A Compass Error: A Novel [Paperback]

Sybille Bedford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2001

"Bedford's genius is for writing about people. [Her] excellence is immortal, her career one of great distinction in literature."-Peter Levi.

In this sequel to The Favourite of the Gods, seventeen-year-old Flavia, on her own in the south of France in the late 1930s, lives with the confidence and ardor of youth.

She knows her destiny-it lies at Oxford, where she will begin a great career of public service. But this view of herself is at odds with reality; it springs from ideas she

has of her idolized English father and of her "blessed" Italian mother, Constanza. Only when she is caught up in an intrigue that is to determine the fate of those she most loves does she begins to discover her own true nature-even as she loses the bearings of her moral compass.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Though it's a sequel to the novel A Favourite of the Gods, the coming-of-age tale A Compass Error makes a seductive introduction to the work of little-known, mid-century master Sybille Bedford. Flavia is 17, living alone in the South of France in the late 1920s, washed up like a bit of flotsam from the wreckage of her parents' lives. Despite her chaotic childhood, Flavia is a responsible little soul. As the novel opens, the white-hot summer days find her cramming for the entrance exams to Oxford, cheerfully disciplined about her studies. A chance encounter with the wife of a famous painter leads Flavia into the nighttime world of adulthood: convivial dinners, marathon drinking, and, well, hot love. Under these influences, Flavia makes a choice that will change the course of her life. In the end, the book amounts to a kind of perverse appreciation of youth and its terrible, terrible mistakes. --Claire Dederer

About the Author

Sybille Bedford was born in 1911, in Charlottenburg, Germany, and was brought up in Italy, England, and France. "Every reader knows her name," wrote Jan Morris, "but few, I suspect, realize the range of her gifts-novelist, biographer, travel writer, analyst of the law, celebrant of food, and mistress of an altogether inimitable prose." A vice president of English PEN and one of Britain's nine Companions of Literature, Mrs. Bedford lives in London and is currently at work on a memoir.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; 1st Counterpoint paperback ed edition (September 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582431590
• ISBN-13: 978-1582431598
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Sybille's Saga, September 8, 2008

By 

F. noyes "f noyes bookworm" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Compass Error: A Novel (Paperback)

I'm plowing my way through the Sybille Bedford collection of writings and this one happened to be next on the list. I've become quite fond of her peripatetic style of writing, weaving the semi-autobiographical stories among the well written travelogue of the 30's. Compass left me disappointed, unfortunately.

The story was somewhat repetitive of some of her earlier books, an autobiographical rehash. It did give some insight into the direction her libido was taking her as a teenager, alluding to the passion of her affairs with strong, older women. She might have elaborated more on this aspect of her awakening but perhaps felt constrained by her generational decorum.

For the Sybille Bedford devotees this is a must read; all others may want to take a pass.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Compass gone awry, November 6, 2005

By 

J. Marren "jtm497" (Glen Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Compass Error: A Novel (Paperback)

Bedford's sequel to "A Favorite of the Gods" again takes place in that charmed era "between the wars," when movement between countries was easy, artists, writers and scholars congregated in a tourist-free South of France, and one seemed able to live well on pennies. The story opens with the 17 year-old Flavia being left quite alone in St. Jean, as her mother goes off with her fiance (as soon as he gets divorced, that is) and the family's faithful maid returns to Italy. Flavia lives a solitary, regimented life of study for university exams until taken under the wing of the wecoming Therese, who presides over a home with her children, a famous, tempermental artist-husband, and numerous unidentified lovers. Flavia soon becomes one of these, slowly realizizng that she prefers women over men, although it is "understood" that given her age she has had no experience of the opposite sex.

All this is portrayed by Bedford as perfectly innocent and normal, until the malicious Andree arrives on the scene. Flavia falls hard, not realizing who Andree really is, and none of her new found friends sees fit to enlighten her. In a new forward, Bedford asks whether Flavia really knew in her heart, and chose to ignore her instincts. Bedford readily admits that it may seem improbable that Flavia wouldn't find out, but nevertheless this is the moral dilemma she presents.

I won't give anything else away--all this is more or less described in the forward--but what is disturbing about this tale is the weight of responsibility for her actions that all place squarely on Flavia's shoulders. I saw the story quite differently. Flavia is an odd mix of sophistication and innocence, left on her own, prey to all. Why is not Therese responsible for seducing her? Why isn't Andree judged to be fully responsible?

I won't say more, but I found my owm moral compass disturbed as I read Bedford's novel. She's a beautiful writer; the more autobiographical the story, the better she is. But a reader needs to shed his or her 21st century notions of how teenagers should be protected (or at least how one would like to protect them) and what the responsibility of adults is, to enter fully into the story.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Did they not tell you this is the sequel?, April 14, 2003

By 

Emily Bell "I knows how to pick you a good book" (Greeneville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Compass Error: A Novel (Paperback)

You have to read Favourite of the Gods first. Favourite is much better but you will have to read this one too to further explore this complex and courageous mother and daughter pair.