- Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (29 Mar 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140113886
- ISBN-13: 978-0140113884
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 12.7 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 326,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
An autobiographical novel based on Sybille Bedford's highly unusual childhood, moving from a south-German Schloss full of animals and expensive wines to a nonconformist family in the North of England.
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First Sentence
A FIRST coherent memory is being wheeled through leafy streets in a pram that felt too small for me (I was well able to walk). Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
A FIRST coherent memory is being wheeled through leafy streets in a pram that felt too small for me (I was well able to walk). Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This delightful biographical novel portrays Sybille Bedford's eccentric extended family in a world of writers (like Huxley) and artists (like Kisling) and their circles. Most of the action takes place in Sanary near Toulon on the French Riviera of the twenties and thirties. The story begins in Berlin where Sybille Bedford was born just before the first world war. She moves to Southern Germany towards the end of the war with her unconventional father, then on to Italy with her eccentric mother. Later they leave for France because of the rise of Fascism and settle by chance in Sanary to which Aldous Huxley also moves. Sybille Bedford's adolescence is spent between England and France (winters in England, summers in France). Sanary at the time was a small fishing town (now its a large tourist destination). Alas things take a turn for the worse when her mother's young Italian lover is unfaithful and she turns to the needle (morphine) which drives her crazy. The endless little anecdotes are totally absorbing and so vivid that you may feel like dropping things right away and going to Sanary. You would be disappointed. Unfortunately neither the free and elegant lifestyle, nor the wild and artistic world of those times still exist. They are things of the past and you can only visit them today by reading the book.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This has to be one of the most underrated books of the century-a beautifully written, personal, sometimes painful but always riveting read. It also describes the long, sunfilled days in the early century in Southern France brilliantly, and captures the essence of those post world war one years when people desperately tried to forge a new life with new ideas and often, doomed, hopes. Why isn't this author better known?-a privilege to read and in a small way, enter her past life.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Sybille Bedford ought to occupy a place right at the top of the literary Pantheon - she is a writer of incredible breadth and vision, while all along deriving most of her fiction from a narrow period of her own youth. Jigsaw was shortlisted for the Booker so must be on more readers radar, but her earlier books A Compass Error and A Favourite of the Gods (Jigsaw's clear precursors in terms of theme and content) are largely unknown despite being available in 'Classic' editions. I've hardly ever met anyone who knows her work well except for other novelists. I'd strongly recommend reading her books chronologically for all that they are all stand alone titles. She's also the author of a masterful biography of Aldous Huxley (who makes appearances in her fiction and is clearly an influence upon her).
She is wonderful on the awkwardness of growing up around dominant personalities - particularly that of the charming but self-destructive mother.
So - read Sybille Bedford - everything and anything you can lay your hands on, but save Jigsaw until last.
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