The Terrain is used as a dump. Smashed lorries. Old boilers. Broken washing machines. Rotary lawn mowers. Refrigerators which don't make cold any more. Wash basins which are cracked. There are also bushes and small trees and tough flowers like pheasant's-eye and viper's-grass.
In John Berger's powerful novel King, the Terrain is also home to a small community of the dispossessed. Here, a stone's throw from a highway somewhere in France, in shelters constructed out of detritus, live Jack and Marcello, old Corinna and Liberto, Joachim and Anna, and Danny and Saul. Here also live Vica and Vico, an elderly couple (and couples are a rarity among the homeless) and their dog, King. It is King who narrates this day-in-the-life narrative, and Berger has endowed him with the ability to understand and be understood: Lying beside the chestnut brazier, something came to me between the ears: the world is so bad, God has to exist. I asked Vico what he thought. 'Most people,' he said quickly, 'would draw the opposite conclusion.'
What makes King such a singular creation is that despite his philosophical bent and communicative skills, there is nothing anthropomorphic about him. He thinks, behaves, and reacts like a dog, albeit a dog who ponders the existence of the Almighty. Animals are not sentimental, and neither is Berger. His human characters are irrevocably damaged, their lives verge on the unbearable, and their attempts to create family and community at the edges of society are eventually thwarted. There can be no happy ending to this street story, but Berger is after something bigger than making his readers feel good. Instead he shines a spotlight on a world we would prefer to ignore, using the love that Vica, Vico, and King feel for each other to illuminate a humanity that is all too often overlooked. King is not an easy book to read, but it is impossible to forget. --Alix Wilber
King. By John Berger
When I received this book from a friend, he warned me that the end was devastating. In its way, it is. But the entire thing is a work of wonder. Empathy doesn't get much more exacting than this, and the late John Berger brought precisely the right touch to the proceedings. King. By John Berger ni le entendí nada King. By John Berger http://www.edebiyathaber.net/yoksullu...
King. By John Berger Génial, brillant, beau, touchant. King. By John Berger Eğer bir sanatçının yazdığı romanı okuyorsanız, sinematografik tasvirleri koklayarak beyninizde canlandırırsınız. King. By John Berger
Çok şahsi bir üslubu ve dili var. Bir şeylerin başka bir şeylerin üzerine devrilmesiyle ilerliyor hikaye. Unutma ve aklından bir türlü çıkaramama arasında bocalayıp kalmış bir halde sayıklayıp duran bir anlatı.
John Berger deyince akla ilk gelen Görme Biçimleri oluyor, hatta neredeyse her tür okur kitlesini kapsayan bir popülerliği var kitabın ama bu ün Görme Biçimleri'ne sıkışıp kalmış, yazarı aşmış, toz toprak altında bırakmış gibi. Oysa John Berger tanınması gereken bir yazar bana kalırsa. Karşıma her çıktığında farklı bir çehreye bürünüyor, beni şaşırtıyor ve heyecanlandırıyor. Tanıdıkça seviyor, sevdikçe daha çok tanımak istiyorum. King. By John Berger John Berger has a sparse, uncomplicated, writing style, and the matter-of-fact way he discloses unexpected details can be devastating. For example, on the second page you are jolted with this:
A month ago a gang of kids poured petrol over an old man
who was sleeping in a street behind the Central Station
and then they threw a match on to him. He woke up in flames.
The book chronicles the events of a single day in the life of a homeless couple called Vica and Vico, as seen through the eyes of King - a stray dog who befriends them and follows them around. He becomes their companion and our narrator. King tells us how his previous companion Luc committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. Then he describes the community of down-and-outs living on the 'scrap mountain' called Saint Valery, somewhere near a motorway in somewhen France, on which they eke out their existence scavenging. Saint Valery may be chosen as the site of a new Olympic Stadium, in which case contractors will move in and bulldoze their world...
This is an unforgettable book. It surprises you, moves you, and pricks your conscience. I'm ashamed to admit that one reason it caught me by surprise is that Vica and Vico aren't a pair of young drug addicts, they are an elderly couple, married for thirty years, who used to have a 'normal' life (whatever that means) but have ended up on this human scrapheap following redundancy. To society's shame, they are redundant. This is a day in the life of people literally living on a scrapheap, struggling to survive. As details of their lives are revealed, and their devotion to each other shines through, it breaks your heart. Even to be allowed to stay on the scrapheap they have to pay - and in order to raise the money, Vico sells his last possession, a camera...
Do you want to know the photos I've taken with the camera you are holding in your hands? asks Vico.
We are not interested says the shopkeeper.
Is he including us, the readers, in that we? Are we interested in the life story of a 'tramp'? Do we care? This is the book that made me realize why so many homeless people seem to have dogs. it's because stray dogs recognize them as fellow outcasts. And because dogs don't discriminate - they see the human beings we choose not to, and befriend them.
This may not be the greatest novel of all time, but it is full of simple humanity and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity; and the way it haunts me and keeps drawing me back to re-read it make it one of my favourite books of all-time.
{Adapted from a review I posted on ciao.co.uk in March 2001} King. By John Berger Hikayeye ve anlatıma bayıldım. Kral'ın gözünden sokaklar, insanlar, hayat, acılar, sevinçler. Bu kitabı bana ısrarla okutmaya çalışan, hatta dayanamayıp alan harika insan. Üç sene rötarla da olsa okudum. Ha derseniz ki sokaklar, acı, sefalet, dostluk, ayakta kalma mücadelesi okumak istemiyorum. O zaman başka kapıya...
Saygılar. King. By John Berger Mükemmel bir kurgu, hayatın içinden bir konu, can alıcı saptamalar ve bunlara uygun betimlemeler ve daha bir sürü güzel edebiyat olayları... Büyük binaların göz koyduğu bir gecekondu-yıkıntılar mahallesindeki hayat ve yıkımın başlaması anlatılıyor.
“Kral” isimli bir köpek anlatıcımız, ama Kral bunu “insanca, pek insanca” anlatıyor. John Berger iyiki sanat tarihi eleştirmenliğinden öykü-roman, deneme yazarlığına “evrilmiş”.
Lütfen okuma listenize alın. King. By John Berger Ömrünü insanlığın barbarlıktan tam olarak nasıl ve hangi aşamalarla çıktığı bulmacasını çözmeye çalışarak geçirdi. King. By John Berger