The echo chamber

by Gabriel Josipovici

First edition hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, in very good condition. Light shelf wear to the jacket, and page block is somewhat tanned. Pages are clear and unmarked throughout. LW

152 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Gabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 of Russo-Italian, Romano-Levantine parents. He lived in Egypt from 1945 to 1956, when he came to Britain. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a First in 1961. From 1963 to 1998 he taught at the University of Sussex. He is the author of seventeen novels, three volumes of short stories, eight critical works, and numerous stage and radio plays, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. His plays have been performed throughout Britain and on radio in Britain, France and Germany, and his work has been translated into the major European languages and Arabic. In 2001 he published A Life, a biographical memoir of his mother, the translator and poet Sacha Rabinovitch (London Magazine editions). His most recent works are Two Novels: 'After' and 'Making Mistakes' (Carcanet), What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Yale University Press), Heart's Wings (Carcanet, 2010) and Infinity (Carcanet, 2012).

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

A three-in-one review. This novel, alongside the two others recently read, In a Hotel Garden and Conversations in Another Room, exhaust Josipovici’s use of the novel-of-dialogue technique, caulked with assisting prose whenever required. Writers like Manuel Puig and Ariel Dorfman also explored this Barthesian notion in the 1980s, punching against the intrusive narrator and allowing the reader to ‘construct’ the novel alongside the writer—a technique that makes for ‘pageturning’ works that spit on real ‘pagetuners’ that lard margarine their pages with boring description and nonsense learned in writing classes. (Describe smells? Umm—no thanks). This novel is the strongest of the three, concerning an amnesiac recovering from an accident in a country retreat who slowly learns about the tragic incident wiped from his recall. A charming and dark work with shades of Don’t Look Now, Jake’s Progress, and The Good Life. How many books can boast that bizarre accolade? The starring cover biscuit is a Jammy Dodger.