The Book of Ebenezer Le Page 
by 

G.B. Edwards, 

 

John Fowles (Introduction)

 

Cosmopolitan Provincialism

I have never been to the Isle of Guernsey. But I did live for some time on the Isle of Man, another of those territorial anomalies of British history which are subject to the English Crown but not to the English Parliament. It seems to me that The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is easily applicable more broadly to this sort of island culture. 

The unusual national status of places like Guernsey and Man promotes an ambiguity in the relationship with England that alternates between fearful resentment and profound affection.* The ways in which these conflicting emotions are rationalised can be interesting. On Guernsey it involves historical interpretations expressed succinctly by Ebenezer: “I remember A.D. 1066, because that was the year we conquered England.” The Isle of Man prefers to point out that its Tynwald is older by several centuries than the Parliament of Westminster and has been considerably more stable. One is led inevitably to remember the wonderful Peter Sellers film, The Mouse That Roared.

By definition places like Guernsey and Man are insular. Even after decades of incomers in the form of either tourists or tax-dodgers, they remain eccentric and suspicious of the mores of the outside world. Both places have a feel (I infer the Guernsey culture from Edwards) of a culture a half century behind the rest of Britain (Many former colonials settle on Man for just this reason - its more or less the Britain they left in their youth). They can appear backward, not just resistant to change - as in the Isle of Man’s resistance to gay rights and preference for capital punishment. As John Fowles points out in his introduction, “This inability to forget the old, this querulousness over the new, is what makes Ebenezer Le Page such a convincing portrayal of a much more universal mentality than the matter of the book might at first sight suggest”

Yet in the manner of Melville’s Nantucket in Moby Dick, these islands, because they are islands and therefore dependent on sea-faring, contain a remarkably well-travelled and cosmopolitan (male) population (the occasional importation of females resulting from male excursions kept the gene pool reasonably healthy one presumes). The combination of insularity and world-weariness produces, I think, a sort of benign cynicism which is the unique identifier of the native culture. They’ve seen it all before, even if it hasn’t ever been seen on the island. This can present itself as ignorant arrogance. But while it may be a sort of defensive arrogance, it is not entirely ignorant. There is a real and justifiable feeling of safety and of being truly home which may be unique to these micro-societies.

There are clear differences between the two islands. Guernsey exports its cows; Man its cats. Guernsey was occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War; Man was the site of a large prisoner of war camp for German soldiers. Guernsey produced seamen; Man largely supplied Caribbean pirates.** But these differences in fact only serve to publicise them globally in larger type than their size would otherwise warrant with the effect of confirming their great significance to a population which might otherwise become rather bored with itself. There is a self-sustaining mythology which is as compelling as it is un-factual.

The Isle of Man is considerably larger than Guernsey; and the latter much more densely settled. But the local distinctions are equally intense in both places. The 60,000 or so inhabitants of Guernsey speak a patois of English and French which is studiously recorded by Edwards. Yet even in such a small area, there are two officially recognised regional variants that are kept alive and prized by the natives. Such behaviour suggests that the human instinct to tribal organization really does end in those one knows, at least by sight.

On Man there is an invisible boundary which runs across the island from Peel in the West to Douglas in the East, and dividing the 80,000 inhabitants roughly in two. South of this line the predominant native family names are of Scandinavian origin (the ancient designation of the island is Sodor, the Vikings’ Southern Islands). In the North the names are more the distinctive Manx Q-names (a linguistic transformation of the Celtic ‘Mc’ or ‘Mac’ prefixes). The ancient tribes persist.***

The psychological effects of these local peculiarities are significant. For example I lived in the North of Man in the village of Bride. Once a week I would drive the 20 miles or so to the airport at Ronaldsway in the South. In line with the cosmopolitan attitudes of most of my neighbours this commute to London was not considered unusual. But upon due consideration of my routine, one expressed the shared sentiment of them all when he said, “You mean you commute every week, all the way to the airport?” 

Not having been born on Man, I had no traumatic reaction to leaving. It remains a pleasant personal memory of beautiful countryside and marvellous seascapes (on a good day from the summit of Snaefell it is possible to see the Scottish Mull 0f Galloway, the English Pennines, Welsh Snowdonia, and the Irish Mountains of Mourne - the omphalos one might say of the British Isles). Edwards on the other hand was born on Guernsey (distant from England and peripheral to France; perhaps, therefore, like a cut British fingernail on the carpet of Europe). He left it in young adulthood and never returned. He must have been obsessed with the place his entire life to have spent his last years doing little but writing about it. 

Any romantic sentimentality about the Isle of Man I might be subject to is immediately dissipated when I recall the question my wife raised early one Sunday morning: Well, Michael, should drive around the island clockwise or counterclockwise today?”“

*The problem of Manx piracy in the 18th century provoked Britain to threaten forcible annexation, a threat that would have been carried out but for the distracting matter of the American Revolution. But there is always the Queen, God bless and keep her! Ultimately both Guernsey and Man are representative legacies of a Norse culture of rape and pillage. The Conqueror may have settled down somewhat but the Viking blood still coursed in his veins. And the current monarch is his heir and his legacy to these islands.

** My house was called Nassau, a neighbour’s was Antigua; Dominica and Aruba were a mile or two down the road. Each name, by local legend, indicating the source of the funding for the original homesteads. And the business involved wasn’t in sugar or exotic vegetables, but rather booty. At least that’s the legend.

*** This business of tribal differences in small island places is evident in other parts of the British Isles as well. One thinks of the Outer Hebrides. Barra is Catholic and has been so even through the Reformation. Its near neighbour of South Uist is also Catholic. But the tiny strip of land called Benbecula (little more than an airstrip) on the causeway between South Uist and North Uist is effectively a hard border between Scottish Calvinists and Roman Catholics. Barrier islands as well as good fences apparently make good neighbours.