A Load of Shit

＂What makes shit such a universal joke is that it’s an unmistakable reminder of our duality, of our soiled nature and of our will to glory. It is the ultimate lèse-majesté＂.

John Berger’s essay begins by describing the experience of burying a year’s worth of his household’s excrement. What follows is an extended reflection--at once philosophically detached and profoundly engaged with the inescapable stuff of life--on shit as an emblem of what it means to be human: on our simultaneous kinship with and profound difference from all other animals.

Eris Gems make available in the form of beautifully produced saddle-stitched booklets a series of outstanding short works of fiction and non-fiction.

John Berger (1926-2017) was an essayist and art historian renowned for his television documentary series (and book of the same title) Ways of Seeing. He was also a prolific novelist, and was awarded the Booker Prize in 1972.