Best Friends [Paperback]

It's not a funny book at all. There are the occasional ironic comments on contemporary mores. There are the beginnings of a farcical situation near the beginning -- but the misunderstanding is quickly cleared up. The plot does have the usual elements of intervening chance and its ramifications -- but more that of Greek tragedy than farce.

It's a precise, quiet book, the calibration of human interactions, the nuances of character, the contextual hovering and impingement of judgments about right and wrong. One of the reader's jobs is to keep his distance from the protagonist's point of view, especially at one point late in the novel when his passion and that point of view completely overwhelm him -- and, potentially and all too easily, the reader's judgment. Berger, however, immaculately keeps his own cool.

I still don't know for sure what the cover art has to do with anything. Nothing directly in the book, certainly. Though I'll admit that it does FEEL right. I just went to the Amazon illustration. Assuming that Berger had something to do with the choice, my guess is that the cover is meant to be redolent of a sex farce, in which one person picks up a key for an untoward assignation in a room in an out-of-the-way country inn. Part of the spirit of the book but in no way revealing what actual happens.

In considering all of Berger's work, I'm beginning to think that we approach it much too much with, say, "The Feud" in mind as its exemplar -- because farcical comedy is such an easy pleasure. Taken as a whole, though, Berger is much more a rather serious social commentator --.and, of course, he's spread widely over so many genres.

In any case, I'm gasping at the power and perfection of "Best Friends". I'd like to wish it would get him and the rest of his work more recognition -- and get lots more of the books back into print so that they CAN be recognized! But I doubt that this book could ever do it. It's too much another "Something Happened" -- not what people are going to want to confront.

The reviews will be interesting. And it must be kept in mind that my positive evaluation of Berger's nuances and judgments IS my own. Another person could easily argue that Berger is wrong from top to bottom and that his values are misplaced.

I've read much Berger over the years and argue that this must be one of his best novels in part because it relies on less slapstick than previous efforts and instead relies on complex characters and highly ambiguous situations so that the reader is constantly amazed by the novel's twists and turns.

In this novel Berger examines the meaning of the term "best friend." Sam, fat and whiny, has been best friends with Roy, fit and aloof, since their childhood days. Over the course of a few days Roy comes to examine not only the nature of his friendship with Sam, but also the way he leads his life.

Berger's prose, always cool, achieves here a new level of refinement and precision. By the end of the book you know Roy and his world intimately without being overwhelmed with verbiosity. While Roy experiences a spectrum of events and emotions that could fill a lifetime, the reader never feels that any of what happens is implausible, such is the deftness of Berger's touch.

Hopefully, this work will bring critical attention back to Berger who has been for too long ignored. His clear-eyed view of people and their ways (as well as his incredible prose style) is ripe for rediscovery.

Only caveat: there is a huge editing error at the end of the novel. Someone should have caught the inconsistency.