{"product_id":"jigsaw-an-unsentimental-education-by-sybille-bedford-1400j","title":"Jigsaw, an Unsentimental Education by Sybille Bedford","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn autobiographical novel based on Sybille Bedford's highly unusual childhood, moving from a south-German Schloss full of animals and expensive wines to a nonconformist family in the North of England. n nReviews n nStyled a ``biographical novel,'' narrated by Bedford in the first nperson, and ``true to life . . . give or take a novelist's nmargins,'' the engrossing story of Bedford's early years and coming nof age might just as well have been called a memoir. ``The Kislings nand the Aldous Huxleys are . . . themselves; my mother and I are a npercentage of ourselves,'' she writes in an author's note. The nreason for clothing her story in fiction is her tact and delicacy nin portraying the characters she calls the Falkenheims, the Nairns nand the Desmirails, in order not to be ``hurtful'' to their ndescendants. Those who read Bedford's novel The Legacy will find nechoes here, but this narrative has a more immediate effect, nbecause the reader realizes that only a thin scrim comes between nthe facts of Bedford's life and their fictional rendering. Bedford n(Billi here) was the product of an eccentric, unstable upbringing. nRaised by her father in the Grand Duchy of Baden when her nirresponsible, charismatic mother runs off with a lover; then, when nshe is 12, plunged into a vagabond existence shuttling between her nmother in Italy and a penurious family in England to whom she is nconsigned, Billi becomes independent and precociously sophisticated nbefore she reaches adolescence. Though her formal education is nsketchy, her intellectual maturation occurs early on, as does her nconviction that writing is to be her metier. Richly buttressed with ndetails of social history, regional color and the artistic and nliterary scene of the '20s and '30s, the narrative gathers nintensity as Billi discloses her mother's morphine addiction and nthe tragic vicissitudes endured by her London friends. In the end, none feels that Bedford has achieved the qualities writers long for: n``the translation from experience into art.'' (Apr.)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Book Express","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41829864570954,"sku":"1400j","price":6.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/9101\/8826\/files\/1400j_14ed4bde-1c57-43b7-8a50-27d1b424e58c.jpg?v=1765232427","url":"https:\/\/www.bookexpress.nz\/products\/jigsaw-an-unsentimental-education-by-sybille-bedford-1400j","provider":"Book Express","version":"1.0","type":"link"}