Forgetting Elena: A Novel [Paperback]

Edmund White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 1994

Combining glittering wit, an atmosphere dense in social paranoia, and a breathtaking elegance and precision of language, White's first novel suggests a hilarious apotheosis of the comedy of manners. For, on the privileged island community where Forgetting Elena takes place, manners are everything. Or so it seems to White's excruciatingly self-conscious young narrator who desperately wants to be accepted in this world where everything from one's bathroom habits to the composition of "spontaneous" poetry is subject to rigid conventions.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Combining glittering wit, an atmosphere dense in social paranoia, and a breathtaking elegance and precision of language, White's first novel suggests a hilarious apotheosis of the comedy of manners. For, on the privileged island community where Forgetting Elena takes place, manners are everything. Or so it seems to White's excruciatingly self-conscious young narrator who desperately wants to be accepted in this world where everything from one's bathroom habits to the composition of "spontaneous" poetry is subject to rigid conventions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vint' Int'l Ed. Oct 1994, 2nd Print edition (October 4, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067975573X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679755739
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.5 x 5.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars enigmatic tale works on several levels, May 4, 2000

By 

Jonathan Mayhew (Lawrence, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forgetting Elena: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a classic novel, and one that works on several levels. A satire of Fire Island gay culture? Yes, but it works even if you have no idea that this is what the book is supposed to be "about," as I didn't when I first read it years ago. The prose is seamlessly perfect, and the device of the amnesiac narrator, which shouldn't work, actually does.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect work, October 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Forgetting Elena: A Novel (Paperback)

A vanished gay culture and setting (recognizably The Pines in the 1960s) transformed into an icy fantasy, with details borrowed from the ceremonial court life of ancient Japan and Java. An amnesiac narrator finds himself in an imaginary island society, at once funny and horrific, where refined, ever-changing rules govern the slightest action. He must somehow deduce his own identity from the enigmatic offhand remarks of others around him while not giving himself away.

Though infused with a gay sensibility, this is not a "gay book". In it, obsessive aestheticism and obsessive love face each other, gradually becoming deadly enemies.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the masterpieces of 20th-century literature., February 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Forgetting Elena: A Novel (Paperback)

White's first novel is a fascinating study of an obsessive mind in action. The narrator, who lives on an island that in some ways resembles Fire Island, is a compulsive amnesiac who is apparently terrified to admit to anyone that he doesn't know who he is or what his relationship is to the people around him. It is clear he would feel embarassed if anyone found out. But as he attempts to determine his status in this highly stratified society, it is clear that its values are very much a part of his subconscious.

Truly a book in which form reflects content, the style of the writing is self-conscious and always exquisitely phrased. This book is not for everyone. For me, however, this novel is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century literature. It is simultaneously a mystery, a comedy of manners and a haunting love story.