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Booker Prize

G by John Berger

‘G’ won the Booker prize in 1972. It is about the life of a privileged family, living in Italy, at the turn of the century.

The majority of the book was the fairly boring story of ‘G’. I felt very little empathy for his character, and got more disinterested in his life as the book went on.

Very early into the book a few graphic sex scenes are thrown in. I say thrown, as there seems to be no real reason for their presence. They do not add anything to the story line, and seem only to be there to shock the reader. I was not shocked, but this along with the childish drawing of penises make parts of this book feel as though they are written by a teenage boy.

There are a few more sex scenes later on in the book, which at least seem to be part of the story, but again brought the book down to a much lower level. It then deteriorated into inane ramblings by the author, about the quality of sexual experiences.

There were a few interesting historical pieces in the book, but it wasn’t worth having to read the rest of the book, just for these few, short paragraphs.

Overall, the book felt very disjointed. The characters were shallow, and I would only recommend this book to teenage boys in need of a bit of sexual education!

1 star out of 5.

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