John Berger - G.

Until that moment I do not think he foresaw the exact circumstances of his own death. Certain doubts or hopes must have remained. Perhaps death when it arrives is always a mounting surprise which surprises itself to the point at which all reference — and therefore all self-distinction — disappears.

They struck him on the back of his head. He fainted. The taste of milk is the cloud of unknowing. They supported him, moved forward a few inches and then dropped him feet first into the salt water.

The sun is low in the sky and the sea is calm. Like a mirror as they say. Only it is not like a mirror. The waves which are scarcely waves, for they come and go in many different directions and their rising and falling is barely perceptible, are made up of innumerable tiny surfaces at variegating angles to one another — of these surfaces those which reflect the sunlight straight into one’s eyes, sparkle with a white light during the instant before their angle, relative to oneself and the sun, shifts and they merge again into the blackish blue of the rest of the sea. Each time the light lasts for no longer than a spark stays bright when shot out from a fire. But as the sea recedes towards the sun, the number of sparkling surfaces multiplies until the sea indeed looks somewhat like a silver mirror. But unlike a mirror it is not still. Its granular surface is in continual agitation. The further away the ricochetting grains, of which the mass become silver and the visibly distinct minority a dark leaden colour, the greater is their apparent speed. Uninterruptedly receding towards the sun, the transmission of its reflexions becoming ever faster, the sea neither requires nor recognizes any limit. The horizon is the straight bottom edge of a curtain arbitrarily and suddenly lowered upon a performance.

Geneva. Paris. Bonnieux

1965–1971

John Berger, born in London in 1926, is well known as a novelist, screenwriter, documentary writer, and art critic. His books include The Sense of Sight, About Looking, The Success and Failure of Picasso, Ways of Seeing, Art and Revolution , and the award-winning novel G. , among many others.

He now lives and works in a small French peasant community. This milieu is the setting for Pig Earth and Once in Europa , the first two volumes of the Into Their Labours trilogy, that concludes with Lilac and Flag .