Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education (New York Review Books)

Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education (New York Review Books)

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Bedford's autobiographical novel paints a vivid picture of life in 1920s Europe between the wars.

Sybille Bedford placed the ambiguous and inescapableÂ stuff of her own life at the center of her fiction, and inÂ Jigsawâ€”her fourth and final novel, which was shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prizeâ€”she did it with particularÂ artistry. â€œWhat I had in mind,â€ she was later to say,Â â€œwas to build a novel out of the events and people whoÂ had made up, and marked, my early youth...Truth hereÂ was an artistic, not moral, requirement...It involved...writing about myself, my feelings, my actions.â€ And soÂ she assembled the puzzle pieces of her singular past intoÂ a picture of her â€œunsentimental education.â€ We learn of aÂ childhood spent alone with her father, â€œa stranded manÂ of the worldâ€ living a life of â€œungenteel poverty in quiteÂ grand surroundings,â€ a chÃ¢teau, that is, deep in theÂ German countryside, with wine but little else for himÂ and his young daughter to hold body and soul together.Â We learn of her return to Italy and her mother, â€œthe one
character I wished to keep minor and knew all along thatÂ it could not be done,â€ and the dark secret consuming herÂ motherâ€™s life. Finally, she tells us how she lived with andÂ learned from Aldous and Maria Huxley on the FrenchÂ Riviera, developing the sense of purpose and determinationÂ that made her the great writer she would become.

Country	USA
Author	Sybille Bedford
Binding	Paperback
EAN	9781681371917
Edition	Reprint
ISBN	168137191X
Label	NYRB Classics
Manufacturer	NYRB Classics
NumberOfItems	1
NumberOfPages	352
PublicationDate	2018-06-05
Publisher	NYRB Classics
ReleaseDate	2018-06-05
Studio	NYRB Classics

Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education (New York Review Books)

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