Pig Earth

Name: Pig Earth
ISBN: 9787559820099

约翰·伯格 / 周成林Guangxi Normal University Press · ChinaNov 2019

4.2

Word count: 96K words
Chapters: 21
ISBN: 9787559820099

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Summary

In 1979, following A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor (1967) and A Seventh Man: Migrant Workers in Europe (1975), John Berger began his "Their Labours" trilogy, chronicling a century of migration from Europe's mountain villages to the great cities. Pig Earth is the first volume. Set in a small Alpine village in France, it gives us a cast of characters: the men hard-working and suspicious, the women independent. Berger writes of newborn calves and pigs awaiting slaughter, of haymaking in summer and rest through the long, dark winters. He records how a dying father tells his returning prodigal son, I forgive you; and he creates an extraordinary woman, Lucie Cabrol, a dwarf exiled by her own brothers to a mountain hut, whose three lives—swift youth, fearless middle age, formidable old age—will stay with anyone who reads her story. Ultimately, the book reads as John Berger's inventory, a reckoning of how much value and wealth were lost along with the old rural world we have let slip away.

Editor's review

This is the first book in John Berger's “Into Their Labours” trilogy, set in a dwindling mountain village in the French Alps. Berger does not write pastoral idylls; with almost inventory-like precision he records haymaking, the birth of a calf, the pig awaiting slaughter, the long dark winter, and the men's hard toil and suspicion, the women's independence. Most memorable is the three-part life of the dwarf woman Lucie Cabrol: exiled by her own brothers to a mountain hut, agile in youth, fearless in middle age, formidable in old age—her story carries almost the entire emotional weight of the book. Berger's prose is restrained and concrete; nearly every paragraph lets you see light and texture. It rewards slow reading and will appeal to readers interested in rural change, oral history and the labour of the poor. When you finish, you realise that what has been lost is not only a countryside but a whole way of measuring value and wealth.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who admire John Berger's essays and fiction and follow the development of his thought
Readers interested in the history of peasant life and rural change in the European mountains
Readers who prefer restrained, concrete, slow-paced literary narrative
Anyone who wants to understand “labour” and the cost of modernisation through literature

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot, fast pace and dramatic conflict
Readers of traditional fiction who expect a complete plotline and a clear ending
Readers impatient with abundant farming detail and static description

Reading tips

Read it as an essayistic novel; don't rush after plot—pay attention to Berger's precise descriptions of actions and objects.
Slow down when reading the three-part life of Lucie Cabrol; it is the emotional and thematic hinge of the book.
After reading, compare it with A Fortunate Man and A Seventh Man to understand the trilogy's overall aim of recording peasant migration.

About the publisher

Guangxi Normal University Press China · Founded in 1986

Guangxi Normal University Press is a publisher known for literature, foreign literature and history titles. Its 1,175 books in the database show a solid accumulation in classics and prose collections, including foreign literary works such as Les Fleurs du mal: Annotated Poems of Baudelaire, Snow Country, Dubliners and The Wild Palms, as well as modern prose compilations like The Complete Prose of Zhou Zuoren. History and philosophy also hold a notable share, with titles such as Running Dogs: Clerks and Runners in Qing County Yamen and The History and Thought of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reflecting attention to Qing local administration and modern history. In art literature there is the 16-volume Ten Bamboo Studio Painting and Calligraphy Manual. Its author resources include foreign writers Charles Baudelaire and Yasunari Kawabata, translators and annotators Liu Nanqi and Zou Bo, and scholars such as Zhong Shuhe, Bradly W. Reed and You Chenjun. As public information is limited, this characterization is based only on the books in the database, which together present a profile balancing Chinese and foreign literary classics with academic works in the humanities and social sciences.

版权信息
引言
位置的问题
娜恩之死
记住一头小牛
汤勺
白茫茫
复活节
一个独立的女人
梯子
风也在嚎
村里的母亲
唱给幸存者
日落
金钱的价值
干草
露西·卡布罗尔的三生
露西·卡布罗尔的第二生
露西·卡布罗尔的第三生
土豆
致谢

FAQ

Is this book a novel or an essay? Will it feel very loose when reading?

It is a novel within Berger's “Into Their Labours” trilogy, but the narrative has a strongly essayistic texture: chapters are linked by characters and scenes rather than tight plot. It does feel loose, but every passage is highly concrete and suits slow, attentive reading rather than pursuit of story momentum.

Why is the Lucie Cabrol strand important?

Lucie is the dwarf woman exiled by her brothers to a mountain hut; her life is divided into three stages: agile youth, fearless middle age and formidable old age. Her story embodies the resilience of the marginalised in the mountain village and is the most emotionally concentrated and unforgettable part of the book.

Do I need to read the other two books in the trilogy first?

No. This is the first book of the trilogy and stands alone. It follows on from Berger's earlier attention to a country doctor and migrant workers in A Fortunate Man and A Seventh Man, but reading it does not depend on those works; if you are interested afterwards, you can read them next.

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About the author

约翰·伯格 Author

John Berger was an author whose writing moved between art criticism and literature. Public information about him is limited, and his dates, nationality, and full biography are not known here, but the ten works in this collection show that his writing spans theory, foreign literature, and photography. He discussed the meaning of photography and the ways of seeing, as in Understanding a Photograph, Another Way of Telling, and Photocopies, and he also worked in narrative and essay forms, as in The Storyteller, Here Is Where We Meet, The Sense of Sight, and Pig Earth. His texts often place images, memory, and everyday experience side by side, attending to the social and emotional meanings behind looking. His concise, reflective style has had a lasting influence on readers of photography writing and art essays.

周成林 Author

Zhou Chenglin is an author about whom limited public information is available; details such as nationality, dates of birth and death, and educational background remain unclear. Two of his works are held in the collection, namely Pigs' Land and His Majesty's Representative, commonly classified under foreign literature. Judging from these two titles, his writing often deals with foreign settings, with book titles that carry a strong narrative flavor—one pointing toward rural life and everyday scenes, the other toward politics and power relations—suggesting an interest in overseas societies and history. Because verifiable material is scarce, a full account of his oeuvre and style is difficult to give, yet the existing works offer Chinese readers readable texts on relevant topics in foreign literature. Readers interested in the author and his work may consult the original books to learn more about his actual profile in translation and writing.