In the 1970s the English novelist and art critic John Berger moved to a rural community in the French Alps. Berger wanted to see peasant society firsthad, and to take part in their work as to better understand the challenges they face and the traditions they maintain. While there, he began writing a trilogy called "Into Their Labours" ("Others have laboured and ye are entered into their labours" - John 4:38). PIG EARTH, published in 1979, was the first volume. ONCE IN EUROPA is the second.While referred to as a novel, it is really a collection of several short stories and one novella. These share a similar setting but do not overlap in plot or characters. Unlike in the first volume, there are no poems interspersed between the stories, and there is no historical afterword at the end.As in PIG EARTH, Berger's peasants are not jolly people wearing stainless national costumes and singing about how good life is. Rather, they are draw as people whose lives mix joy and sorrow evenly, and the conditions in which they live--packed in a room with livestock, urinating openly, drinking in abundance, butchering livestock--are straightfowardly presented. While Berger is generally known for his Marxist views, he thankfully injects no inflammatory rhetoric into his fiction, and in fact at one point it is suggested that Communism can only destroy peasant life.The theme of this second volume of "Into Their Labours" is the confrontation between peasant life and modernity. In the first story, a man finds it impossible to marry because most of the young girls have moved away to the cities. In the second, a prominent village man is ruined because of his love for a con artist city woman. The longest story shows how factory work completely destroys peasant customs and breaks people off from their traditions, depriving them of community and turning them into machines.All in all, I found this volume a disappointment. As a linguist who often visits rural areas in Europe for fieldwork, I enjoy reading about peasant societies in the modern world, but about halfway into the second volume of this series, I found Berger's writing style repetitive and dry. Anyone who has lived in a village could tell you that even a tiny community has a whole world of events and intrigues going on, but Berger sticks mainly to the same thematic material of relationships between men and women. At least the poetry is generally gone, though one poor poem is placed on the very last page. I doubt now that I would move on LILAC AND FLAG, the last book in the trilogy.
This is another truly great book. How can someone write so sparely and convey so much feeling and experience? Berger is a genius. Also, reading the book today (Jan 2) I read a story where the main character, an eccentric, difficult, love-obsessed farmer, dies on January 2. One of those coincidences that takes me aback! The specificity of the date in and of itself is remarkable in the writing, and then...it's today?!?!--notes on finishing--I have to pick up copies of these Berger books--there is so much beauty there, and I know I'll want to re-read.
What do You think about Once In Europa (2011)?
Slightly disappointing compared to the first volume, just because the stories here are much less varied in tone, style and theme. That said, the novella from which the collection takes its name is stunning, and I'm sure I'll be returning to it. It's hard to write love stories that I want to read, but with 'Once in Europa,' (the story), Berger succeeds. Otherwise, I like the 'modernity comes to the country' focus here, particularly in the short, final story, which somehow combines references to Gramsci with a love story.
—Justin Evans
John Berger's writing bleeds invisibly. This is one of the first books that has made me cry in a very long time. It is simple and beautiful, unscathed by the presence of today's technology. It shows the death of culture and the pain industrialization and factories have brought society. The imagery is beautiful. Animals and different types of trees are significant and important. Some of my favorite quotes:"Men aren't beautiful. Nothing has to stay in them. Nothing has to be attracted by any peace they offer. So they're not beautiful. Men have been given another power. They burn. They give off light and warmth. Sometimes they turn night into day. Often they destroy everything. Ashes are men's stuff. Milk is ours.""Do you know what hell is?Do you?Hell is where bottles have two holes and women have none""His face fitted into her breast like a gun into is case lined with velvet.""He slept with his fist in his mouth and that night he dreamed.""When the axe comes into the forest, the trees say: Look! The handle is one of us!"
—Diana Matei
