A review by ohnoflora
A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger

5.0

A startlingly humane portrait of a doctor practising medicine in rural England in the 1960s - the type of universalist country doctor (part priest, part magician, part healer) that doesn't exist anymore.

Berger writes intelligently and empathetically about what it is to heal, what makes a good doctor (as opposed to "talented" or "clever"), and how we evaluate the worth of a human life. Jean Mohr's observant, un-intrusive photographs are just as much a part of the essay as Berger's words are.