|
Gerald Basil Edwards (1899-1976) was born in Vale Parish on the Channel Island of Guernsey and lived there until joining the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry in 1917. He attended Bristol University for several years, though he does not seem to have graduated. By the late 1920s Edwards was living in London, where he taught literature and drama at a number of institutions, including Toynbee Hall. He became acquainted with the writers J.S. Collis, Stephen Potter, and Middleton Murry, who recruited him to write for The Adelphi. All three considered Edwards a genius and expected him to become a new D.H. Lawrence. In 1928, Edwards was commissioned by Jonathan Cape to write a biography of Lawrence, with whom he briefly corresponded. Lawrence then died and the biography was never completed. Although he continued to write, Edwards published very little from that point on, eventually earning his living as a civil servant. He retired to Dorset, where in 1972 he met the art student Edward Chaney, who encouraged him to complete The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. Edwards bequeathed the typescript to his young friend, who eventually succeeded in having it published. It was hailed as a great novel in England and America and has since been published in French and Italian. »
John Fowles (1926-2005) is a critic and writer best known for the novels The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant's Woman. »
|
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
Ebenezer Le Page, cantankerous, opinionated, and charming, is one of the most compelling literary creations of the late twentieth century. Eighty years old, Ebenezer has lived his whole life on the Channel Island of Guernsey, a stony speck of a place caught between the coasts of England and France yet a world apart from either. Ebenezer himself is fiercely independent, but as he reaches the end of his life he is determined to tell his own story and the stories of those he has known. He writes of family secrets and feuds, unforgettable friendships and friendships betrayed, love glimpsed and lost. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a beautifully detailed chronicle of a life, but it is equally an oblique reckoning with the traumas of the twentieth century, as Ebenezer recalls both the men lost to the Great War and the German Occupation of Guernsey during World War II, and looks with despair at the encroachments of commerce and tourism on his beloved island.
G. B. Edwards labored in obscurity all his life and completed The Book of Ebenezer Le Page shortly before his death. Published posthumously, the book is a triumph
of the storyteller's art that conjures up the extraordinary voice of a living man.
View the reading group guide (PDF)
Reviews
Recently reprinted by New York Review Books, G.B. Edwards' novel tells the story of a Guernsey man who lived through the Nazi occupation of Britain's Channel Islands into garrulous old age. His reminiscence is couched in a musical Guernsey English that follows circular paths through past and present to delve into island secrets and sagas. Great stuff.
— Seattle Times
There is a rare wholeness about The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. You get the entire man, in a way that isn't usually within the gift of literature to procure... I have read few books of such wide and delightful appeal.... [it] is vast fun and vast life, a Kulturgeschichte...
— Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books
[A] rare find...it is unique—a first novel that resists all categories—and it overflows with the sense of life...Its chief virtues are a story rich in human connection and a marvelously seductive language...For those who cherish style, it is also good to hear a fresh novelist's voice telling the old story of the passions, generosities, and greeds that battle in us all.
— Chicago Tribune
It reads like Beethoven’s Ninth…Coated with sea salt, its crannies spilling wildflowers, Edwards's book still roars like some huge shell held, cutting, against your ear.
— The Atlantic
A true epic, as sexy as it is hilarious, it seems drenched with the harsh tidal beauties of its setting...For every person nearing retirement, every latent writer who hopes to leave his island and find the literary mainland, its author–quiet, self-sufficient, tidy Homeric–remains a patron saint.
— Allan Gurganus, O Magazine
Imagine a weekend spent in deep conversation with a superb old man, a crusty, intelligent, passionate and individualistic character at the peak of his powers as a raconteur, and you will have a very good idea of the impact of The Book of Ebenezer Le Page...It amuses, it entertains, it moves us...
— The Washington Post
Also see:
Sign up for our free email newsletters for updates and special offers on NYRB books.
|
Format: Paperback
Retail Price: $16.95
Price: $12.71 (25% off)
Jul 10, 2007
424 pages
ISBN: 1590172337
9781590172339
Literature in English
NYRB Classics
 Find us on Facebook
 Follow us on Twitter
 Share
|
