In Zodiac Light
Published on 16. July 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-0-552-77418-5 (ISBN)
Description
It is December 1922 and the aftershocks of the First World War continue to make themselves felt. Ex-soldier, poet and composer Ivor Gurney, suffering from increasingly frequent and deepening bouts of paranoid schizophrenia, is transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital, Dartford.
Neglected by the military and by his own family, and abandoned by all but a notable handful of his friends, Gurney begins a descent into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him.
Yet following his arrival at Dartford, there are still those who continue to believe in Gurney's capabilities - in his 'wayward genius'. For a brief period, it seems that he might find some calm and ease in his life, and thus achieve the status so many consider him capable of.
Neglected by the military and by his own family, and abandoned by all but a notable handful of his friends, Gurney begins a descent into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him.
Yet following his arrival at Dartford, there are still those who continue to believe in Gurney's capabilities - in his 'wayward genius'. For a brief period, it seems that he might find some calm and ease in his life, and thus achieve the status so many consider him capable of.
Reviews / Votes
A moving portrait of breakdown, casual brutality and locked-in creativity...A fine portrait of an acutely sensitive man * Independent * Edric's novel is a beautifully imagined contribution to securing Gurney's posthumous reputation * Telegraph * For more than 20 years now, Robert Edric's inflinching eye for human cruelty has roamed across centuries and continents * Sunday Times Culture Magazine * Subtle, absorbing novel of poetry, madness and post-war trauma * Sunday Times * [Edric's] prose has an impressive emotional weight -- Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate * Guardian * A fiction of extraordinary resonance, a text of secret harmonies, upper partials and complex internal logic, executed in prose of beautiful, foreboding plainness. In Zodiac Light is a remarkable, serious, accomplished novel and Edric an author absolutely secure in the originality of his own voice * The Times * Deeply moving...Edric accomplishes much with this thoughtful, subtle and moving novel...Above all, he allows us to understand a little more clearly how fragile are the borders of sanity, and how blurred they can become * Yorkshire Evening Post * The novel's delicate counterpoint of psychiatrist and war-damaged poet invites comparison with Pat Barker's Regeneration...Edric is a virtuoso of atmospheric settings * London Review of Books * His language is precise and compressed, each word invested with a world of meaning. An uneasy, thought-provoking work which stays with you long after you have finished reading it. * Historical Novels Review * With its shifting, subtle light this is a potent exercise in fictional recuperation * Sunday Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
434 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-552-77418-5 (9780552774185)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Robert Edric was born in 1956. His novels include Winter Garden (1985 James Tait Black Prize winner), A New Ice Age (1986 runner-up for the 1986 Guardian Fiction Prize), A Lunar Eclipse, The Earth Made of Glass, Elysium, In Desolate Heaven, The Sword Cabinet, The Book of the Heathen (shortlisted for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award), Peacetime (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2002), Gathering the Water (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2006) and The Kingdom of Ashes.