Book Review: "The Book of Ebenezer Le Page" by G.B Edwards

I am going to be very honest with you here, I had this book for more than a year before I opened it up. I got it second hand from World of Books (what a great place) and then I left it in the bottom of my drawer, promising myself I'd read it. The issue I had was that whenever I go to a bookshop, or past a bookshop - I must go in and buy a book. The next problem is that Ebenezer Le Page was already at the bottom of my TBR drawer. Eventually it was lost to the bottom of the pile. Cleaning the drawer has proven to be a good idea since it was unearthed during that moment like a lost artefact. And to be honest, it was totally my kind of book. How did I put it off for so long? I can't believe I neglected this classic...

Ebenezer Le Page looks back on his life and narrates this book where plenty of the reviews state "not a lot happens" and I know that when reviews say that, I'm going to have a great time. It's not just about Ebenezer Le Page though, he lives in Guernsey during the 19th and 20th centuries and the book shows us this changing landscape of what this place looks like throughout. There's something about the identity of the place which makes it feel as though you could breathe it in if you wanted to. I love that kind of book - the atmosphere and identity of the narrator are so interlocked and interwoven that there are just pages and pages of description. Some people say it feels like rambling, but no, it feels like you're being sucked into another world - every blade of grass can be felt beneath your barefeet. It is written beautifully.

He's resistant to change, and this is where he and the atmosphere begin a discord. He's stubborn and so parts of the narrative definitely feel abrupt - but they never feel forced. We see that this is a real person who's opinions have been shaped by quite a difficult personality of unchanging opinion. He never recovers from his love-life falling apart due to pride and ego. Liza Queripel leaves him lonely and thus, the narrative is tinged with emotional longings that never go away. He may be resistant to change but everything about the narrative and the wording reflect who he is, who he once was and the different shocks his life takes to the system. You may not like him all the time, but you cannot resist reading on. Genuinely, I had the time of my life with this book - it definitely is one to get your hands deep into the earth with. Grab the soil and feel the energy.

There are family tensions about money - of course. There's something bitter about this. He definitely knows how to hold a grudge but other than that, we feel the deep trauma that is even associated with him recounting his family. The wording changes again, the atmosphere is deeply set by the way he shows us the darkness and the grim reality of the place he lives in. The changing world may not always be nice but it is very realistic and something you can get philosophically lost in. The observations he makes upon the lives of others help us understand this philosophy. The one thing it teaches us is that all the tragedies that our narrator has suffered are not stand-alone or even individual to him. They aren't even that uncommon. Tragedies are happening everywhere and we have to wonder: how much of this is true? how much of what is being said to us is the whole story? Eventually, we realise there are most probably gaps in the narrative and that's okay. The unreliable narrator is alive and well.

In conclusion, I feel like this book really did open up my soul because there was something deeply bitter and tragic about it, yet it is written like it might come alive at any moment. Such a brilliant book and even though it might look a bit daunting and yes, not a lot physically happens - it is still an amazing piece of literature.