John Berger: Ways of Learning

Retired physician Heath (Matters of Life and Death) expounds on how English art critic John Berger’s writings have influenced her life in the soulful latest entry in Oxford’s My Reading series. Tracing the arc of her friendship with Berger, Heath recounts first reaching out to him in 1998 to ask him to give a lecture at the Royal College of General Practitioners, after which the two kept in touch, exchanging letters on their favorite pieces of art, Berger’s despair over his wife’s terminal illness, and the power of compassion. Heath credits Berger’s A Fortunate Man, his 1967 report on a country doctor’s work, with inspiring her to go into general practice. She also draws lessons from Berger’s art criticism, including his contention that cubism’s mishmash of perspectives forces viewers to confront the incompleteness of their own subjective viewpoint, from which Heath extrapolates that doctors should be more humble and take seriously patients’ interpretations of their own illnesses, even when they don’t track conventional medical wisdom. Berger’s letters to Heath, excerpted at length here, offer an intimate look at the revered writer, and the meditations on how his art criticism influenced Heath’s outlook on medicine show how readers sometimes use texts in ways the author never anticipated. Fans of Berger will appreciate the close-up portrait of the man behind the work. (Dec.)