They showed John Berger on the television last night. First as a young man. Last as the old man he was when they filmed him. He has a new book out. To do with Spinoza, the philosopher who was also a lens maker. Lenses for telescopes and microscopes. Telescopes and microscopes, both, change our perception of the world around us. The distance view is brought into focus. The utter closeup shows us life as we could never see it of ourselves unaided. 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
Saturday 28 May 2011
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