John Berger's Ways of Seeing comes immediately to hand thanks to the bookcase in the hall. I take it from the shelf. There is a layer of dust on the book's upper edge. I wonder if I ever read the text before. I associate it with episodes in my use of the Leica in Sydney. But this cannot be. I noted my purchase on the flyleaf. The place was Oxford. The date was 1 July 1980.
I did not know he was a Marxist. I'm not sure I really know what being a Marxist is. I do wonder if, in some arcane roundabout way, this is a commentary on the places of men and of women in society. A response, inter alia, to the feminism of the early 1970s when the television series, which preceded the printed book, was transmitted. Or does he simply reflect on the state of society as he sees it?
francis cameron, oxford, 28 may 2011
