Lilac and Flag: Book Three of the Into Their Labours Trilogy

By John Berger

Book Overview

From Booker Prize-winning author John Berger, Lilac and Flag , wherein the Alpine village of the two earlier volumes of the Into Their Labours trilogy has been forsaken for the mythic city of Troy. Here, amidst the shantytowns, factories, and opulent hotels, fading heritages and steadfast dreams, the children and grandchildren of rural peasants pursue meager livings as best they can. And here, two young lovers embark upon a passionate, desperate journey of love and survival and find transcending hope both for themselves and for us as their witnesses.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679737197
• ISBN13: 9780679737193
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Superlative Ending To The Triptych

The, "Into Their Labours" trilogy is among the most extraordinary work I have ever read. "Pig Earth" and "Once In Europa", which lead to Mr. Berger's finale of, "Lilac And Flag" were both brilliant, however the concluding volume is a work you will never forget. Every aspect of this final work is on a grand scale, the writer will lift your spirits and then pummel you with the physical and mental burden of a Requiem Mass. He celebrates, he condemns and redeems with equal intensity, and when the work finally ends you will have a new reference point for whatever reading will follow.The first 2 installments take place in an Alpine Village that, per the Author, could be easily found many times in the same Alps that he describes. It is even suggested the locale is not unlike the Village that the writer calls his home. In this, the final work, he creates a fictional city, one that he controls, one that will not allow any familiarity to distract from his final act of recording the death of the way of life that starts as nearly idyllic, and ends with a form of redemptive enigma, but only after he has destroyed all that existed in the first two books. The decay and darkness are suffocating, the tale that he ends is infinitely displaced from its origins and is only brought back into contact with its predecessors by his final words, which explain everything, and confirm nothing.I have never been one for creating lists in an attempt to enumerate the best of what I have had the privilege to read. This trilogy has changed that, for taken as one work it would likely occupy the premier spot, and if taken separately would all reside in the top 5. These writings are the result of 15 years of work and there is no way to categorize it in anything less than superlatives.

About the love and its power in this end of millennium .

From a european reader's point of view, this is one of the most interesting desciptions about the size of love in this end of century. Both main characters represents the dificulty of being a lover in the middle of this times of cholera. Lilac and flag are simple workers. They don't know much about books, poetry or culture but they know what means fall in love, what represents to love another human being in its city, which represents all the big european cities. As the author does in "To the weding", "Lilac and Flag" represents simply the love amd its power in this sad days of poverty, destruction and explotiation of weak people. Thanks for your work John and your way to understand the existence. We'll continue reading you.