I eagerly took it, and later that day when I turned to page one, my jaw hit the floor.īerger’s essay “Miners” is a tiny thing, barely more than a page. Providentially, a copy of Berger’s essay collection Keeping a Rendezvous came into my hands-one of those who owed Berger so much wanted to share it with me. There is a special kind of passionate, self-abnegating community that can form around great artists and their works, and to be caught up in it is so powerful. On the day Berger left us, so many people came out to honor this author who had elevated their lives, and I was moved. So, when this incomparably limber, truthful mind died on January 2, at 90 years of age, having lived just long enough to see the waste that two noble democracies had been put to, I knew it was time to start again with him. Ever since then I knew Berger had much more to tell me. It’s one of those rare books whose pages I can still remember turning, underlining almost every single word. I had always meant to start reading Berger again, for when I was much younger Ways of Seeing changed the way I saw everything. It’s the sort of essay that I instantly knew had changed the way I think, and about which I expect to continue thinking for a very long time. Day to day I find myself touching its polished, textured enamel like a talisman, a good luck charm at a time when I really need one. I recently read an essay that has not left my mind.
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