I haven't the right to criticize. I remember too well how I thought at times when it comes down to rock bottom, I didn't care tuppence about anything, or anybody, except myself; and that everybody else was the same. If that is true, it is something a man should not know. It may be it was the one lesson we learnt from the Occupation; but it was the wrong lesson. The next section of citations deals with the generally contrarian atitude of Ebenezer towards women, a subject worthy of an independent review of its own. I can't help but wonder what excruciating experiences had soured Edwards towards the gentler sex, enough to make him paint most of them as harridans and ruthless, egotistical monsters, but it must be said there are exceptions to the rules of war between sexes.
Beside the angelic portraits of Ebenezer's mother and sister, I thought the tale of the great love of his life - Liza Queripel - as written here, is one of the most moving and honest romantic moments in literature. I wonder if I would know her now, if I was to meet her in Town. I can see her yet as she was that Sunday evening with her small square chin and straight nose and her hair done up for show.
It was smooth and rather pale, but it could flush really like a rose; and she had the mouth of an angel when she was pleased, and the mouth of a she-devil when she was vexed. She was taller than the others and they wasn't so much walking along as dancing, and their little feet was coming out like mice from under their skirts and they was singing That's why I'm all for boys and girls marrying young; before they find out their mistake. A man got to be careful what he say to a woman; or she will turn it upside-down and inside-out and use it as evidence against him.
I have always held something back, and seen to it I kept on the safe side. It is good to be shown up in your old age for what you are. I have seen the funny side of things, and made a lot of people laugh; and I suppose they have thought I am the happy-go-lucky sort: I have often wondered what it is I can have done wrong to have to live for so many years without hope.
It is no wonder I think a lot and am a bit funny in the head.
I laughed a lot at the cranky, recalcitrant, unrepentant Ebenezer refusing to accept the transition to the new age, to miniskirts, motorcycles, cars, radio, television, banks, golf courses, lawyers, politicians, Jerseymen crapauds , Frenchmen, Englishmen, Americans, and the ultimate scourge of the quiet, peace loving and hard working Guernseymen: G B Edwards was spared the even more recent scourge of billionaires hiding from the taxman on his beloved isle, or I'm sure he would have had a couple of choice patois curses to deliver especially for them.
I am actually torn between my desire to set foot on the Guernsey island and walk in the footsteps of the narrator, and my respect for his desire to avoid polluting the pristine landscape with my overweight, camera toting, landmark seeking, typical tourist persona. Guernsey is a factory for the manufacture of tourists now. It would be company for you in the long winter evenings. It gives people the idea they have seen and know everything, when really they have seen and know nothing.
It is the deadliest drug on the market. They go sky-high if the boys smoke pot. It is perpetual pot for the millions of goggle-eyed addicts who watch it nightly. The Book of Ebenezer le Page is for me the perfect example of the kind of book to take on a desert island: It practically begs to be re-read time after time, to be explored in depth and to be cherished like the closest friend a man could have. It can be started anywhere: It gives and asks little in return: I believe every country, every piece of land that has been blessed with the blood, the sweat and the tears of countless generations deserves its Bard, it's national poet, to capture its spirituality and its unique identity before it is lost in the lowest common denominator of the global monoculture.
I'm glad I discovered G B Edwards. I hope my homecounty will one day be honored in a similar way actually, there is a Romanian author that embarked on an equally ambitious and in my opinion succesful project, but you probably never heard of him: Radu Tudoran with his 'Sfirsit de Mileniu' saga.
I will close this overlong review with a quote from Shakespeare that Ebenezer uses towards the end of his journey, a final lesson to be learned from a long life and to be passed on to the new generations, not a bad epitaph for his memorable life: The quality of mercy is not strained: Jun 10, Kyle rated it it was amazing Shelves: I wasn't ignoring you; promise.
Though the reasons for this absence have been a bit varied in scope and importance, there is one undeniable fact that has overwhelmed my GR-starved brain: The complete appreciation of this fact has also made one othe For the past month or so I have been rather MIA from goodreads a fact many of my GR friends have pointed out. The complete appreciation of this fact has also made one other thing clear: Not because I have some grand insight into the book that the world is missing or because the other gentlefolk inhabiting GR need or want my opinions about anything I'm at least intelligent enough to know better , but because this book has had a ripple-like effect upon my worldview and writing a review of this book might help me synthesize this book into something I can file away in my brain with all the rest of the books I've read in my life.
I was driving home the other day. When I drive home, I typically take the same route every time unless forced to detour from construction, accidents, etc:. This is not too unusual, as most humans are creatures of habit and usually only deviate from that habit willingly when they make a conscious effort to do so. This drive home was no different than any other average drive home. Driving on the Eisenhower legacy, I'm surrounded by concrete and asphalt.
It's noisy; I have to turn my radio up just to hear it over the pulse of my tires over the grooves, the wind clawing for a handhold on my car, and the shouting matches of the scores of engines from commuters racing along the same stretch of highway. I usually consider it an unpleasant experience. The false environment I'm in, the acrobatics of other drivers, and the sheer distance to travel all contributes to my commuter-induced emotional deflation.
But above all, the most disheartening thing of the whole experience is the sheer man made-ness of it all. Where are the trees, the foliage swaying in the breeze, or the birds singing a tune known only to them? I regularly and acutely feel like, as Anthropologist Melvin Konner describes, a "Stone Ager in the fast lane.
I was driving along this familiar stretch of highway, when I noticed how the angle of the sun caused the gleam on the center divide to light up in a completely vivid way. I felt like the color would be more at home in a surrealist painting than on a stretch of boring highway. Yet, it wasn't alone in its surprise. The sparkle off of the commercial buildings was almost like an active light display. I noticed for the first time, the curve of the overpass above and how it seemed to blend seamlessly into the onramp joining it. The grooves cut into the road seemed not to clash with my radio, but instead seemed to beat with a cadence in time with the music, as though that was the original intention of the construction team who created them.
The cars of my fellow commuters seemed not to be acting out the bickering of a dysfunctional family, but instead seemed to be frolicking through the stream of highway in imitation of dolphins or ducks. This was the same stretch of highway, at around the same time, on an average day. Yet, there seemed to be beauty here. Where before I saw only the hard lifelessness of the human footprint, I now saw life and beauty.
Of course, you may be thinking to yourself that I must have been on some sort of drug, or I am simply going crazy.
Review of G.B. Edwards's The Book of Ebenezer Le Page - theranchhands.com
I can assure you I was on no drug. I believe I simply, in a Proust way, saw the world with new eyes. It's not that the beauty of that stretch of highway was never there, I was simply never able to notice it. It might seem a bit self-evident, but most of us lead very average lives. Most of us do not face the prospect of starving to death, nor can most of us hope to be associated with some great scientific stride as Darwin is to natural selection.
We have some family, own some things, and work regularly to make some money in order to try and support the former two. Yet, we also live extraordinary lives. Even when we are overwhelmed by our powerlessness in a global society, we still all feel special, and rightly so. None of our families are the same, the things we own are often storied and some of them have very real intrinsic value, and the obstacles we face in our daily working lives are almost worthy of a theater play whether comedy or tragedy.
Our average, normal lives are wonder-filled insightful things which allow us, as human beings, to penetrate to the deepest questions and issues of our existence. It's not simply about new things happening in our lives, but experiencing the regular things in our lives in new ways. No matter how boring we may think we are, we are alive and by definition, experiencing and analyzing the life around us in ways we never did yesterday or the day before. The idea behind a still life, is that it allows us to capture a freeze frame of life.
Nothing, no matter what or where, will ever be the same again and a still-life reminds us of this fact while simultaneously allowing us to enjoy and experience something that no longer exists. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a still life. Ebenezer Le Page was a normal, average guy in his own way. He lived a normal, average life for a Guernsey inhabitant, and was content to do so. He never left the island or the community he knew. Yet through this normalcy, this mundanity, this consistency of existence, the reader sees and experiences through Ebenezer's eyes the most fundamental aspects of what it means to be human.
Simply put, Ebenezer is a point, in space and time. He is an anchor, and through him we see the world in all its terrifying and disgusting splendor. Every aspect of human existence plays out in the world of Ebenezer Le Page.
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Yet, there is nothing particularly special about him. The richness of insight, emotion, and life experience assaults the life of a normal, relatively boring man. Ebenezer could be anybody, but that's the point. He is everybody, and we are all him. It is being lent to someone right now, but if anybody would like to read this book, please let me know and I will send it to you once it is available again. View all 17 comments. May 31, Laysee rated it it was amazing Shelves: Once in a while I get wildly excited by a book that I know from the opening pages will be an epic read.
The Book Of Ebenezer Le Page
It was finished in and published posthumously in Apparently, Edwards himself was a bit of a recluse. I would not be too far off the mark to conjecture that Edwards left traces of himself in the narrator and breathed his own observations of life into this remarkable novel. This i Once in a while I get wildly excited by a book that I know from the opening pages will be an epic read. This is a fictional memoir of an year-old Guernsey man, Ebenezer Le Page, who lived through two world wars.
Reading this book in Guernsey patois is like listening to an old grandpa tell you the story of his life and Guernsey itself. I read it every chance I had in between work and sleep. Each time I picked up the novel again, I was eager to get caught up on the latest happenings of old "acquaintances". Culturally and historically, this was an interesting novel that offered a close-up view of Guernsey life that spanned the 19th through the mid 20th century. I enjoyed reading about school life in the Channel Island of Guernsey and their local food e.
I had to look up ormers because Ebenezer thought it was food for the gods. There were all kinds of sea food in Guernsey and according to Ebenezer, "You can't trust a lobster. He's often half empty. I will remember this next time I eat one. The insularity of island living meant that family feuds and secrets were common knowledge and almost shared history. Ebenezer's brutally honest descriptions of his relatives, especially his bickering aunts, were wickedly hilarious and most entertaining.
The story was built on the strength of Ebenezer's relationship principally with Jim Mahy, his best friend; Liza Queripel, the love of his life; Raymond Martel, his erudite cousin; and Tabitha Le Page, his sister. Each was fleshed out convincingly. I shared Ebenezer's joys, sorrows, heartaches, and loneliness. There were other colourful individuals like the swearing but musical Sergeant Strudwick, the stone-throwing rascal, Neville Falla, and several of Ebenezer's eccentric tourist-boarders.
The memoir documented the hardscrabble life of the Guernsey inhabitants during the years of the Occupation. I have heard reports of World War II in Southeast Asia of families surviving on tapioca and limited rations; in Guernsey were equally sad accounts of the islanders growing weak and desperate from lack of food. Yet there were touching anecdotes of neighbours sharing unexpected treats like a slaughtered pig or a rare catch of conger.
The radio was banned, and in listening to it even in the dead of night, many risked imprisonment and death. The tribulations of the world wars were colossal. The memoir also captured the transformation of Guernsey as it yielded grudgingly to modernisation. Ebenezer was distressed by the growing waves of tourists who converged on the once tomato-growing, cow-grazing piece of paradise. It was understandable he should be upset that the fort built on the blood of many young Guernsey lives should be reduced to a money-making spectacle.
Ebenezer himself was larger than life. He was not blind to his own shortcomings and prejudices. He was no passion's slave. He loved deeply but refused to be tormented by a vain and shallow woman who had strung him along. He was spontaneous, funny, and dangerously inappropriate when drunk. He was proudly monolithic. He wanted so much to leave his house in Les Moulins to a kindred spirit. For all his querulous and irascible persona, he was a good and kind man. Ebenezer Le Page has to be my all-time favourite cantankerous old man.
How is it that an ordinary life can become so inspirational? How does a book about life on a small island leave such a deep impression? Few books convey a wealth of wisdom in the portrayal of a life simply and narrowly lived. I had marvelled at the unusually large number of five-star ratings of this novel on Goodreads. I marvel no more. I am contributing another set of five twinkling stars. I want to visit Guernsey one day. Hopefully, there will be potato peel pies and pickled ormers.
Dec 18, Betsy Robinson rated it really liked it. The sweep of this life comes with every possible detail and name of friends and relations imaginable and it seems most people on Guernsey, an island world unto itself in the English Channel, are somehow related. Ebenezer writes his life story as one might speak it over decades of kitchen table chatter. Ebenezer writes his life story as one might speak it over decades of kitchen table chatter to a very good friend.
Being that friend—the reader—could be overwhelming—especially because it was impossible to remember who everybody is—but it is not. It is deeply affecting. This book is not just a journey through somebody else's life, but through a land that is as much a character in the story as any of the people. I don't think I will ever forget this reading experience. To see more comprehensive reviews of this nearly indescribable book, I defer to my Goodreads friends, on whose opinions I relied and therefore bucked my bias against loose-woven writing: Dolors , Margitte , and Steve. I read this as an ebook; I would recommend reading it as a paper book.
I didn't even realize there was a glossary until I got to the end. Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have of them. His haunted memories are ironic, humorous, melancholic, deeply touching and se Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have of them. His haunted memories are ironic, humorous, melancholic, deeply touching and securely kept all those years in a place of loneliness.
His thoughts pour out unchecked, his remembrances ramble into each chapter with dissolute abandon and run unrestrained as time passes unnoticeably. He notes the changes on the island, the Guernsey life he has loved and lived- of cows and farms and close relationships, its community of people whom for generations have been on the island, such that perhaps inbreeding might have occurred more frequently than said. He acknowledges begrudgingly, the unstoppable process that, by devastation of war and the loss of loved ones, is slowly replacing the old.
This is difficult to consider for Ebenezer, the oldest citizen on Guernsey. He is an ornery soul, difficult to budge from his set ways, sometimes pessimistic and bad tempered, tough of spirit, intensely self-sufficient and loyal to his friends. But there's something about his agedness that's wise and sincere; the reader realizes it comes from a good heart. I doubt everything I hear, even if I say it myself; and, after things I have been through and seen happen to other people on this island and known to have happened in the world, I sometimes wonder about the existence of God: Edwards blended prose with the native patois and idiomatic English, making the story so authentic to Guernsey life, some critics have said the novel may be autobiographic.
Ebenezer's frankness and humor, the arduous labor and the foolishness all lend originality: There is regret for the loss of his friends slaughtered during the two World Wars, and the loss for the opportunity to have spent his long life with the woman he had always loved. As Ebenezer wraps up his book, he reflects on his life's worth with sentimentality, and dares to hope with the powerful spirit that he has lived with all his life.
I don't want to die me! I want to stop alive for ever, if only to see the ships pass… But now it is death and what come after I am thinking of I wish I could live my life again. I wish I could write my story again. I have judged people. I want to bless. I want to bless every soul who has ever lived and laughed and suffered on this whore of an island, this island in the sun, this Island in God's sea Ah well, that is all for now. View all 7 comments. Feb 25, El rated it it was ok Shelves: Out of my current Goodreads friends, only one person has given this 3 stars.
One person has given this 4 stars. The rest, an overwhelming number really, has given this 5 stars. And then there's me. A curmudgeon like Ebenezer Le Page himself, all poopy-butt over the fact that Ebenezer Le Page did not interest me in the least. Le Page is an elderly Guernseyman reflecting upon his life, because men reflecting on their lives is a thing that has never been done before.
I've long wondered what it is lik Out of my current Goodreads friends, only one person has given this 3 stars. I've long wondered what it is like to be a man because no one has ever written about that in literature, so for that reason alone, this was an insightful book. In all seriousness though, I will admit I appreciated the setting of this book being on the Channel Island of Guernsey because that truthfully is not a place that comes up very often.
And don't mention that Potato Peel book because I haven't read it yet and also I know where it takes place. I like island life. Some of you who have followed me for a while or know me in person know that my partner has family in Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean. We've visited a few times over the years, and while I've been to many different places in the country and in Europe, there's this strange collective thing that happens on islands that I can't quite put my finger on. In some way it has to do with the fact that because it's a more isolated space, everyone knows each other in some capacity because many at least the older generations rarely leave the island.
Or they're related, distantly or not-so-distantly. Or they're pirates and are well-known throughout the island because pirates. Everyone knows each others' stories, something that is beautiful and annoying all at the same time because the insularity can sometimes be really glaring there. Le Page writes about island life too, and in great detail. There are a lot of similarities, though the islands are different. Everyone on Le Page's island is related in some way, and he likes to tell us about each of them.
When you're in person with people who want to tell their stories is they engage you. They draw you in with their gestures, the faces they make, the way they put their hand on your arm for emphasis or just for help crossing the street. You're there , even if you weren't there for the origins of the story. Unfortunately I didn't get any of that engagement while reading Le Page's story. The closest I got was in his tellings of his friend, Jim, but that was short-lived and none of the other stories connected with me, not even the Occupation of the island.
Corsica also had an Occupation and I have heard the stories directly from the mouths of the people affected and it's terrifying and awful, especially when you're standing in the same space where things happened to them as they tell you the stories. Le Page tells his stories so far removed from them and without much emotion that I found it hard to reach them in any emotional manner as a reader. I am glad that other readers have this almost visceral response to this book, but I found it a complete drag. I have learned that these stories that are really just someone blabbing about the people in their neighborhood or whatever are really a drag to me.
Somebody do something is all I can really think as I read. I don't mind curmudgeons. As I am one myself, I thought I'd be able to connect to Le Page on that level at least, but other than agreeing on one or two things like agreeing that people just don't need to have cars, it's such a waste, and tourists really are the bane of any existence, even when they're a necessary evil , I found all of his curmudgeonly statements terribly uninteresting. Again, maybe it's a matter of been-there-done-that, curmudgeonly white men talking about their white men lives and white men experiences, and how that still can't be transcended when the locale is in the English Channel.
I wanted to enjoy this more; I found myself irritated with having to pick it up, but kept doing so in the hopes that I would feel something, anything by the end. Instead, today as I read the last few chapters, I found myself putting the book down after each chapter and looking at my phone, clipping my nails, going for more water, playing with the dogs. I would do anything between those last few chapters than actually want to pick the book back up and finish reading, even though I was so painfully close to the end. Edwards was, I understand, planning on writing two other books, so this would have been a trilogy.
I'm sorry for all of you who loved the shit out of this book that that never happened, because you all deserve having more books you like to read. Personally, though, I could not imagine being in any way drawn to pick up either of the other two books if they did exist. Is it Edwards' writing? Is it Le Page's "voice"? I don't know, and worse - I don't even really care. I don't expect anyone to agree with me, and I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading this because clearly a lot of people really love it. I'm just not one of them.
Dec 20, Warwick rated it liked it Shelves: My impression of Guernsey, from spending a few weeks there as a journalist some years back, was that it was an island with sixty-five thousand people and barely a dozen surnames between them. You get the same idea reading The Book of Ebenezer Le Page , all the characters of which are continually discovered to be distant third or fourth cousins of each other.
I like this novel, but it didn't make quite the impression on me that it seems to have made on others — I wonder if the dramatic story of ho My impression of Guernsey, from spending a few weeks there as a journalist some years back, was that it was an island with sixty-five thousand people and barely a dozen surnames between them. I like this novel, but it didn't make quite the impression on me that it seems to have made on others — I wonder if the dramatic story of how it came to light at the very end of the author's life just made me want it to be more than it is.
What it is is enough — a good book with a likeable and genuine central character. It has the feel of a sprawling family saga, even though it only covers the lifespan of one enviably long-lived Guernseyman down to the s. The narrative mode is simple and declarative, and a good example pace the advice of countless writers' groups that telling rather than showing can be a nicely effective way of writing a novel when the narrative voice is sufficiently interesting.
Themes and encounters occur and recur in different iterations through the story as Ebenezer circles around the things that seem to have had the most meaning for him. Although he is not a big thinker — he's a practical person rather than a philosopher — he still reasons his way to a kind of simple epiphany at the end, and in fact the ending is one of the most accomplished and moving parts of the book.
It's certainly the most interesting novel to come out of Guernsey since Hugo's Les Travailleurs de la Mer , and contains an interesting potted history of the island through two world wars and the start of the tourism boom. It's a good old-fashioned novel — wise, gentle, engaging, and a window on a part of Europe and a style of life that doesn't usually get much literary attention.
View all 8 comments. Jan 22, knig rated it it was amazing Shelves: This quirky gem defies genre-fication. Liberally doused with Guernsey patois, the narrative falls into a dry, terpsichorean cadence wringing out pitch perfect amelioration from Franco-English linguistic start-ups. Dec 03, Tej rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Recommended to Tej by: I left Thee in anger, I knew not Thy worth, Journeyed afar, to the ends of the earth, Was told of far countries, the heaven of the hold, Where the soil gave up diamonds, silver and gold.
Deighton G B Edwards created through Ebenezer le page, a vehicle to give vent to his own most candid expression, h I left Thee in anger, I knew not Thy worth, Journeyed afar, to the ends of the earth, Was told of far countries, the heaven of the hold, Where the soil gave up diamonds, silver and gold.
Deighton G B Edwards created through Ebenezer le page, a vehicle to give vent to his own most candid expression, honest to the bone with gravity centered right in the heart of the tale. It is very much a sentimental and deceptively simple tale with its biggest asset lying in its accessibility. Essentially, the tone is comical with no grand heroes, least of all, and confessedly so, our Ebenezer le page, nor larger than life characters, roaming around in their most casual bearings over slippery grounds of their life and morals. And yet all of them combine to create a tasty potpourri, a heartfelt and poignant tale enriched by unforgettable moments to be savored for a long time by one who can see beneath the veneer of it sounding like a sulky, cynical old man cracking Guernsey jokes in French patois, out on his fault finding mission.
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It may not be the most perfect tale ever but enriches and how well. Guernsey, historically, exchanged hands between the French and the English only to be occupied by Germans during the second world war and inevitably turning into a modern day exotic tourist destination, filling up the coffers of those bothering the least for the means of accrual.
And amidst the topsy-turvy undulating tides of time that entwine Guernsey is its most proud resident, a perfect islander who has never really gone beyond the Guernsey waters is our Ebenezer le page. A simpleton who has worked all his life with his two hands mostly as a farmer growing tomatoes and potatoes in his green-house and seen it all happening to his beloved island. I have lived too long.
I doubt everything I hear, even if I say it myself; and, after the things I have been through and seen happen to other people on this island and known to have happened in the world, I sometimes wonder about the existence of God: Surprisingly, unmarried all his life and living it on his own terms with his own straight-forward rules or no rules at all.
His flexibility and shifting philosophies are all too humorous and endearing to his all too human frailties. He never cared to step beyond his beloved Guernsey or see the world and neither is he one satisfied saint of an individual. In reality, it is just impossible to confine him within a purview of any description, he is just that, Ebenezer le page of Vale. He says, Marriage is a terrible thing, when you come to think of it.
His is the picture of saint or as close to one as humanly possible. His honesty borders rashness in practical parlance which results in him being able to deliver only one sermon after studying to become a preacher and ending up arguing on veracity of religious beliefs. The hypocrisy in all things human and even God of humans is a telling blow to him to shun all his training and turn into a simple Guernsey man. He is a disappointment to his parents and is forsaken, not anything that he cares for but he is done a hard deal by all things in life. Raymond from childhood was a picture of timidity and reticence and needed his cousin Horace to complete him, who in turn was his greatest blessing and nemesis rolled into one.
Raymond was a boy of deep feelings and never forgot anybody he had once admired. Horace remained first in his heart always. I used to think girls were human beings like us; but they are not. They are always after something. They are either after your body, or your money, or a father for their children; and, if they are not after your body, or your money, or a father for their children, there is always something they want you to be, or do, that will bring them glory.
They are never satisfied to let you be; and be with you. It is not quite clear early on that why should we endear ourselves to this disjointed story of an islander prattling about this and that on his whims and quirks quite unabashedly but it comes alive with Raymond , Jim, Liza and later on with his German friend Otto and finally Neville and Adele.
The exhilaration of the final crescendo, creates such fountains of joy and emotional release that we cannot help joining in. Out of his direct relations its his sister Tabitha, who is most unlike him, is most dear to him. The part where he becomes friendly with Otto during the German occupation is akin to an allegory that seeps in unobtrusively and overwhelms unequivocally, obviously.
That was Liberation Day. What endears Ebenezer most is his clear and straight laced honesty about himself and his manner of faring in a real simple manner, keeping it untwisted in life. That is most unusual to find in the world we live in and the island metaphor has got a lot to answer for that. About Raymond, His conscience was always troubling him about something or another.
Perhaps it is better to live more on a level, even if it is on a lower level, as I do, than be like Raymond, up and down. A verdant mass of rock, a big one, and ocean all around, that is apparent but metaphorically an island can be land locked as well or a single man or a group of men. Guernsey very much a geographically defined entity, land and salt water, with Ebenezer, as proud a resident there ever can be. With time it appears, Ebenezer has become Guernsey and Guernsey, him. He is an island within an island and both of them complain when things from far away attack them and their peaceful existences.
What we have gained by way of progress, we have lost by way of real life, its purity and groundedness. And the balance is indeed lop-sided, so is it worth it, really. Our elders may have been sulking by habit but not all of that is ill-founded. Of course I am the one for shaking up old to create new interactions and new combinations, to mow down all the walls and assist the free interplay of ideas and giving complete liberation a chance.
Globalization in present parlance is only for assisting the commercialization and ensuring that the coffers remain full, the world goes to the dogs in process. Of course that is a huge price to pay for. No boundaries fall but even more are created in the world where money rules supreme. And that is one solid reason to be grumpy about, what paper work optimism can forever rid the grumpiness, impossible!
I wish I could write down the story of this island as I have known it and lived through it for the best part of a century. There is a great gulf fixed between the present generation and mine. I wish I could bridge it; but it is too much to hope. Towards the end, Ebenezer experiences few of the most euphoric moments of his life and also relents somewhat towards moderation but altogether he has always been sea locked and his disillusionment is understandable. The island both literal as well as symbolic rather invites us most pleasingly but only for what it is and expects to be respected in return but it surely is unwelcoming to those who barge in uninvited for the advertised, unrealistic, promised instant utopia and the hellish footprint that they leave with gay abandon.
Every which way we may see, pseudo-tourism, pseudo-enjoyment, pseudo-nature with manicured gardens and wild-life only on TV, all of which are very amenable to be shunned and rejected and raise voice against. Even if it is the tide of time, it must not be given a free run, the dykes must be created along with the bridges, incessantly and not just hope but try and make it imperative for the tide to turn. Else, the question that Ebenezer asks will always keep haunting and standing right in front across our paths, Is all one generation can do to set the stage for the comic, sad story of the next?
View all 15 comments. Mar 21, Jonathan rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Recommended to Jonathan by: You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a lone one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines.
For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions one has emotions early enough —they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and kn "Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life.
For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises.
And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves—only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.
View all 13 comments. Jan 16, M. I am going to let this book gestate a bit before commenting too much about it. I will say it is one of the most heart-warming books I have ever read. Though there are many characters in the book it is apparent later on that the reader becomes somewhat intimate with the ones worthy of our warmest feelings. The written quality of the book sneaks up on you. I am giving the book five stars because the book was composed from the author's heart and he didn't much care if we liked it, read it, or not.
I am glad he held steadfast in his refusal to change anything. It is perfect in its own special way. I am also appreciative of all my goodreads friends who first made me aware of this book as well as their encouraging remarks that helped in my finishing it. It is an easy book to discount at first glance, but it is a grave mistake if you do so enough to set it down for good. The reward for completing this historical novel is magnificent and is all I can really say. It is a story of a life, and in ways unimaginable, you get to live your own way through it.
May 14, Issicratea rated it liked it Shelves: Like Stoner , this is a book with an appealing narrative attached, telling of an author scorned or marginalized during his lifetime, but recognized at his true worth after his death. Edwards , was an aspiring writer from his youth, but never had any literary success and ended his life a recluse. Ebenezer was published five years after his death, in , and it enjoyed considerable acclaim. It was reissued by the New York Review of Book Like Stoner , this is a book with an appealing narrative attached, telling of an author scorned or marginalized during his lifetime, but recognized at his true worth after his death.
The local color, and the sense of cultural distinctness, is one of the elements I liked most in the book. A true epic, as sexy as it is hilarious, it seems drenched with the harsh tidal beauties of its setting, the isle of Guernsey…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.
Edwards, is an oddity and a great literary wonder, written in the beautiful French patios of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands…[Edwards] feels intensely about everything and everyone in this deliciously rich novel of longing and love. Granite quarries and tomatoes and early potatoes; but then come tourists, international companies, tax evaders, occupation by Germans, etcetera. Edwards as our favorite novel of all time. The recollections of a cranky old man on the island of Guernsey, Guy Davenport of the Times wrote, when the book was first published here in Edwards Introduction by John Fowles Category: Literary Fiction Military Fiction Category: Literary Fiction Historical Fiction Travel: About 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.
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Rocking Chair Books Published: Used - Very Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Better World Books Condition: Russell Books Ltd Condition: Moyer Bell, August Ria Christie Collections Condition: Mega Buzz Inc Condition: New York Review Books. Guernsey Channel Islands a detailed chronicle of a life. Used book in very good condition. Some cover wear, may contain a few marks. Ex-library with the usual stamps. Not Inscribed or Signed. First Edition of This Edition. Gian Luigi Fine Books Inc. Light scratches to back cover. Clean and tight, lightly read copy.