Ways of Seeing

This book is written by John Berger. It depicts different ways we look at pictures and images and what thoughts consume our mind as we look at them.

One quote I found really interesting was "We accept it in so far as it corresponds to our observation of people, gestures, faces, institutions. This is possible because we still live in a society of comparable social relations and moral values." I found this interesting because I notice this in everyday things, not just pictures. People often see other people and judge them according to society's moral values and norms. When one sees a man or woman with torn clothing or inexpensive clothing, or often someone shopping at Value Village they assume that person is poor or homeless. Sometimes people believe in certain ideals a lot stronger than other people, society doesn't deem them "normal". There is a man in my hometown, Sarnia, who strongly believes in God and is often found preaching to people on the streets about going to church. Many people avoid him or laugh at him because he's different.

Although I could really connect with that part of the book, I found the rest of it really hard to understand. I found the book to be really wordy. I found chapters hard to follow and didn't really know where the book was going. There were a lot of words that I didn't understand as well and found myself picking up a dictionary at least five or six time per page.

Overall it was a good book and the parts of it i understood were interesting.