Gilgamesh: A Novel [Paperback]

Joan London (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2004

Gilgamesh is a rich, spare, and evocative novel of encounters and escapes, of friendship and love, of loss and acceptance, a debut that marks the emergence of a world-class talent. It is 1937, and the modern world is waiting to erupt. On a farm in rural Australia, seventeen-year-old Edith lives with her mother and her sister, Frances. One afternoon two men, her English cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram, arrive-taking the long way home from an archaeological dig in Iraq-to captivate Edith with tales of a world far beyond the narrow horizon of her small town of Nunderup. One such story is the epic of Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian king who traveled the world in search of eternal life. Two years later, in 1939, Edith and her young son, Jim, set off on their own journey, to Soviet Armenia, where they are trapped by the outbreak of war. Rich, spare, and evocative, Gilgamesh won The Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award alongside Richard Flanagan's

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'Joan London's glancing, iridescent, intelligent first novel... is such a pleasure to read, her prose a seamlessly shifting blend of poetry, pathos and humour' Washington Post; 'Streamlined, strong and remarkably lovely... Reading Gilgamesh is like watching a magician who can do many things rapidly, expertly and all at once' New York Times Book Review; 'An epic tale from a writer of considerable distinction' Sydney Morning Herald" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Joan London is the author of two prize-winning collections of stories published in Australia. Gilgamesh is her first novel and her first work to be published in the UK. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (May 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802141218
• ISBN-13: 978-0802141217
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #435,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gilgamesh: A Novel, April 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Gilgamesh: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is hard to put down. Joan London presents characters of disparate cultural and geographic backgrounds with such warmth that you feel you know them as intimately as a roommate. She is no less able in presenting different parts of the world where the novel takes place. Her characters are Australian, British, Armenian, and Russian. They are Soldiers, Farmers, housewives, Sailors, teachers, lonely girls, and lonely boys. What they seem to share is that they all are real humans and as such they all have lost something. Some have lost a dream, others limbs, and others loves. It is a story of love and the struggle to develop a palate to enjoy sweetness in a life that is short on sugar.
Ms. London's love for Australia is dangerously contagious. She presents the Australian backcountry and its people in such a way that you can't help but want to go there. The Australian government should drop all their travel brochures, the fancy color pictures, and video clips and just send copies of this book to travel agents all over the world. Anyone reading this book will fall in love with Australia and its people

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars World Inside A World, August 11, 2003

By 

Lee Armstrong (Winterville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gilgamesh: A Novel (Hardcover)

A singer named Rhett Miller wrote a song whose lyric is, "There is a world inside the world that you see." This kind of Zen-like perspective is one that fits this most interesting story where the external world changes from rural Australia to London to Armenia to Iraq and back again as the story progresses, but whose inner world is filled with characters each trying to find their place within that world. The main character, Edith, starts the story as a teenage girl whose father has died and whose mother, Ada, is somewhat of a lost person, a romantic living amid an immensely practical world of the small village of Nunderup. Her cousin Leopold who visits also seems restless, perhaps seeking adventure or simply trying to see enough of the world to find his place. With him is his driver and companion Aram who flashes on the scene briefly, an orphan from the atrocities in Armenia, also rootless, not particularly belonging to anyone or anywhere. Upon finding herself with the social stigma of an unmarried pregnant girl in 1937 Australia, Edith gives birth to Jim and decides to keep her baby and find the father Aram who she believes will marry her when he learns of their child. With this, the novel becomes quite the epic adventure, crossing the sea, encountering a cook who seems to have too fond a liking for children, staying with her aunt in London before setting out for Armenia. There we meet a whole range of characters including Hagop who befriends her and Tati the visionary Armenian poet while a world of external political intrigue amidst war swirls around Edith and young Jim while the internal world compass seems solidly fixed on finding a home. Eventually, Edith learns of Aram's death and flees to Iran to be reunited ever so briefly with Leopold who takes them to a safe haven in Iraq, the very orphanage from which Aram came. By now, Jim's internal world is quickly developing as he also seems out of place, waking when he should be sleeping, not quite fitting in. Events take them back to Australia where Jim continues to be more of an odd duck, not quite feeling at home in his own country. Joan London's prose grabs you while the story's worldwide scope lets you travel through the book, all the while seeing the world inside the world within each of the characters. "Gilgamesh" is an excellent accomplishment! Enjoy!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Understated and Engaging Novel --- Emotional and Honest, May 29, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilgamesh: A Novel (Hardcover)

Joan London's GILGAMESH is an understated and engaging novel of physical and emotional adventure, and the unknowable and invisible bonds that unite some people in life. It is 1937, and seventeen-year-old Edith has lived her whole life on the wild Australian coast on a bit of land her father has tried to tame for years. After her father's death, the land grows harder and harder to maintain; she, along with her mother and sister, soon slip into complacency and solitude.

The arrival of her cousin Leopold and his intriguing Armenian friend Aram brings Edith back to life. The two young men, having just returned from an archeological dig in Iraq, challenge her to think about the world beyond southwestern Australia. They fascinate her with tales of the places they've traveled and the worlds they have seen. With Aram, Edith shares a special attraction and, after he and Leopold leave, she finds out that she is pregnant with his child. With new confidence, Edith decides to keep the baby and, after her son Jim is born, the two set off on a journey to find Aram.

Her love and longing for Aram, a man she hardly knows in any conventional sense, take Edith and her son from their isolated home to Soviet-ruled Armenia and then to the Middle East before returning to Australia. This journey brings her closer to Leopold and makes her more aware of her own needs and desires. It instills in Jim a sense of Armenian identity, as well as a wanderlust similar to that of Leopold and his father.

All of London's characters seem lonely. They come together under often dramatic or dangerous circumstances and then share the ordinary details and events of their lives. Despite the subtext of espionage, war and world affairs, this is a quiet novel as shy as Edith but still as bold. London's subdued tone belays the strong emotions of the characters, the urgency of Edith's need to find Aram and the drama of the story. The loneliness of the characters manifests in passionate relationships and these relationships compose much of the novel.

Edith's restlessness drives the plot, but the friendship and adventures of Aram and Leopold underscore the action. Their relationship parallels that of the mythical Gilgamesh and Enkidu. But by the end of the novel, Edith, Leopold and Jim are all like Gilgamesh, living life as best they can in the absence of Aram, their Enkidu. When he grows up, Jack becomes a figure like Edith, journeying far, with the assistance of Leopold, to search out the legacy of Aram.

The pace of GILGAMESH is slow, sometimes drowsy, but the novel is well written, a uniquely told yet classically understood take on the themes of friendship, longing and journeying. While no knowledge of the myth of Gilgamesh is required to understand, appreciate or enjoy the novel, it would certainly enhance the reading. Spinning from a myth of universal themes, London has created a novel just as evocative and universal.

Like Gilgamesh, Edith must leave home, test herself, love and lose much in order to learn her true strength and worth. Like Gilgamesh, she comes home weary and wise. And the reader, invested in the brutally real lives of Edith and Jim, gains much from this emotional and honest tale.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman