Here Is Where We Meet: A Story of Crossing Paths [Paperback]

John Berger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2006

One of the most widely admired writers of our time returns us to the captivating play and narrative allure of his previous novels–G. and To the Wedding among them–with a shimmering fiction drawn from chapters of his own life.One hot afternoon in Lisbon, the narrator finds his long-dead mother seated on a park bench. “The dead don’t stay where they are buried,” she tells him. And so begins a remarkable odyssey, told in simple yet gorgeous prose, that carries us from the London Blitz in 1943, to a Polish market, to a Paleolithic cave, to the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. Here Is Where We Meet is a unique literary journey that moves freely through time and space but never loses its foothold in the sensuous present.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A work of narrative art that is a fusion of all the forms he has mastered. . . . Berger once again is our guide to being truly present in life." –The Seattle Times & Post-Intelligencer

"A wonderful memoir/meditation/fiction, a vehemently personal sojourn through space and time that is almost as beautifully unclassifiable as Calvino's Invisible Cities." –Buffalo News

"Either an autobiographical fiction, a fictional autobiography, or maybe a hybrid of breviary, consecration, and ancestor worship; in any case, quite brilliant." –Harper's

" Berger unpacks a lifetime of living and dreaming into a series of inventive travelogues. . . . This is writing as art and armchair travel for those who love to get lost in the moment." –Kansas City Star

About the Author

John Berger is a novelist, storyteller, poet, screenwriter, and art critic. His previous books include the Into Their Labours trilogy (Pig Earth, Once in Europa, and Lilac and Flag), About Looking, and Ways of Seeing (all available in paperback from Vintage Books). He was awarded the Booker Prize for G. and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lannan Foundation. Born in England, he has for many years lived in a small rural community in France.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400079330
• ISBN-13: 978-1400079339
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,033,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reminiscences through meetings with "living ghosts"., December 27, 2010

By 

Kiwifunlad (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Here Is Where We Meet: A Story of Crossing Paths (Paperback)

John, the narrator, meets his mother in Lisbon 15 years after her death and a place she never went to when alive. John then meets up in a number of places all over Europe with people from his past but who are now dead. The meetings are all very realistic and the dead characters interact in a very realistic and "alive" manner. While each chapter has a separate tale the constant figure of the narrator holds the common thread. I much preferred this book to Roth's Everyman as it looked on death in a positive way and unlike Roth's bitter narrator, John here recalled everything in an uplifting and poignant manner. There is an interlude in the middle of the book where Berger uses his literary skills to conjure up wonderful descriptions of several types of fruit. The longest chapter at the end, finds John in a small Polish village making sorrel soup for a newly-wed couple and beautifully brings the book to a conclusion like the reaffirmation of life. This is a subtle book and lacking in plot and action but for me an enjoyable reading experience.