautiful book but bear in mind that the book was written in 1995 so nowadays there will be some differences regarding the disease that kills Ninon (some, not a lot – I am talking about the general opinion about this horrible disease).

[Soner Turgay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitabın ilk 30 sayfası çok zor. Anlatan karakter paragraf boyutunda değişiyor; kim nerede , şimdi kim konuşuyor her şey birbirine karışıyor.

Ardından konu ve coğrafyalar tek bir yöne doğru birleşip akmaya başlıyor. Anne-Baba kızına, ilişkiler aşka, yaşam ölüme ve Po Nehri Akdeniz'e kavuşuyor.

Berger yine küçük ayrıntıları büyütüyor, büyük olaylarla küçük şeylerin bağlantısını kuruyor.

Okumanızla ilgili tek tavsiyem bir oturuşta bitirecek şekilde okumanız olsun. Yoksa kaldığınız yeri hatırlamak oldukça zor oluyor.

Sonuç olarak Berger'in roman tarzı bu, bir olay zemininde denemeler bütünü yazıyor aslında. Zihin açıyor ama klasik romanlara göre verdiği keyif daha düşük.

[Adrian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this when I first read it years ago and everything I loved was right there still. Sad and elegiac, with an amazing sense of place.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich habe etwas Seichtes erwartet, doch das kleine Buch überraschte mich mit einem stimmungs- und anspruchsvollen Beginn. Ein blinder Straßenverkäufer in Griechenland macht den auktorialen Ich-Erzähler. Er hört Stimmen und Geräusche an verschiedensten Orten des Geschehens, beamt mich nach Frankreich (wo der Eisenbahner, Motorradfahrer und Vater Jean lebt), in die Slowakei (wo die Ingenieurin, Ideologin und Mutter Zdena lebt) und nach Italien (wo Gino sich in Ninon verliebt). 
„Blindheit ist wie das Kino, weil dessen Augen nicht zu beiden Seiten einer Nase sitzen, sondern immer da, wo es die Geschichte verlangt.“
Und so gelingt es Berger fließend, interessant, poetisch, dass nicht nur Orte, sondern auch Perspektiven wechseln, dass nicht nur Stimmen, sondern auch Gedanken gehört werden, von denen die meisten um Ninon kreisen. 
Ihr, Ninon, der Hauptfigur, gehört eine weitere Ich-Stimme. Sie ist 24 Jahre alt, hat sich gerade verliebt und fühlt sich am Beginn von Etwas, da erfährt sie, dass sie HIV-positiv ist und also viel zu früh am Ende anlangt.

„Ich habe nichts. Alles, alles, alles, alles, alles, was ich hatte, ist mir genommen.“


„Die Gabe, mich zu geben, ist mir genommen. Wenn ich mich biete, biete ich den Tod.“

Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem zu frühen Unausweichlichen findet aus den verschiedensten Blickwinkeln eine einfache, klare, oft lyrische Sprache. Alle Stimmen, alle Wege führen dahin, wieso und auf welche Weise schließlich trotz allem Hochzeit gefeiert wird.

Es ist erstaunlich, wie bildstark und atmosphärisch dicht diese Erzählung gewoben ist.

[aybikimben · Rating 5 out of 5]

AŞK ÖLÜM DEMEKSE NASIL GİDİLİR BİR DÜĞÜNE

[Fulya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derslerimde de okuttuğum Berger'den ilk kez bir kurgu okudum. Açıkçası şu anki tempomla takip etmesi son derece güç bir eser oldu. Anlatıcılar sürekli değişmekle birlikte, bir de üst anlatı girince işin içine kitap içinden çıkılmaz bir hal alıyor. Çok yakınlarımızdaki topraklardan bize benzeyen insanları anlatmış Berger, anlatımı yönünden eşsiz ama ilk defa bu kadar isteksizce bir Berger okudum.

[John Treat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am in awe. Some people will think this novel melodramatic, or even operatic; I don't. It is perfect. I had read Berger's nonfiction but never this novel. I will never forget the scene, near the end, when Jean, the signalman and Ninon's father, goes into the store to buy his daughter perfume. I thought I had finished the book, all broken inside myself, when I turned the page and learned that all royalties went to the Harlem United Community AIDS Center. Pieces shattered further.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind-blowingly GREAT: 6 stars or 7! Can't believe it took so long to find it, since I know Ways of Seeing (genius). On to the other essays, grateful!!!

[dip.oda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Farklıydı, çarpıcıydı, hayatın ta kendisiydi.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Qui sulla terra la gente cerca il bello perché gli ricorda vagamente il bene. Questo è l'unico motivo per cui esiste l'estetica. Ci ricorda qualcosa che non c'è più." (p. 116)

[(de)monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Îmi vine greu să numesc această lucrare o carte. Să spun că te cuprinde în universul ei nu ar fi doar un clișeu, ci ar fi ca și cum aș spune că am mușcat dintr-o supă. Cam la fel de lichidă e și povestea asta. Nu știi niciodată cine narează, ca atunci când ești într-un metrou aglomerat și prinzi frânturi de conversații. Nu am ajuns să cunosc vreun personaj, toate voiau să vorbească, despre pești, despre sida, despre broaște, despre iubire, despre motociclete. Toate aveau (erau?) viață. Și se împleteau, desigur, cu firul narativ al poveștii întrebările ce ne modelează existența, ce e iubirea, ce e moartea, ce e existența în sine. Dar, deși la final îmi devenise greu cerul gurii, se adunaseră norii de emoție, nu am plâns. Lucrarea nu îmi cerea și nici nu îmi dădea un răspuns la întrebări. Mi-a dat în schimb un răgaz să le contemplu și un imbold de a trăi și în afara “marilor răspunsuri”.

Foarte recunoscătoare că mi-a fost recomandată:)

[Tineke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magisch. Soms ondoorgrondelijk; ik ga het boek later nog eens lezen. Prachtige zinnen. En het eindigt in de mooiste streek van Italië, imo, waar de Po de zee in stroomt.

[Milan · Rating 4 out of 5]

É um livro muitas vezes frustrante de ler por ser algo disperso, mas, pelo meio, vai-nos dando alguns momentos que aquecem o coração. Vale a pena por ser um livro curto, mas principalmente porque nos faz refletir sobre a nossa mortalidade e a de quem amamos.