The island of Guernsey has inspired two very different novels. One became an international bestseller and introduced many readers to the island’s wartime history; the other, though less well known, is the book Guernsey people themselves most cherish.
In 2008, Mary Ann Shaffer’s epistolary novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (completed after her death by her niece, Annie Barrows), was published to enormous success and later adapted into a film in 2018. Set during the Nazi Occupation of Guernsey, it tells of islanders who use books and reading as a way of surviving hunger, fear and repression. I enjoyed the novel very much, but when I visited Guernsey I was fascinated to hear local reactions to it. Many islanders felt the American author, who had only briefly visited Guernsey, romanticised their history, used names that did not ring true locally, and failed to capture the real spirit of island life.
The book Guernsey people speak of with genuine affection is The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by Guernsey-born writer Gerald Basil Edwards (1899–1976), published posthumously in 1981 with an introduction by John Fowles. It is the fictional autobiography of Ebenezer, a fisherman and tomato-grower whose simple island life unfolds against the upheavals of the twentieth century, including two world wars and the Nazi Occupation. His tempestuous love for the flirtatious Liza Queripel, his friendship with Jim Mahy, and his fierce attachment to his island create a portrait of Guernsey that feels utterly authentic.
I fell in love with Guernsey when I visited, and this novel captured its spirit superbly. William Golding wrote that “to read it is not like reading but living”, while critics called it “a masterpiece” and “miraculous”. The novel has inspired both a radio play and a stage adaptation starring Roy Dotrice, though sadly it has never been filmed. I still hope that one day it will be. Guernsey’s first Blue Plaque was placed on the house where G.B. Edwards was born.
Have you read either of these books? What do you think? Tell me here in a comment.
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Gareth
I enjoyed both books but The Book of Ebenezer le Page is one of my all-time favourites. The audio book is superbly narrated by Roy Dotrice.
Susannah Fullerton
Isn’t it a wonderful book. It is now some years since I read it, so I might look out that audio version and enjoy it that way.
Jan Clemson
Thanks for the link to the Le Page book Susannah. My great-grandmother was born in Guernsey. She came, ass a child with her family, to Australia in the late 19thC ( I think). Ancestors in the mid 18thC are Le Pages on both the male and female side of the family. I must find the book!
Ana Sánchez
I totally agree. I think it is a shame how commercial bad quality litterature as ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ steals ideas and characters from ‘Ebenezer Le Page’, makes fortune and fame (and a movie!) out of it , and finally even islanders sell their soul to money coming from this theft.
I read G B Edwards book years ago, a second hand copie,a French translation by title “Sarnia”, discovered at a street market in Belgium ( Brussels) ( just right in front of my rented home)
I was asked some 1’50 euro and I could barely pay 80 cents. It is one of the best fiction books i ve read in my life. And probably one of most important in 20 th century litterature.
This novel is very close to my heart
as well, It reminds me village life authenticity (my childhood, though in Spain) with pros and cons. And exile.
Funny I found in old Belgium same stubborn independence, Second World War trauma and tradition roots loss.
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Don Quixote de Avellaneda, a well- known theft.
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It is sad to see women becoming authors (and readers) of
more and more superficial and irrealistic (love) ‘soft-porno novels, for example ‘la femme de menage’ everywhere I look at. ( And as an ex-cleaning lady myself, I hate that book).
Susannah Fullerton
Thank you for recommending ‘Sarnia’ which I have never heard of.
Sometimes a tribute to another writer can work in modernisations of nvoels, but usually they don’t and then one feels that they have done a dissersive to a great author.
Patrick
Ah yes, there’s no one as parochial as a lifetime expatriate and at 82 I have lived in many parts of the world since first being evacuated from Guernsey as a 5 year old in June 1940. Now I have been encouraged/pressed to read the GL&PPPS which I have found quite detached from the memories I have of returning in 1945 to tough conditions and battles to recreate family and other relationships severed by 5 years. I have Googled to search out islander opinion to GL&PPPS and found some here in your review. I am well aware of how much I am influenced by my long time love of the Ebenezer Le Page saga and his comment that it was not the German Occupation but the English Occupation which broke the islander spirit. Not really fair to criticise Shaffer for being facile about this because it was almost 40 years later when she visited but I found the book unsatisfying. Have just read that there’s a film being made but that there will be no filming on Guernsey! Can this be true? Says it all really
Susannah Fullerton
Thanks for your thoughtful and interesting comments, Patrick.
Yes, there is to be a film version of the GL &PPPS book, but I hadn’t heard that none of the filming was done on Guernsey. That is dreadful. I had a most fascinating meeting with some of the islanders to discuss the book, and most did not like it. They felt it was not a genuine account of life in Guernsey during and just after the war. I think they are pleased that the book has brought tourists to the island, but would have been more pleased had it been Ebenezer le Page and his memorable story that had achieved that.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this. You come from a most beautiful part of the world.
Peter Adman
On our last visit to Guernsey this September (2016) we came across a copy of this book “Ebenizer Le Page” which we bought. We now find that apparently a movie was made of the book around year 2010 (?) with Kieran Knightly as the love interest. Can somebody, PLEASE, PLEASE help us with any information regarding the film?
By the way, by coincidence my wife’s mother’s name was Le Page (a common name in Guernsey) the same as the fictional main character in the book. She left the island on the day Germans invaded the island. So you can imagine how desperate we are to find about the film version of this book. Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Peter
Susannah Fullerton
I wish I could help you but I have never heard a thing about a film being made and surely if Keira Knightley was in it, there would have been lots of publicity. I actually cannot imagine her as Ebenezer’s love as I find she is always Keira Knightley rather than the character she should be, but oh how I wish someone would make a good film version of that wonderful novel. And how fascinating to have a family connection with the same name. Isn’t it a suoerb novel!
Ruth
During my visit to Guernsey a few years ago, the fierce and parochial pride locals have for their small island was brought home to me by an elderly gentleman who had experienced life under wartime occupation and had no time at all for the “other island” represented by Jersey. I can well believe the partisan feelings of Ebenezer le Page, whose name is definitely rooted in his Guernsey heritage.
Susannah Fullerton
Thanks for sharing your experience, Ruth. Yes, there is huge pride and also great rivalry with Jersey. I think you would enjoy The Book of Ebenezer le Page.