John Berger’s “A Fortunate Man”: A Book Review
By: Gillian Hannah, Angela Leschinsky, and Elena Neal
Introduction
A Fortunate Man begins by introducing readers to Dr. John Sassall, a general practitioner in a small English country town. Dr. Sassall worked in an under-served rural area and took care of the wounded, the isolated, and the seriously ill. He also helped people with remembering their experiences by becoming the “storage unit” for their memories.
The book, written by John Berger and with photographs taken by Jean Mohr, was published in 1967. It is both a medical documentary and a biography. Berger and Mohr followed Sassall around as he made his rounds and documented what they saw with distinct detail. The book explores not only Sassall’s practice, but also his mental health, which includes his struggle with depression. Some readers say that John Berger seems to have missed the fact that Sassall’s practice was completely consuming him. In fact, Sassall later committed suicide, reportedly because he “was frightened in case a patient comes into the surgery with a problem he can’t solve.” But for Berger, Sassall was a fortunate man.
Berger’s book raised awareness about the practice of medicine, specifically in remote areas. According to the British Journal of General Practice in 2005, A Fortunate Man is “still the most important book about general practice in medicine.”
About Berger
John Berger was born in 1926 in Stoke Newington, United Kingdom, and died in early January of 2017 in his home in Antony, France at the age of 90.
In addition to writing, John Berger was also involved in the production of a TV series called Ways of Seeing, and published its companion text, an introduction to the study of images. Throughout his life, Berger wrote both novels and books and essays about photography, art, and politics.
How Text and Photographs Work Together in this Book
Berger and Mohr use different tactics to combine their text and photos of Dr. Sassall. Their combinations of text and photographs describe the life and daily tasks and challenges of country doctor. The photographs are also used to set different moods. Some photo-text combinations stimulate feelings of compassion among readers, whereas others express the worry and suffering of the people of the village.
Berger introduces the story by providing the reader with some background information about the area in which the town is located. It is a very remote location, and Dr. Sassall is the only physician serving this area. Accordingly, his work comes with certain challenges. These challenges of serving a remote area are expressed at the very beginning; the first five pages consist of whole-page photographs of the countryside landscape. Two of these five pages include one or two brief sentences describing how the landscape is more than just a landscape — it is an essential part of the inhabitants’ lives. The text that follows introduces Sassall’s work as a physician with an introductory scene about an accident that happened in the forest. This technique is used at multiple sections later in the book, especially when an aspect of landscape is described (e.g. pages 42–43).
Using Photographs to Set the Mood
The first two pages of the introduction provide the reader with an overview of the remote country area of the little village near the forest. The pages are fully covered by a photograph, with only two short sentences embedded in one of the corners. The reader’s main focus is on the landscape, and most readers will find its dark color sets the mood for the text that follows.
Using Photographs to Present the Doctor-Patient Relationship
The majority of the book tells the reader how Dr. Sassall performed his work. Most of the photographs show him while he is performing a procedure on one of his patients. The text describes his work, but the photos then show the doctor’s thoroughness and compassion. Berger portrays Sassall as a very focused person by using a supplementary technique, in which the text introduces a thought, but the photograph dominates and elicits various emotions in the reader.
Using Photographs to Inform the Reader About Dr. Sassall’s Emotional Life
This is another interesting example of Berger’s techniques of incorporating photographs. Berger writes about a change in Sassall’s life and his interest in Freud’s psychoanalytical work. Fascinated by Freud’s idea of self-analysis, Sassall began to observe himself. Berger describes in his text how Sassall began to struggle when he was looking back into the past. The photo that he and Mohr included shows Sassall in a moment in which he was not performing a procedure on a patient; it shows only his concerned facial expression. The reader could apply this photo to the text and assume that it was taken during one of Sassall’s moments of self-reflection.
Overall, the both the landscape photographs and the photographs of people are an important part of the book. All the book’s photographs are shot in black and white, and most are large — some even cover a whole set of two pages with either no text, or only a few sentences on them. In general, the photos that show the landscape of the remote village seem to be “darker,” and most parts are not very focused and seem slightly blurry. The photographs of people often highlight their facial expressions, with darker and less focused backgrounds.
Critical Reception
Within the health-care field, A Fortunate Man has been read by many care providers, who value Berger’s work because it represents aspects of medicine that are not always very evident. Health care is not easily accessible to people living in remote areas, and physicians are not always confident and without fear. As a medical professional, Dr. Iona Heath says the following: “If I could choose only one book on the planet, it would be this book.”
Not only medical professionals were fascinated by Berger’s work. Other critics have highly praised his literary work as well. Susan Sontag says that “in contemporary letters John Berger seems to me peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to to the imperatives of conscience.”
We thought the book offered an interesting perspective on the field of medicine, and how medicine was practiced in the past in rural areas. Reading reviews of the book before reading it made us come in with certain preconceptions. We knew that a lot of people, especially those within the field, saw it as an incredibly important piece of literature and reading it, we started to see why. It starts with descriptions of several different medical cases that Dr. Sassall had — these cases are extremely accurate in terms of medical details, but at the same time, they engage you in the story through their personal details. Knowing that Sassall committed suicide makes the end of the book very strange and emotional, because you are seeing this man and his life and struggles with mental health — to know that it got the best of him at the end is just tragic. Overall, we enjoyed the book and can see why so many people praise it so highly.
The way that Berger and Mohr went about formatting this book was very unique, and we think it fits the subject matter. It uses page breaks strategically: each new medical case begins on a new page, and new concepts also begin on new pages. The book also incorporates photos in intriguing ways, sometimes photos are on their own pages, and at other times a series of photos appear in a row.
Jean Mohr followed Sassall around and he documented everything he saw, so there is photographic support for all of the moments described in the book. We think that the photographs made the text a lot more interesting, because they help you to insert yourself into the scenes, giving you the mental imagery while reading these incredibly detailed scenes. Overall, A Fortunate Man gives some great techniques for writers who want to write biographies, specifically of people who are still alive.
