Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Self-indulgent and drab - it hasn't stood the test of time, 23 Jun 2007
Originally published in 1972 and set mostly in the early 1900s, this book now qualifies as nostalgia in two different ways.
The story is not particularly new, the tale of a rich Don Juan/Casanova-style character drifting and seducing directionlessly through Europe supported by and yet eventually condemned by the liberal company he finds himself in.
The writing style is of a kind when in 1972 would still have been seen as revolutionary. It has broken narrative, unconventional mixing of first- and third-person for both interior thoughts and exterior actions, and of course it is sexually explicit in parts, including a handful of crude (in two ways) drawings inserted into the text for no particular reason. What may have been seen as challenging 'new lit' and worthy of the Booker Prize on its first publication now comes across as a bit messy, self-indulgent, even childish.
The worst thing about the book is the author's tendency to forget that he is writing fiction and write whole pages of sub-Freudian cod-psychoanalysis, particularly to do with sex. It's empty, interrupts the story, and in some places is simply sexism dressed up.
The partly redeeming aspects of the book, for me, were the characters. The women in the book were certainly not as one-dimensional as they could have been. But that wasn't enough to make me think of this book as worth praise.
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26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
A strange choice by the Booker judges, 26 Jan 2003
This is the kind of book that only through the title was I able to remember the hero's name. Its concentration on the priviliged lives of the European genteel and descriptions of vastly dull sex scenes left me cold. It seemed that all the action was happening off stage- the few glipses of trench warfare were the only engaging and moving passages in the book.
Berger's writing suffers from his insitance on "explaining" things but not enough so they are at all understandable. In this repect G seems very much a book for those who like their books to say something about them whilst they gather dust on the shelves. If G is supposed to represent the old order I think the old order was very boring indeed.
The final few chapters involving Nusa, the Slovene- started to become interesting- she was the only character I had any sympahty with.
Fortunatly there are frequent gaps in the paragraphs in this book so you can roughly tell where you were if you drop off to sleep. If you like a book where pretentious people talk about nothing to each other and need an antidote to any kind of passion in sex then this may be the book for you. If you don't then I suggest you read a more worthy booker prize novel- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, a modern classic.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Beautiful, Sensual, 16 May 2001
I have read quite a few Berger books, including (of course) his Ways of Seeing, and the Into Their Labours Trilogy... This one is by far my favourite. The language is superb (as always) - Berger really shows you what the protagonist is dealing with throughout his life. I don't want to give away too much, here...But this is an extremely passionate and sensual story riddled with historical and psychological controversy. Don't miss out.
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