NYRB Classics discussion

Hi all,

I've made this folder to discuss The Book Of Ebenezer Le Page for the next two months.

I can't wait to start reading it!

Nick

Thanks, Nick, I'll be diving in sometime next week.

Sometime in April will be better for me as I'm going to finish 1Q84 before beginning Ebenezer le Page. It sounds like a very interesting book and look forward to enjoying the story. I'll be keeping up with posts written about it nonetheless.

i'll also try to join in in April. It's been awhile since i've been able to read along with this group. :(

but this book looks really fun and i'm sure i can get my hands on it.

Marieke mentioned that the "book looks really fun". It is set in Guernsey, Channel Islands. Victor Hugo lived there between 1851(55)-70 and 1872-73. The Toilers of the Sea is dedicated to the people of Guernsey, and Hugo completed Les Misérables and wrote poetry there.

I'm in the same boat as you guys, it's going take me a little bit to start. But I'll definitely be reading in April.

Nick

I've got it, and hope to get to it pretty soon. I think the whole Guernsey aspect will be really interesting.

I have also heard that Toilers of the Sea is great, just as an aside.

Ha! I'm really looking forward to this!

Just started reading yesterday. Quite good so far, although it's not really a proper book for long car trips.

Most likely there's a law against reading while driving. Especially if it's a long trip.

Declan wrote: "Most likely there's a law against reading while driving. Especially if it's a long trip."

or should be...


I'll be starting next week. Well, so much for our one month advance in reading time!

Me too. Work-related activity prevented me from getting much read in March but I hope to do better this month. I'm about to finish Mrs Dalloway and will start on Ebenezer then.

I'll be starting tonight! Had to finish Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary first.

Nick

How we all going? I finished today, if anyone wants to start discussing. There is also a Readers Group Guide that we can go over and use if needed: http://assets.nybooks.com/media/doc/2...

Nick

My copy is staring at me, unopened. :(

But soon, very soon, I hope to get to it. Any thoughts on how quickly it reads? I'm not familiar with this author at all.

I wouldn't say the narrative is the driving force in this book, which means it can be slow in places since it's quite long. It's really the tone, language, characters and place that are interesting and fun in this book.

Anyone agree?

Nick

I agree, Nick. I find that I've been maintaining a very slow (but pleasant!) pace. The various family members and the voice of Ebenezer are really what pull me along.

That's good to know...I'll make sure I give myself time. I will definitely start this in April, but I may not finish until May. :)

It will be a little while before I get to the end too because like, I suspect, several other members of the group, I spent the first month of our two month reading time reading other books! But I am thoroughly enjoying Ebenezer so far.

apologies for my triplicate post earlier (i just deleted the extras). i guess my phone freaked out on me. oops!

indeed, Declan...i've been reading far too many books and have many more to go. but i'll definitely be reading this one, too. :D

Nathan, do you recommend against taking breaks in between the parts, or should i just continue on once i get started?

Woohoo that this won! Now to find the time....

I have only just started it, but after a couple of pages have already found the rhythm of it enjoyable. I should be able to pick up the pace on it from here.

So I did want to check in on peoples thoughts.We're getting close to May, but haven't really talked about Ebenezer, and I think it deserves a bit of discussion (especially since I for one have read it all). But there also some other books that might be fun for May.

Perhaps we could do a quick poll of short books for May?

Nick

New York Review Books wrote: "So I did want to check in on peoples thoughts.We're getting close to May, but haven't really talked about Ebenezer, and I think it deserves a bit of discussion (especially since I for one have read..."

Re Ebenezer, I'm still next at the library. Just as well since I'm totally swamped with reading books now.

Hi Nick,

I apologize for not finding the time to get to Ebenezer early (not sure how many people are in the same position), but maybe we could continue the discussion of Ebenezer into May for those of us that are behind.

But I'm also in for choosing a short read for May too.

Me three...

Continue this in May and choose something short for May. :)

Exactly my thought.

Me four!

Yes I just got my copy!

Me also!

Alternately, a May book could be chosen and I'll just come back to the discussion when I finish Ebenezer... that seems to be the way I do it for most of my groups.

Eternally behind....

Sounds great to me. I'll come up with a list of some short books soon that we can bandy around before choosing for May. And we'll keep going with Ebenezer through May as well. Which I think is worth it, as I suspect we'll have to say about it.

Just to get a start if anyone is ready. What are you thoughts about the Ebenezer as a character/protagonist? There is no lack of powerful protagonists in 1st-person narrative fiction, and Ebenezer is up with the best (I think), but does anyone else sense something slightly different going on here?

Nick

Well, I'm only just done with Part One, but I'll weigh in. I'm finding Ebenezer a very likable narrator and the story draws me along quite easily. I am not sure if I think Edwards had any other intent than to find a great voice to describe this unique island's culture.

But like I say, I'm far from done.

Seana, I totally agree. There is one thing I was thinking about while reading however. In the art world there is a lot of talk about "outsider art." Doesn't really happen in the book world--although, with the commercial success of Fifty Shades of Grey and the rise of self-publishing it might more and more--but this is a book (and an author) who have many of the "outsider" credentials, and even seems proud of it. Do you think he (both G.E. Edwards and Ebenezer) are trying to say something both about outsiders and those in power (often termed, "the elite").

Nick

Nick, I still have about a hundred pages to go, so I haven't read about the author yet, but I'm very curious to read a bit more about him. I definitely think the novel is about an outsider culture and that the author takes pride in portraying Guernsey as its own unique thing. Where I'm slightly at odds with the author, though, is that I think Guernsey could be made to stand in for a lot of non-island cultures as well. There is a lot in it to remind me of my dad's stories about growing up in rural Illinois a couple of generations ago. The things that are similar are that there is a great awareness of all the different layers of this small social realm, and perhaps a disinterest in the larger world. The stories are all about the locals--people take off for foreign parts (like England) but their lives in those places don't hold a huge amount of interest for Ebenezer, unless they return.

Ebenezer is interesting because he is a committed island man, as few else are. Some of my dad's family was that way too--they had a connection to the place they were and did not want to go elsewhere.

Seana, I think you have a good point. I guess one way to look at it would be less the regional aspect--and in your question about the author the book got rejected by UK publishers for years because it was considered too "provincial"--and more the changing eras. Ebenezer obviously loves Guernsey, but he hates "new" Guernsey with its influx of tourists and subsequent consumerism.

On the other hand it does bring up an interesting question. Ebenezer has never left the island, how can he so easily judge people (both on and off the island)? Or maybe one doesn't need experience to have a good so-called moral compass.

Nick

I think I'll draw on my dad's family one more time. In some sense, my grandmother, though all for her kids going on and getting higher education and fulfilling different kinds of lives, was very happy to stay in her small community, even as, like Ebenezer, she watched it grow and change around her. The similarity is that though she didn't get a higher education herself, she was a sharp and shrewd observer of the life and personalities around her. Like any autodidact, or, I guess, any human being, she gets some of it wrong. But Ebenezer often has an aside that is very on the mark and these remind me of her. There is book learning and then there is the close observation of human life, and sometimes the last is more important than the other.

A very good point. Though I think everyone here loves to read books and does sincerely believe that they learn from books (and I'm really thinking of fiction here), it's only one of many ways to experience the world and learn. And hardly the most important. Sometimes us heavy book readers might forget that.

And to return to the idea of the "outsider" artist. A lot of that definition has to do with intuition, and while definitely Ebenezer has a strong moral intuition about what's right and wrong, he does make some pretty big mistakes here. For example, why doesn't he marry Liza?

Nick

I agree very much with how you see things Nathan. The episode when the two boys got stranded on an small island was a time of uncomplicated closeness for Ebenezer (and for Jim too perhaps?) as was the night they spent together when Jim was on leave from the army: "I fell asleep against him with his arm around me like when we was kids on Lihou...I remember that stolen day of innocent happiness, how not for one moment was we out of touch, not even when we was asleep, I knew it was worth being born for that". There was certainly great love there of a kind that he never felt for Liza.

Yes I agree. And I was a bit confused because at least for the first half of the book I was expecting Raymond to come out (there did seem to be lots of sign, right?), but then about half way I realized that wasn't happening. A bit strange I thought, the book was published in 1981 so I don't think there would have been social pressure against this (though the author would have been old). So I wasn't sure what that was meant to mean. I did find this more with Raymond than with Jim and Ebenezer however. But it also brings up the point of religion which is pretty constant in this book. Though organized religion is mercilessly attacked in the book. It is a major theme running through the entire plot. Any thoughts on this?

Nick

I have about 25 pages to go. Can't wait to take part in the discussion. I'll be back...

I think the sexual identity of Le Page is probably a bit more complicated than that. It was interesting reading the introduction after I had finished to see how Edwards himself seemed to find the will of women distasteful. In any case, I think that Ebenezer is portrayed to find male friendship pure and idyllic while entanglements with women are a bit suspect.

I think in Liza, Ebenezer had met his match, in both senses of the word. If either had insisted on marriage, it might have been enough, but neither quite had the courage to persist. I think that in some ways they did marry, as both stayed on the island, were aware of each other's presence--Liza asking for and keeping the milking can being the evidence for her side, and remained faithful to each other in their fashion. In the end, they do seem to understand each other completely.

I finished tonight... just sat and read the last 200 pages before I allowed myself to get up.

Most of the time, I was slightly bored, I think because of the way it was told. I usually am fascinated by small towns and characters, and definitely cold weather islands. But he seems to scoff at the drama and separate himself from it as soon as he can. It is almost as if the action is happening when he isn't there; he almost seems like a damper!

I have read two other books set on Guernsey, and both focused on the German occupation. It was nice to read something that chronicled before and after that time period, although to Ebenezer, that is when everything changed.

I think the most important hint he gives us comes almost at the end, (view spoiler)[when he is telling Neville that he will be able to read his books when he is gone. He says "i have tried to put down the worst as well as the best, but you got to read between the lines." Mmhmm very interesting, Mr. LePage! I really do believe that if you consider his sexuality along with several of the other stories, you can assure yourself that you are probably not making the wrong assumptions. (hide spoiler)]

I have slight confusion over something that happens in the end, when Neville and Ebenezer visit Liza. I think it is due to the space between when I read the first half of the book and when I came back to it, and losing track of all the characters. (view spoiler)[It is clear that Liza and Ebenezer realize something about Neville, I'm assuming that someone is related to someone else. Can you clue me in? (hide spoiler)]

Another thing I wanted to mention - I loved the language of this. The way French and Guernsey English slip in, the sometimes strange way that words are ordered. (For instance, I could have said "I love the language of this, me.")

Hi Jenny,

I read a while ago too, so might be wrong here; but I think (view spoiler)[that Neville is Liza's son, and Adele is Ebenezer's son, therefore them getting married is a proxy for the relationship between Ebenezer and Liza itself (hide spoiler)].

And about being bored: I do think that in this book the conservatism of Ebenezer gets a bit old pretty quickly. Ebenezer's opposition to the changes on the island is not a new concept to many people—I'm sure we've all heard it before—and the regionality of the book is a bit dated in the world we live in now (here we are talking to each other on the internet from God knows where) and it's hard to have too much sympathy or interest in that topic.

However there is something interesting in focusing a (long) book on such a small place, most successfully done in
Ulysses, that let's a writer explore things that he might not be able to do with a larger "geography" which would probably necessitate a "larger" narrative. And I also loved the writing of the dialogue in dialect. Very cool.

Nick

Nick, I had to laugh at your spoiler explanation as it would entail a gender change for Adele.However, you have that mostly right--(view spoiler)[Adele is probably Ebenezer's granddaughter (hide spoiler)].

I wasn't bored by the book, but I do think it was written in a leisurely rambling style that might not be easily published today. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, and it certainly didn't give the sense of Guernsey as a unique place that I had been expecting from it.

For me, though, it was worth it. One of the things that most intrigued me was what Ebenezer represents to himself as the book progresses, which is a life without hope. Hope of Liza, or hope of something else unexpressed--who knows. But what the book succeeds in doing is showing how, even toward the end of life, surprising things can turn up, and even though we don't get the happy ending we might be expecting, we might get something else. Although the plot was perhaps a bit tidy and coincidental, I did buy the happiness that Ebenezer felt at the end of life, where in effect he transcends his own individual life and hopes.

The fragment that La Jenny quotes above ( "i have tried to put down the worst as well as the best, but you got to read between the lines") is really key to how the book should be read. In effect he is saying: I've been giving you lots of details about my life, and the people who populated it, now it's up to you to figure out what was momentous and what was all in a days work. It is quite a subtle novel really, and Ebenezer's generally phlegmatic approach to life is reflected in the structure of a story in which, most of the time, the mundane and the significant are met, and sent on their way, with a shrug of the shoulder.