Customer Reviews

Once in Europa (Granta Paperbacks)

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This book is part of trilogy - Pig Earth, In Europa, Lilac and Flag - depicting the erosion of traditional peasant culture and the incorporation of the children of the peasantry into modern urban life. Taken together, these books comprise a kind of fictionalized sociology of modernization. Each of these books describes a different aspect of this process. The first book, Pig Earth, describes the traditional life of poor French peasants from the Savoy region. Pig Earth is a series of stories and poems showing the seasonal routine of labor, the close relationship of other aspects of peasant life to seasonal labors, and relatively closed nature of these communities. The latter is shown to have both positive and negative aspects, a combination of social solidarity and insularity. The second book, Once In Europa, is a series of stories showing the penetration of modern industrial civilization into the life of the peasantry and recounts some of the costs, and benefits, of this process. The last book, Lilac and Flag, is set in a mythical city, called Troy, which has aspects of many modern cities. Lilac and Flag describes the life of a young couple, the descendents of poor peasants, who now live a marginal existence in the metropolis of Troy. Overall, this is a successful set of books. Berger is a very talented writer and this set of books gives a vivid sense of the important transition from peasant life on the land to modern industrial civilization. Berger's attempt to depict this important social process is really admirable. The books do vary somewhat in quality. In Europa is probably the best, containing a number of powerful stories, with Pig Earth coming a close second. Lilac and Flag is probably the least effective. The style, presumably a correlate of the urban setting, is distinctly different and the plot has surreal elements. I suspect that Lilac and Flag will strike many readers as relatively familiar and conventional where the contents of Pig Earth and In Europa are relatively novel. If I were to read just one of these books, I would pick Once In Europa.

It is important to realize that Berger is describing the tail of a process with roots in the Renaissance and that accelerated tremendously in the 19th century. The traditional life described in Pig Earth is actually a life that has been greatly affected by industrial civilization. Many men in the community described by Berger participate in seasonal labor in large cities, there is compulsory primary education, and the local church has a strong influence. Other aspects of the modern world intrude themselves. These include military service, railroads and it is likely that farm products are produced for an international market. In the early or even mid-19th century, a community like this would have been completely geographically isolated, illiterate, and probably would speak a language distinct from French. There are some other fine books devoted to this topic. Eugen Weber's excellent Peasants into Frenchman is a very interesting and readable social history of the impact of the modern world on the French peasantry. A detailed view of French peasant life can be found in Pierre Helias The Horse of Pride, a combined ethnography and memoir about a Breton peasant community written by a scholar who was the son of Breton peasants.

"Once In Europa ", is the middle portion of Mr. Berger's, "Into Their Labours Trilogy". The first volume documented the peasant life of an Alpine Village in great detail including the slaughtering of animals that would cause a migration of meat-eaters to vegetarians if we all had to prepare our food from the field through to the kitchen. The trilogy is meant to document the disappearance of the peasant culture and it is this volume where events take hold that cause permanent irretrievable change.

Until the advent of large mechanized urban centers and the factories that required masses of people, the Alpine Culture was safe if for no other reason than the alternatives were virtually nonexistent. Human nature not only gravitates to those opportunities that offer a seemingly better life, it also tends to be blind to the negatives that are a part of this perceived improvement. At the outset of the new choices the ignorance of the first to leave is understandable, benefits are advertised, the dangers the changes also hold are not spoken of. So the youth, the future of any Society leave for promises of a very short workweek compared to the round the clock life that a farm requires. Youth too is drawn to all the supposed wonders of the Metropolis with visions more grand than the reality.

And the end begins, women looking for a better future marry outside the village, men too find spouses from the cities. Those that are left behind are the most determined to maintain their way of life, or they are the damaged ones as judged by society, women who are widowed with children, men who have been horribly maimed in the factories. Mr. Berger also records a story where the invasion of change takes a physical presence with a factory all but engulfing a man who refuses to part with the family farm despite the ever-increasing money the company offers for his land. This happens even as the whole area is poisoned by the pollution the factory emits, and the social destruction that arrives in the form of imported prostitutes for the workers who now live in communal barracks as opposed to their homes.

By the end of this second work it is hard to imagine what further fall awaits what has already happened to those who once lived a difficult but not necessarily more troublesome life. This book is sad and depressing. The final chapter will be pure tragedy.

The long title story of this collection, "Once in Europa," is one of the best pieces of fiction I have ever read. Told from the point of view of a mother who is hang-gliding with her only son, the reader gets to hang-glide over the beautiful, sad, heartbreaking, ultimately redeeming landscape of her life. Berger is truly a master.

In the 1970s the English novelist and art critic John Berger moved to a rural community in the French Alps. Berger wanted to see peasant society firsthad, and to take part in their work as to better understand the challenges they face and the traditions they maintain. While there, he began writing a trilogy called "Into Their Labours" ("Others have laboured and ye are entered into their labours" - John 4:38). Pig Earth, published in 1979, was the first volume. ONCE IN EUROPA is the second.

While referred to as a novel, it is really a collection of several short stories and one novella. These share a similar setting but do not overlap in plot or characters. Unlike in the first volume, there are no poems interspersed between the stories, and there is no historical afterword at the end.

As in PIG EARTH, Berger's peasants are not jolly people wearing stainless national costumes and singing about how good life is. Rather, they are draw as people whose lives mix joy and sorrow evenly, and the conditions in which they live--packed in a room with livestock, urinating openly, drinking in abundance, butchering livestock--are straightfowardly presented. While Berger is generally known for his Marxist views, he thankfully injects no inflammatory rhetoric into his fiction, and in fact at one point it is suggested that Communism can only destroy peasant life.

The theme of this second volume of "Into Their Labours" is the confrontation between peasant life and modernity. In the first story, a man finds it impossible to marry because most of the young girls have moved away to the cities. In the second, a prominent village man is ruined because of his love for a con artist city woman. The longest story shows how factory work completely destroys peasant customs and breaks people off from their traditions, depriving them of community and turning them into machines.

All in all, I found this volume a disappointment. As a linguist who often visits rural areas in Europe for fieldwork, I enjoy reading about peasant societies in the modern world, but about halfway into the second volume of this series, I found Berger's writing style repetitive and dry. Anyone who has lived in a village could tell you that even a tiny community has a whole world of events and intrigues going on, but Berger sticks mainly to the same thematic material of relationships between men and women. At least the poetry is generally gone, though one poor poem is placed on the very last page. I doubt now that I would move on Lilac and Flag, the last book in the trilogy.

I love Berger's slimmed down narrative in this collection of short stories. The premise of each -- hardened characters scrapping to get by in tiny European farming villages -- reflected the narrative style perfectly. Charming.

In the 1970s the English novelist and art critic John Berger moved to a rural community in the French Alps. Berger wanted to see peasant society firsthad, and to take part in their work as to better understand the challenges they face and the traditions they maintain. While there, he began writing a trilogy called "Into Their Labours" ("Others have laboured and ye are entered into their labours" - John 4:38). Pig Earth, published in 1979, was the first volume. ONCE IN EUROPA is the second.

While referred to as a novel, it is really a collection of several short stories and one novella. These share a similar setting but do not overlap in plot or characters. Unlike in the first volume, there are no poems interspersed between the stories, and there is no historical afterword at the end.

As in PIG EARTH, Berger's peasants are not jolly people wearing stainless national costumes and singing about how good life is. Rather, they are draw as people whose lives mix joy and sorrow evenly, and the conditions in which they live--packed in a room with livestock, urinating openly, drinking in abundance, butchering livestock--are straightfowardly presented. While Berger is generally known for his Marxist views, he thankfully injects no inflammatory rhetoric into his fiction, and in fact at one point it is suggested that Communism can only destroy peasant life.

The theme of this second volume of "Into Their Labours" is the confrontation between peasant life and modernity. In the first story, a man finds it impossible to marry because most of the young girls have moved away to the cities. In the second, a prominent village man is ruined because of his love for a con artist city woman. The longest story shows how factory work completely destroys peasant customs and breaks people off from their traditions, depriving them of community and turning them into machines.

All in all, I found this volume a disappointment. As a linguist who often visits rural areas in Europe for fieldwork, I enjoy reading about peasant societies in the modern world, but about halfway into the second volume of this series, I found Berger's writing style repetitive and dry. Anyone who has lived in a village could tell you that even a tiny community has a whole world of events and intrigues going on, but Berger sticks mainly to the same thematic material of relationships between men and women. At least the poetry is generally gone, though one poor poem is placed on the very last page. I doubt now that I would move on Lilac and Flag, the last book in the trilogy.

In the 1970s the English novelist and art critic John Berger moved to a rural community in the French Alps. Berger wanted to see peasant society firsthad, and to take part in their work as to better understand the challenges they face and the traditions they maintain. While there, he began writing a trilogy called "Into Their Labours" ("Others have laboured and ye are entered into their labours" - John 4:38). Pig Earth, published in 1979, was the first volume. ONCE IN EUROPA is the second.

While referred to as a novel, it is really a collection of several short stories and one novella. These share a similar setting but do not overlap in plot or characters. Unlike in the first volume, there are no poems interspersed between the stories, and there is no historical afterword at the end.

As in PIG EARTH, Berger's peasants are not jolly people wearing stainless national costumes and singing about how good life is. Rather, they are draw as people whose lives mix joy and sorrow evenly, and the conditions in which they live--packed in a room with livestock, urinating openly, drinking in abundance, butchering livestock--are straightfowardly presented. While Berger is generally known for his Marxist views, he thankfully injects no inflammatory rhetoric into his fiction, and in fact at one point it is suggested that Communism can only destroy peasant life.

The theme of this second volume of "Into Their Labours" is the confrontation between peasant life and modernity. In the first story, a man finds it impossible to marry because most of the young girls have moved away to the cities. In the second, a prominent village man is ruined because of his love for a con artist city woman. The longest story shows how factory work completely destroys peasant customs and breaks people off from their traditions, depriving them of community and turning them into machines.

All in all, I found this volume a disappointment. As a linguist who often visits rural areas in Europe for fieldwork, I enjoy reading about peasant societies in the modern world, but about halfway into the second volume of this series, I found Berger's writing style repetitive and dry. Anyone who has lived in a village could tell you that even a tiny community has a whole world of events and intrigues going on, but Berger sticks mainly to the same thematic material of relationships between men and women. At least the poetry is generally gone, though one poor poem is placed on the very last page. I doubt now that I would move on Lilac and Flag, the last book in the trilogy.

I read this book in a Spanish translation and found some of the stories difficult. However the third story,"In the age of cosmonauts", is a haunting love story, with a wonderful feeling for nature, for how love appears at different ages, and for the power of unexpressed emotions. It is a story that comes back to my memory constantly, and has led me to read it over and again.