Notwithstanding Stories from an English Village - Hardcover

De Bernières, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184655330X ISBN 13: 9781846553301

Publisher: Harvill Secker, 2009

Synopsis

A Frenchman once pointed out to Louis de Bernieres that Britain was the most exotic country in Europe, adding that it was 'an immense lunatic asylum'. Casting his mind back to the village in southern Surrey where he grew up in the sixties and seventies, but plagued by a novelist's inability to stick to the truth, Louis de Bernieres brings us in "Notwithstanding" stories of a vanished England which will delight readers of his much-loved novels. The English village was a place where a lady might dress as a man in plus fours and spend her time shooting squirrels with a twelve bore, or keep a vast menagerie in her house. A retired general might give up wearing clothes, a spiritualist might live in a cottage with her sister and the ghost of her husband, and people might think it quite natural to confide in a spider that lives in a potting shed. De Bernieres' characters roam through the book, appearing in each other's stories and painting a picture of an entire community. Here we find the atmosphere of those times as it was in the countryside. "Notwithstanding" is not about an imagined idyll; it is about people who are worth remembering, whose lives are worth celebrating, and who would otherwise have been forgotten.

About this title

About the Author

Louis de Bernières is the bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are The Dust That Falls From Dreams, So Much Life Left Over and The Autumn of the Ace, the short story collection Labels, the children's book Station Jim and the poetry collection The Cat in the Treble Clef.

From the Back Cover

A PARTISAN'S DAUGHTER

'Sublimely funny and moving...by the time I'd finished this sleek little novel I'd laughed out loud numerous times and, eventually, cried. That's as true a testimony to a book's loveliness as I know.'

Independent

BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS

'Captivating and compelling...a masterpiece.'

Independent of Sunday

'A magnificent, poetic, colossal novel...It is, in every sense, a sublime book.'

Irish Times

CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN

'An emotional, funny, stunning novel which swings with wide smoothness between joy and bleakness, personal lives and history...it's lyrical and angry, satirical and earnest.'

Observer

From the Inside Flap

A Frenchman once pointed out to Louis de Bernières that Britain was the most exotic country in Europe, adding that it was 'an immense lunatic asylum'. Casting his mind back to the village in southern Surrey where he grew up in the sixties and seventies, but plagued by a novelist's inability to stick to the truth, Louis de Bernieres brings us in Notwithstanding stories of a vanished England which will delight readers of his much-loved novels.

The English village was a place where a lady might dress as a man in plus fours and spend her time shooting squirrels with a twelve bore, or keep a vast menagerie in her house. A retired general might give up wearing clothes, a spiritualist might live in a cottage with her sister and the ghost of her husband, and people might think it quite natural to confide in a spider that lives in a potting shed.

De Bernières's characters roam through the book, appearing in each others' stories and painting a picture of an entire community. Here we find the atmosphere of those times as it was in the countryside. Notwithstanding is not about an idyll that never was; it is about people who are worth remembering, whose lives are worth celebrating, and who would otherwise have been forgotten.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvill Secker
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 184655330X
• ISBN 13: 9781846553301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288