G. by John Berger

Author:John Berger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780307794239
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-27T10:00:00+00:00

The swan is drunk, said a young man.

G. turned towards Monsieur Hennequin and said: There is something I have often noticed which I do not fully understand and which I believe, Monsieur, you may be able to inform me about.

I will do my best.

Perhaps you do not often have the opportunity of visiting fairs?

You mean trade fairs?

Fairs in the street where there are shooting stalls and moving pictures and performing fleas and roundabouts and switchbacks …

I have seen them from a distance, yes.

I am an habitué of such fairs. They fascinate me.

Why do they fascinate you? interrupted Madame Hennequin.

They are full of games for adults and there are very few places where you can watch adults playing.

Simple-minded adults, said Monsieur Hennequin, those who patronize these fairs are of very low calibre.

You are entirely right, Monsieur Hennequin. You must surely have visited one once to understand them so well? Now, to come to my question. Do you think that flying round repeatedly in a circle, as happens on a certain kind of roundabout, do you think this might have a temporary effect—for purely physiological reasons—on the brain?

It can induce a sense of giddiness …

I mean more. Could character be temporarily changed by it?

Please explain, said Monsieur Hennequin, what you have in mind.

At these fairs there is a special kind of roundabout, a combination of a roundabout and a series of swings. The seats are suspended on chains and when they turn—

A centrifugal force comes into play, said Monsieur Hennequin, and they are thrown outwards. I have seen the kind of which you are speaking. We call them les petites chaises.

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