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EMILY BARTON graduated from Harvard and the
Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
“It is funny and sexy, with echoes not only of Garcia Marquez, but of Nabokov, Pynchon and, of all things, Star Trek … a comedy of cultures in collision, a tragedy of paradise interrupted and a dangerously requited love story.” San Francisco Chronicle
“Rich in emotional depth and intellectual curiosity, this generous, strangely ego-free novel finds sweetness and clarity in ‘that state of affairs we had never known to call Peace’.” Guardian
“An intriguing debut … This is an imaginative modern fable that looks at what is lost and what is gained as technology and the modern world change forever the traditional way of life.” The Bookseller
“Once you’re off there’s no holding you back. Not even with a harness.” Tatler
“The Testament of Yves Gundron is an ironic, postmodern take on grand narratives of progress. Barton manages to avoid the potentially over-whelming self-reflexivity of such a strategy through adroitly placed pathos and sympathy.” Literary Review
“Emily Barton’s remarkable first novel proves difficult to define; it straddles genres while possessing a curious familiarity, reminiscent at times of Swift and Peake, set against the landscape of a Brueghel painting.” Observer
“It takes a curious imagination to create an original and endearing novel around the invention of the harness, but Barton’s debut ploughs such a furrow … Leaping genres, and expectations, this quaint folktale mutates quickly into a sci-fi puzzle.” The Times
“Barton writes like a modernist sympathetic to the ideology of a preromantic luddite. In today’s world of e-commerce and digital technology, The Testament of Yves Gundron is both poignant and thought-provoking.” Go
“There are few things more exciting than the discovery of new talent, and with The Testament of Yves Gundron Emily Barton has proved that she has both talent and heart.” The Scotsman
“An unusual, imaginative and deeply engrossing tale … Barton’s debut novel becomes something far more intelligent and complex than suggested by the fable-like tone of its early pages, resulting in a lyrical meditation on the notion of progress that is as fascinating as it is enchanting.” Metro
“In Mandragora, Barton creates a village that seems true to life with evocative language and a memorable narrator. As the story speeds along mixing humour with morality, we share Yves’ joy at progress but also the seeds of doubt sown alongside it.” The List
“Emily Barton’s debut; is intelligent, skilfully handled and a very odd mixture of antiquity and topicality. Barton’s Testament is a simple allegory, a comedy of cultures in collision, a love story and a confessional.” Big Issue in the North
“If the power of imagination is your thing, this won’t fail to disappoint. Impressive stuff.” Uncut
“An essential read.” Scottish Book Collector
THE TESTAMENT OF
YVES GUNDRON
THE TESTAMENT OF
YVES GUNDRON
EMILY BARTON
CANONGATE
First published in the United States of America
in 2000 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First published in Great Britain by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EHI ITE
This digital edition published in 2014
Copyright © Emily Barton, 2000
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 1 84195 231 1
eISBN 9781782116127
For my father, and in memory of my mother
“Heavens! how they caught me as I left the room, the fangs of that old pain! the desire for some one not there. For whom? I did not know at first; then remembered Percival. I had not thought of him for months. Now to laugh with him, to laugh with him at Neville—that was what I wanted, to walk off arm-in-arm together laughing. But he was not there. The place was empty.
“It is strange how the dead leap out on us at street corners, or in dreams.”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves
THE TESTAMENT OF
YVES GUNDRON,
YEOMAN FARMER OF
MANDRAGORA VILLAGE,
BEING A TREATISE
ON THE NATURE OF
CHANGE AND ON
THE COMING
OF THE NEW WORLD
EDITED BY RUTH BLUM
Contents
Chapter One The First Invention
Chapter Four The Great North Meadow
