The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza-generally known as Benedict (or Bento) de Spinoza-spent the most intense years of his short life writing. A keen draughtsman, he also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notes, but apparently didn't find a sketchbook. Or, if they did, it was subsequently lost. For years, John Berger has imagined Bento's sketchbook being found, not knowing what he hoped to find in it, but wanting to reread his words while being able to look at the things Bento had seen with his own eyes. When one day a friend gave John a blank sketchbook he began to draw: not like a seventeenth-century Dutch amateur, nor to try and illustrate Bento's thoughts, but drawing, in Spinoza's company, from life today, and telling stories and asking questions. A book of images and words, Bento's Sketchbook is an exploration of the practice of drawing, about where and to what it leads. It is, too, a beautiful, clear-sighted meditation on how we perceive, and seek to explain, our ever-changing relationship with the world around us.
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I admire and love John Berger's books. He writes about what is important, not just interesting. In contemporary English letters, he seems to me peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to the imperatives of conscience. He is a wonderful artist and thinker. --Susan Sontag
About the Author
Storyteller, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, dramatist and critic, John Berger is one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. His many books include Ways of Seeing, the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours, Here Is Where We Meet, the Booker Prize-winning novel G, and, most recently, the Man Booker-longlisted From A to X. He lives in France.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Paul Bowes
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
'Bento's Sketchbook' is John Berger's imagined recreation of the lost sketchbook of Baruch Spinoza, also known as Benedict or Bento. It is, of course, not a literal recreation - the real thing vanished on Spinoza's death and we have no idea of its contents - but an imaginative device that enables an attempt to bring together three aspects of Berger's own practice: drawing, reasoning, and the telling of stories.
The book is constructed of three elements: Berger's drawings; quotations from the works of Spinoza; and Berger's prose reflections, which revolve around the art of perception and the practice of drawing, the lives of persons he has met and others he has encountered only in paintings or the pages of books. Stitching these disparate elements together is the armature of Berger's view of the world, which is profoundly political and yet humane; and Spinoza's conviction that the world is a single timeless substance, in which all experience is potentially available simultaneously. The result is a meditation on human experience that approaches certain religious perspectives without explicitly invoking the divine.
'Bento's Sketchbook' is a relatively brief book, but the mosaic or collage structure, which forces the reader to move between reading and seeing and thinking, encourages a slow encounter and frequent pauses for reflection. Berger is less impressive as a draughtsman than as a writer; but there is a resonance between text and images that amplifies both.
Not perhaps the place, then, to begin with Berger. But readers already familiar with the cast of his mind will find this a characteristic and satisfying book.
The book is constructed of three elements: Berger's drawings; quotations from the works of Spinoza; and Berger's prose reflections, which revolve around the art of perception and the practice of drawing, the lives of persons he has met and others he has encountered only in paintings or the pages of books. Stitching these disparate elements together is the armature of Berger's view of the world, which is profoundly political and yet humane; and Spinoza's conviction that the world is a single timeless substance, in which all experience is potentially available simultaneously. The result is a meditation on human experience that approaches certain religious perspectives without explicitly invoking the divine.
'Bento's Sketchbook' is a relatively brief book, but the mosaic or collage structure, which forces the reader to move between reading and seeing and thinking, encourages a slow encounter and frequent pauses for reflection. Berger is less impressive as a draughtsman than as a writer; but there is a resonance between text and images that amplifies both.
Not perhaps the place, then, to begin with Berger. But readers already familiar with the cast of his mind will find this a characteristic and satisfying book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Fen
Format:Hardcover
"if we imagine the stories being told across the world tonight and consider the outcome, I believe we'll find two main categories: those whose narratives are emphasising something essential that is hidden, and those which emphasise something revealed" - p.72.
- This book does both.
- This book does both.
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By David W. Sim
Format:Hardcover
"Lace is a kind of white writing which you can only read when there's skin behind it"
Wow. Another masterpiece of observation, drawing and emotional consciousness.
Truly through the door of human perception.
Wow. Another masterpiece of observation, drawing and emotional consciousness.
Truly through the door of human perception.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Ronseal
A long while ago I too was introduced to 'Ways of Seeing' which delivered exactly what it 'says on the tin'. I can't say that of 'Bento's Sketchbook'. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Alembisque
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing but I deserved it!
I found John Berger's earlier books - especially Ways of Seeing - inspirational but this one is not. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Pat Bournville School of Art
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