The Swallowed Man: A Novel by Edward Carey (English) Paperback Book

Description: The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS CHOICE"A strange and tender parable . . . All of Edward Careys work is profound and delightful." —Max Porter, author of LannyThe ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to reimagine a time-honored fable: the story of an impatient father, a rebellious son, and a watery path to forgiveness for the young man known as PinocchioIn the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, "as if the wood commanded me," Giuseppe—better known as Geppetto—carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories—whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish—and consumed by guilt. He hunkers in the creatures belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away. With all the charm, atmosphere, and emotional depth for which Edward Carey is known—and featuring his trademark fantastical illustrations—The Swallowed Man is a parable of parenthood, loss, and letting go, from a creative mind on a par with Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Edward Carey is a novelist, visual artist, and playwright. His previous novels include Little, Alva & Irva, and Observatory Mansions, and an acclaimed series for young adults, the Iremonger Trilogy. His writing for the stage includes an adaptation of Robert Coovers Pinocchio in Venice, a continuation of the Pinocchio story. Born in England, he now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin, where he lives with his wife, the author Elizabeth McCracken, and their family. Review Praise for The Swallowed Man:"Inspired. . . . a riff on the entwined themes of fatherhood and creative spark." —The New York Times Book Review"The Swallowed Man stands out among Careys other works. . . . an existential fairy tale for adults told by an old artist considering the tragedy of life." —The Washington Post"When I say that this is a beautiful book, I mean that literally—the language as well as the art. . . . A spectacular experience." —Bill Goldstein, NBC"Richly descriptive and abundantly playful . . . [an] endearing meditation on creation and its power, conveying how much the act adds to our existence." —The Austin Chronicle"Carey has a knack for beautifully connecting objects to characters, in addition to weaving artwork—literally and figuratively—into his writing. . . . The Swallowed Man is a wrenching take on the indefatigable nature of time, the restless way in which parents seek the best for their children, often spurning themselves in quiet darkness, not knowing if they did right by their offspring." —Ploughshares"Illuminated by Careys exquisitely textured original illustrations, [The Swallowed Man] is a slim novel about art, parenthood, and what it is like to see your creations walk in the world, defy you, and even, maybe, save you as well. And it could not be more timely. [It has] the feeling of a book that both exists outside of time and yet lands, unerringly, in the present. . . . And as deliberate as his brushstrokes are, his words are as well." —Alexander Chee, Lit Hub"A surreal and intimate portrait of a father in crisis." —Poets & Writers"Following up on the triumph of his historical novel Little, Carey proves once again how there is a magic in that archetypal familiarity of the perennial fairy tale." —The Millions"Geppeto, carver of naughty Pinocchio, keeps a haunting journal of his years inside the whale. Bizarre [and] moving." —Margaret Atwood"No Disney fairy tale, this is an illustrated, literary, poignantly erudite study in anguish, guilt, madness, soul-searching, and eventual redemption." —Booklist"Art objects live in the belly of this marvelous novel, images swallowed by text, sustained by a sublime and loving imagination. Like all Edward Careys work, The Swallowed Man is profound and delightful. It is a strange and tender parable of two maddening obsessions; parenting and art-making." —Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny"A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist." —Kirkus ReviewsPraise for Edward Carey: "[A writer with] a dowsing rod capable of divining what hides within the human heart. Carey is without peer." —Kelly Link"Edward Carey writes wonderfully weird books about wonderfully weird things." —Celeste Ng"Nothing short of a genius." —Daily Mail (London) Review Quote Praise for The Swallowed Man : "Inspired. . . . a riff on the entwined themes of fatherhood and creative spark." -- The New York Times Book Review " The Swallowed Man stands out among Careys other works. . . . an existential fairy tale for adults told by an old artist considering the tragedy of life." -- The Washington Post "When I say that this is a beautiful book, I mean that literally Excerpt from Book 1. I am writing this account, in another mans book, by candlelight, inside the belly of a fish. I have been eaten. I have been eaten, yet I am living still. I have tried to get out. I have made many attempts. But I must conclude that it is not possible. I am trapped within an enormous creature and am slowly being digested. I have found a strange place to exist, a cave between life and death. It is an unhappy miracle. I am afraid of the dark. The dark is coming for me. I have candles; they are my small protection. And I have this purloined book, that I shall slowly fill. Before the last candle dies, Ill tell my tale. I give you fair warning: I can boast you no battlefields; this is no murderers story; there is no great romance. But before all this, back on land, I did an extraordinary thing. An impossible thing. And for that thing--in order that the world may be put back in balance--I am now paying a severe cost. I shall tell my terrible shame, my tale of the supernatural though so devastatingly real. Am I to account myself very fortunate, or entirely devoid of luck? I considered myself, before this last tumble, a very fortunate individual, blessed of more good luck, surely, than was my fair portion. Back on land, after all, I had made a miracle, I had fashioned an impossible thing. But this piece of good luck is overshadowed by a rather enormous piece of bad luck that I am not quite able to forget, for I live with the fact every day. A monster fish has swallowed me--a shark or relative of that species, I am no expert. It is no small basking shark that has thus contained me, I say that straight, no catfish with grand opinions of himself. I have been taken by a colossus, perhaps the largest of its kind that ever was. Perhaps the last surviving megalodon , of prehistoric vintage. Deep in such a thing do I dwell. I had heard of this monster-beast, this hunger-creature, ere I braved the waters. Did I head out in a large military vessel equipped with cannon and musket, with harpoon and barbed hook? No, I must own I did not. I set out into the watery world on a dinghy, a rather ancient craft. It floated, it was seaworthy, so long as the sea was in good humor. I went out because someone had told me--was it a cruel joke, I wonder now?--that my own son was on the water in distress, and I wanted him back. I wanted, to be clear, to save him. But I did not save him. Of that, I am most keenly aware. I bought a small boat. It seemed a solid boat to me, but I am ignorant of such matters, and the further out I rowed, the less certain I was. Some miles out, the water began to move strangely. Waves, when before it had been calm. My little boat rocking, soon some water spilling in. An increasing storm upon me. My little boat trembling more and more, and then waves breaking and the sea opening--as if it were boiling--and then the great mouth itself was upon me. The hole, rushing forward. The living tunnel hurtling unto me. Such a size, no hope against such a thing, like the world had erupted. The sea creature, colossus, flesh-mountain. I saw it only fleetingly, for a handful of seconds. Like Moses it split the water, and suddenly before me was a great black depth. I fell, for there was no alternative, toward it and within it. Into the very mouth. I saw its teeth. Arranged in rows two or three deep. A graveyard. On I fell, out and away from everything I knew. Confined, constricted. Stolen! How shall I ever find him now? I shall never see him again. I smashed down the dark tunnel, my body thrown and thumped, dashed and dragged, desperate for breath. Down and down, darker and damper, until at last the falling ceased. I had landed and now could breathe again. But what land was this, what peculiar geography? I was up to my knees in liquid. I puffed, I panted--I, somehow, lived ! Scraped here and there, disheveled certainly, bruised and bloody, but still, no matter the unlikeliness, still alive. And yet what living could this be? Rickety and miserable, harrowed by the dank rocking darkness, at last I started feeling about. The floor was moist yet solid enough, but even as I fumbled I could find no end to it. Timidly I rose, fully expecting my head to strike a surface, but soon I was standing at full height and still I found no roof. I lifted my shaking hands above me with caution, fully prepared for them to strike something solid. But the strike did not come. I proceeded to extend my height as well as I could and yet I touched only more unoccupied space. Only after a moment did rumors of the high ceiling begin to reach me, in the form of liquid dripping from above. I have suffered this small rain ever since. Here, then, was space. I set out east five paces, no limit; west ten paces, no end yet. The ground, I report, was not even. I tried to walk forward and stumbled upon objects, pieces of half-eaten sea life, yet still the place went on. I called out, and the altered sound of my voice was a terror to me. "Hallooo!" The noise was unpleasant, and there came the response: Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! All the time quieter, the decreasing ghosts of my original sound. I felt about further, in total darkness, no hint of anything but black and black and ever more of black, until I bumped into something solid. A wall, cast out at an angle, but not of flesh--it seemed to me, somehow, to be of wood . Planks of wood. Curving upward. Wood? Impossible! I followed this wall with shaking hands and, finding its end, pulled myself up onto it. This took some doing, and I failed many times. But then--at the peak of its curve--a flat surface! Flat, here? Flat, true? Flat! It could not be. And yet it was. I crawled upon this flat and had not been long about it when suddenly there was an opening in the flat ground and I tumbled downward, into something else. I had fallen again. Not so very far this time; about the height, I surmised, of a full grown man. There was blood in my mouth. I felt about: more flat . . . and yet not only. I could not trust myself to believe it. Stairs! My hands discovered actual solid stairs . No! Impossible! But there was no mistake. I had fallen down stairs. Did this peculiar creature have perhaps a spiral stairway within its intestines? Was there a smart rotunda to its heart? Twin outhouses of kidneys? Its oesophagus a redbrick chimney flue? How strange, that a great fish should master the concept of right angles. On the floor--solid floor, now, this was--I felt boxes, wooden crates spilled about. These were surely not a natural part of my enormous host, I sensed, but rather something consumable, like me. The lid of one I proceeded to break loose, then felt about its insides. Stacked in neat rows, I felt a particular column I was only too familiar with, made, I supposed-- O, irony! --of whale fat. Candles! Spermaceti pillars, so many night-killers, so many suns. And dry, by my word. Hallo, tallow! To light one and see again: how lovely that would be. I fumbled about, hoping to find a tinderbox to rescue me, but no such miracle was about. I was so thirsty to see again that I panicked myself utterly. Until in my weeping misery it at last occurred to me that I may have the solution with me all along. Joseph, Joseph, I said to myself, have you ever been the smoker of a pipe? Aye, I answered myself, I am part of that fraternity. If there were light, I should show you my right finger and thumb, be-yellowed by my habit. You would spy the evidence of a staining to the hairs of my upper lip. You would meet my teeth, also witnesses of this behavior. So then. Ah! Left trouser cupboard? Empty but for the leg. Right side: something else there? &nb Details ISBN0593188888 Author Edward Carey Short Title The Swallowed Man Pages 192 Language English Year 2022 ISBN-10 0593188888 ISBN-13 9780593188880 Format Paperback Publication Date 2022-01-25 Subtitle A Novel Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Riverhead Books,U.S. Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2022-01-25 NZ Release Date 2022-01-25 US Release Date 2022-01-25 UK Release Date 2022-01-25 Illustrations BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT DEWEY 823.914 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:141709927;

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