- Hardcover: 152 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Canada; First Edition edition (Jan 23 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385663404
- ISBN-13: 978-0385663403
- Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 12.4 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #70,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Books in Canada
C. S. Richardson’s The End of the Alphabet is an elegant, shapely novel. As new novelist Richardson has an advantage. He is a book designer, and has probably read more novels (before he creates their covers) than most writers, so his standards are exacting, obvious in his own writing.
The End of the Alphabet is about Ambrose Zephyr, an absolutely average man who is content with the habit of his days. His only extraordinary aspect is his utter passion for his wife of some years, Zappora Ashkenazi, whom he calls Zipper. Zipper is elegant and distinctive, and Ambrose is besotted with her; even after years of marriage, he simply cannot understand what she sees in him.
When Ambrose fails his “annual medical exam” and is told by his doctor that he has only a month to live, he decides to contradict his impending death by embarking on a wild journey, an alphabetical “grand tour” of all the places on the globe that demand visiting. And thus begins a frantic odyssey, from Amsterdam to Berlin to Chartres to Paris to Florence and onwards, with Ambrose trying to outrun his limited time by gulping down all the sights of a bountiful world and its infinite variety.
Zipper travels with him, watching her husband’s physical erosion and struggling to negotiate her own pain and grief. Until gently, quietly, the two of them reach an understanding about love and mortality. Instead of going for the easy structure of the complete alphabet, Richardson interrupts their journey and they return to their London home to face together the final and most inevitable destination, death.
Richardson writes with a creamy economy that is nothing less than dazzling. His compelling use of image, his distinctive style, and his understated wit all make this a novel that stands out, a novel that beckons and rewards as few novels do. The End of the Alphabet undertakes a journey that is about writing and its destinations. Richardson knows exactly how the alphabet shapes words, not careless and scattered clumps, but precisely calibrated, a geography and progress that illuminates both meaning and understanding.
Aritha van Herk (Books in Canada)
The End of the Alphabet is about Ambrose Zephyr, an absolutely average man who is content with the habit of his days. His only extraordinary aspect is his utter passion for his wife of some years, Zappora Ashkenazi, whom he calls Zipper. Zipper is elegant and distinctive, and Ambrose is besotted with her; even after years of marriage, he simply cannot understand what she sees in him.
When Ambrose fails his “annual medical exam” and is told by his doctor that he has only a month to live, he decides to contradict his impending death by embarking on a wild journey, an alphabetical “grand tour” of all the places on the globe that demand visiting. And thus begins a frantic odyssey, from Amsterdam to Berlin to Chartres to Paris to Florence and onwards, with Ambrose trying to outrun his limited time by gulping down all the sights of a bountiful world and its infinite variety.
Zipper travels with him, watching her husband’s physical erosion and struggling to negotiate her own pain and grief. Until gently, quietly, the two of them reach an understanding about love and mortality. Instead of going for the easy structure of the complete alphabet, Richardson interrupts their journey and they return to their London home to face together the final and most inevitable destination, death.
Richardson writes with a creamy economy that is nothing less than dazzling. His compelling use of image, his distinctive style, and his understated wit all make this a novel that stands out, a novel that beckons and rewards as few novels do. The End of the Alphabet undertakes a journey that is about writing and its destinations. Richardson knows exactly how the alphabet shapes words, not careless and scattered clumps, but precisely calibrated, a geography and progress that illuminates both meaning and understanding.
Aritha van Herk (Books in Canada)
From Publishers Weekly
An abrupt death sentence given to a 50-year-old London ad exec forces an uneasy deliverance in Richardson's smartly setup, poignant tale. Given less than a month to live, Ambrose Zephyr, alphabet-obsessed since childhood, decides to spend out his last days traveling around the globe from A to Z. Ambrose and his wife, Zappora Ashkenazi (the couple is childless), begin in Amsterdam, viewing art by Velázquez and Rembrandt that has been significant to them in their loving marriage, and now looks wholly transformed. The two move between the sweet memories of past love and an unreal present, from Berlin to Chartres, the Great Pyramids of Khufu to Istanbul; when Ambrose begins to falter and they return home to their Kensington terrace flat. Reality and good manners demand that they inform their respective employers and friends of Ambrose's condition, while Zappora, a fashion editor attempting to keep a journal of the couple's last moments together, endures until the end. Richardson's tightly focused tale has panache, shadowed by a brooding suspense. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful,
By
This review is from: The End of the Alphabet (Hardcover)
Given only one month to live, 50 year old Ambrose Zephyr decides to take his wife, Zipper and travel around the world A-Z. This is a love story first and far most. The destinations around the world are secondary and in fact they end up having to cut the trip short due to Amborse's failing health. It is also about coming to terms with the inevitable loss.
Richardson's prose jumps off the page while reading this poignant little story. It is funny, sad, and intelligent all at the same time. The only problem with it is that I wanted to know more. I wanted to know more about Ambrose and his wife's history. This book was only 139 pages though it could have been still under 150, but our curiosity about the past could have been quenched. I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more by CS Richardson!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Vapid shortcut across Europe,
By D.B. Wilson (Port Moody, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The End of the Alphabet (Paperback)
"The End of the Alphabet" is a gimmicky, 139 small page, novella with two dimensional characters. Even the anticipated "romp around the world" plot comes up short when the author can't think up a story line to get the characters beyond Istanbul. This trite bit of writing amazingly sidesteps the emotions and life questions associated with the end of a life.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The End of the Alphabet,
By Barnaby Black (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The End of the Alphabet (Hardcover)
This is a gentle, poignant and very moving story dealing with love and loss. yet it never decends into sentimentality. Elegantly written, it tells the story of Ambrose Zephyr and his reaction to the news that he only has one month left to live.
What reaction could one possibly have to such a piece of news? For Ambrose, it's the decision to travel the world from A - Z, visiting those places he had often dreamed of - and loosely planned to visit "sometime". Now he has almost no time left. So he and Zipper, his adored wife, embark on a wild ride of a journey to make each of his few remaining days special and meaningful. Partway through his oddyssy Ambrose's health begins to seriouly fail, he realizes that you can't outrun destiny and the best, most comforting, most appropriate place to spend his last days is, after all, at home. I kept hoping against hope that the diagnosis was incorrect and he would find out that he was going to live to a ripe old age ... but this would have been far too trite an ending. I loved this book.
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