{"id":472,"date":"2026-06-04T13:21:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/?page_id=472"},"modified":"2026-06-04T13:21:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:21:39","slug":"book-of-the-week-a-pick-by-christopher-j-johnson","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/book-of-the-week-a-pick-by-christopher-j-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Book of the Week: A Pick by Christopher J Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><div id=\"tdi_1\" class=\"tdc-row\"><div class=\"vc_row tdi_2  wpb_row td-pb-row\" >\n<style scoped>\n\/* custom css - generated by TagDiv Composer *\/\n\n\/* custom css - generated by TagDiv Composer *\/\n.tdi_2,\r\n                .tdi_2 .tdc-columns{\r\n                    min-height: 0;\r\n                }.tdi_2,\r\n\t\t\t\t.tdi_2 .tdc-columns{\r\n\t\t\t\t    display: block;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_2 .tdc-columns{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: 100%;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_2:before,\r\n\t\t\t\t.tdi_2:after{\r\n\t\t\t\t    display: table;\r\n\t\t\t\t}\n<\/style><div class=\"vc_column tdi_4  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<style scoped>\n\/* custom css - generated by TagDiv Composer *\/\n\n\/* custom css - generated by TagDiv Composer *\/\n.tdi_4{\r\n                    vertical-align: baseline;\r\n                }.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper,\r\n\t\t\t\t.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{\r\n\t\t\t\t    display: block;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: 100%;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .vc_row_inner{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: auto;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: auto;\r\n\t\t\t\t    height: auto;\r\n\t\t\t\t}\n<\/style><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\" >[vc_column_text]\r\n<h3>Book of the Week: A Pick by Christopher J Johnson<\/h3>\r\nComme un murmure \/ Like A Whisper.. By Normand Rajotte. Kehrer Verlag, 2016.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=\u00a0\u00bb473&Prime; img_size=\u00a0\u00bbfull\u00a0\u00bb css=\u00a0\u00bb\u00a0\u00bb][vc_column_text]Christopher J Johnson selects Comme Un Murmure\/ Like a Whisper by Normand Rajotte from Kehrer Verlag as Book of the Week.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are so many books about place, I don\u2019t mean place in the larger sense, such as New York City, Wolfsburg, Katmandu, but rather place on an even smaller scale; think Ed Ruscha\u2019s Every Building on the Sunset Strip or, more recently, Dana Lixenberg\u2019s Imperial Courts or the less well-known The Name of Us by Nils Bergendal \u2013 these are more intimate explorations of streets, housing complexes and, in the case of the latter, a museum. Very few books in recent memory take up the subject of just a few square kilometers (or, if you prefer, miles), but Normad Rajotte\u2019s Comme un murmure is just that.\r\n\r\nThe book explores a small area of land to be found \u2018at the foot of Mont M\u00e9gantic, near La Patrie, a village in south-eastern Qu\u00e9bec, Canada.\u2019 What results is an intimate document that, visually, is something like a mediation on nature. Rajotte\u2019s gaze is almost always on the ground, which is appropriate, as it is the life he keeps just missing that intrigues him; this \u2018life\u2019 I speak of is found in the tracks of animals, their corpses (in one haunting, though not unattractive image) and in the waterways that sustain them. Tadpoles and a frog make an appearance, tracks lay in the mud and are notably fresh.\u2028\u2028At first I wasn\u2019t sure about these images of the ground; one might think of their younger, more jaded days, which are usually heavy with thought and so, with walking about, face down, constantly viewing the ground; but upon continuous re-engagement I have discovered that this view is used to provide a greater understanding of place; Rajotte finds the evidence of abundance that he seems to be looking for with this downward gaze and the result is an intimacy that, I think, far surpasses most books about place.\r\n\r\nComme un murmure is an intimate work which fearlessly, almost adroitly flies in the face of what\u2019s popular. This is not an urban engagement, there is no drinking or urban or rural decay, the photographs aren\u2019t black-and-white and have nothing to do with topographies: no cars under covers, no humans in their environments; rather it is a view of something more intimate than that even, a view of our place within nature and the depth to which we can expect to know nature as environment.\r\n\r\nIf you are tired of seeing cities, or sick of nature photography meaning landscapes and fisherman, than Comme un mumure will be a welcome edition to your photobook shelf.\u201d \u2014 Christopher J Johnson[\/vc_column_text]<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_column_text] Book of the Week: A Pick by Christopher J Johnson Comme un murmure \/ Like A Whisper.. By Normand Rajotte. Kehrer Verlag, 2016.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=\"473\" img_size=\"full\" css=\"\"][vc_column_text]Christopher J Johnson selects Comme Un Murmure\/ Like a Whisper by Normand Rajotte from Kehrer Verlag as Book of the Week. \u201cThere are so many books about place, I [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-472","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474,"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472\/revisions\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.normandrajotte.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}