Corker's Freedom

Book excerpt: First published thirty years ago, John Berger's tender and bittersweet novel is a book of dreams: dreams of freedom and romance, dreams that intoxicate and redeem, dreams that have the power to exalt their dreamers or dash them against hard truth. It is the unforgettable, often comical portrait of a dreamer, one William Corker, the genteel proprietor of a London employment agency, who, in his sixty-third year, has just moved out of the house he shared with his overbearing sister. As Corker takes his first steps into a life of passions, Berger creates a character of astonishing depth and liveliness—a man whose fantasies and ambitions are at once splendid and tragic.