Sweeter Than All the World (Signed First Edition)
Language: English
Published by Knopf Canada, Toronto, 2001
- First Edition
- Signed
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Purpora Books, Comox, BC, CanadaPurpora Books
AbeBooks seller since August 30, 1997
Condition: Used - Fine
£ 9.73
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Some minor wrinkling along the top and bottom edges of the dust jacket. A novel by this Canadian author, a story of the Mennonites, spanning five centuries and three continents. 438 pages. Inscribed by author on the title page "For ___ - peace / Rudy Wiebe 2002".
Seller Inventory # 21436
- Title
- Sweeter Than All the World (Signed First Edition)
- Author
- Wiebe, Rudy
- Publisher
- Knopf Canada, Toronto
- Publication year
- 2001
- Condition
- Fine
- Dust jacket
- Near Fine Plus
- Signed
- Signed by Author
- Binding
- Hard Cover in Dust Jacket
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 067697340X
- ISBN 13
- 9780676973402
- Edition
- First Edition, First Printing.
- Seller catalogs
- Canadian Literature
The novel tells the story of the Mennonite people from the early days of persecution in sixteenth-century Netherlands, and follows their emigration to Danzig, London, Russia, and the Americas, through the horrors of World War II, to settlement in Paraguay and Canada. It is told episodically in a double-stranded narrative. The first strand consists of different voices of historical figures. The other narrative voice is that of Adam Wiebe, born in Saskatchewan in 1935, whom we encounter at telling stages of his life: as a small boy playing in the bush, as a student hunting caribou a week before his wedding, and as a middle-aged man carefully negotiating a temporary separation from his wife. As Adam faces the collapse of his marriage and the disappearance of his daughter, he becomes obsessed with understanding his ancestral past. Wiebe meshes the history of a people with the story of a modern family, laying bare the complexities of desire and family love, religious faith and human frailty.
The past comes brilliantly alive, beginning with the horrors of the Reformation, when Weynken Claes Wybe is burned at the stake for heretical views on Communion. We are caught up in the great events of each century, as we follow in the footsteps of Adam’s forebears: the genius engineer who invented the cable-car system; the artist Enoch Seeman, who found acclamation at the royal court in London after having been forbidden to paint by the Elders; Anna, who endures the great wagon trek across the Volga in 1860, leaving behind her hopes of marriage so that her brothers will escape conscription in the Prussian army; and Elizabeth Katerina, caught in the Red Army’s advance into Germany when rape and pillage are the rewards given to soldiers. The title of the novel, taken from a hymn, reflects the beauty and sorrow of these stories of courage. In a startling act of invention, Sweeter Than All the World sets one man’s quest for family and love against centuries of turmoil.
Rudy Wiebe first wrote of Mennonite resettlement in his 1970 epic novel The Blue Mountains of China. Since then, much of his work has focused on re-imagining the history of the Canadian Northwest. In Sweeter Than All the World, as in many of his most acclaimed novels, Wiebe has sought out real historical characters to tell an extraordinary story. William Keith, a University of Toronto professor and author of a book about Wiebe, writes: “Wiebe has a knack for divining wells of human feeling in historical sources.” Here, all the main characters share his name, and the history is one to which he belongs. Moreover, alongside those flashbacks into history is revealed an utterly compelling contemporary story of a man whose background is not totally unlike the author’s own. Wiebe sets his narrative against his two favourite backdrops: the northern Alberta landscape, and the shared memories of the Mennonite people. Sweeter Than All the World is a compassionate, erudite and stimulating work of fiction that shares the deep-rooted concerns of all of Wiebe’s work: how to make history live in our imagination, and how we can best live our lives.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Rudy Wiebe read as much as possible from an early age; his first reading materials were the Bible, the Eaton's catalogue and the Free Press Weekly Prairie F
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Purpora Books
Comox, BC, Canada
AbeBooks seller since August 30, 1997
Shipping rates from Canada to U.S.A.
| Item | 10 to 20 business days | 5 to 10 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 14.36 | £ 26.45 |
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US & UK Modern First Editions, Antiquarian, Art & Photography, Canadiana, Vancouver Island Local Histories, Canadian Literature First EditionsSeller's business information
Purpora Books
BC, Canada
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Charles Purpora owns and operates Purpora Books at 1805 Butler Road, Comox,
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