Hope and Defeat

John Berger had one of the longest and richest lives among British writers, but he never quite made it to 100. In his absence, the centenary of his birth this year sees a flurry of publications and republications. Verso have put out a, so far, thirteen-volume series of reprints and new editions; Tom Overton’s long-awaited biography is due in the autumn; and a series of illustrated books have been published or republished by Objectif, run by the filmmaker, artist and Berger collaborator John Christie. Among these is a new book that is perhaps the strangest of the anniversary publications: Four Horizons, an account of Berger and Christie’s journey to Le Corbusier’s Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, in the company of two Benedictine nuns from Connecticut. One quality of Berger’s later works – off-putting to some – was a certain folksy soulfulness, and this account of an actual pilgrimage brings out especially sharply what is both significant and frustrating in the writer’s voluminous late works.