The Epiplectic Bicycle
| Author | Edward Gorey |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Edward Gorey |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Surrealist fiction |
| Publisher | Dodd, Mead & Co. |
Publication date | 1969 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 64 |
| OCLC | 30530 |
The Epiplectic Bicycle[lower-alpha 1] is a 1969 book written and illustrated by American author Edward Gorey, first published by Dodd, Mead & Co. The story follows two children who take a strange ride on a bicycle that steers itself.[2][3][4][5] When first published, reviewers commented on the book's spare text and Gorey's draftsmanship.[2][5][6] Gorey once told biographer Alexander Theroux it was a favorite among his own books.[7]
Synopsis
The story begins on "the day after Tuesday and the day before Wednesday".[1][2] An autonomous bicycle carries Embley and Yewbert, a brother and sister, across empty flatlands, past turnip fields and "a lengthy puddle".[2] Atypical for Gorey, the characters have dialogue: a bird warns the children to "beware of this and that", a dying alligator exhales "I die", and Embley and Yewbert provide short reactions.[2] The book ends with the children contemplating their own deaths, triggered by an obelisk "raised to their memory 173 years ago".[1]
Publication history
The Epiplectic Bicycle was first published in 1969 by Dodd, Mead & Co., and priced at $3 (Error when using {{Inflation}}: |index=US (parameter 1) not a recognized index.).[1][2][5] It was later republished by Congdon & Weed in 1983,[8] Harcourt Brace in 1997,[9] and by Bloomsbury in the UK in 1999.[10]
The book was translated into German by Urs Widmer as Das epiplektische Fahrrad (Diogenes, 1978),[11][12] into French by Patrick Mauriès as La bicyclette épileptique (Le Promeneur, 1994),[lower-alpha 2][13] and into Italian as La bicicletta epiplettica (Adelphi, 2005).[14] A second German translation, by Clemens J. Setz, was published by Lilienfeld Verlag in 2026.[15]
Reception
Biographer Mark Dery described the book as nonsense, mixing deadpan pose with slapstick, and found Gorey's cartoonish illustrations fitting for the material. He raised questions about whether the bicycle ride represents the journey of life and whether the children are ghosts who never learned they had died. He described Gorey's other 1969 book The Iron Tonic as "moody and cinematic" and called The Epiplectic Bicycle "hopped up and cartoony" by comparison.[1]
In his review for The Washington Post, J. D. O'Hara called it "classy Gorey" but judged The Deranged Cousins the superior work. He likened Gorey's verse to that of Dr. Seuss, "if Dr. Seuss were mad and vaguely homicidal", and described Gorey's narrative voice as that of a "cultured Edwardian uncle" relating a ghostly tale. O'Hara noted that the narration runs to only eleven sentences and explains little.[2]
Writing in the San Francisco Examiner, Lenore Glen Offord called the book "vague Victorian surrealism" and wrote that nothing of much interest happens along the way. She quoted Gorey's own mock-grand description of it as "an intrepid voyage of epic proportion with a hero unequaled in the annals of literature", referred to the protagonists as "two loathsome children", and judged the book "delightful, instructive and peculiar".[3]
In Harper's Magazine, John Hollander found the book's "louche, stunted" siblings instantly recognizable as Gorey children, drawn against the stark empty white that Gorey had brought into his work with The Curious Sofa. He praised Gorey's precise writing, citing the book's line "they rapidly ate a quantity of berries", and observed that Gorey's drawing had moved past its beginnings as a parody of 19th-century wood engraving into a manner entirely his own.[5]
Critic John Barkham advised readers not to try to find logic in the book, and to admire the economy of Gorey's line work instead.[6]
Adaptations
The Japanese company Puppet Theatre Hitomi-za adapted The Epiplectic Bicycle with another Gorey picture book, The Hapless Child, into a puppet play titled The Bicycle.[16][17] The production was staged in 2008 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre as part of the International Arts Carnival.[17]
Notes
- ↑ The title uses the word epiplectic, not epileptic; the adjective derives from epiplexis, a rhetorical device of reproachful questioning aimed at bringing an audience around.[1][2][3] Reviewer J. D. O'Hara traced the term to the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines epiplexis as a figure "which endeavors to convince by a kind of upbraiding".[2]
- ↑ Unlike the German and Italian titles, which translate to Gorey's epiplectic, the French title translates to "The Epileptic Bicycle".
References
Citations
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Dery 2018, p. 282.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 O'Hara, J. D. (November 23, 1969). "If Dr. Seuss Were Mad and Vaguely Homicidal". The Washington Post. p. 299. ProQuest 143572258.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Offord, Lenore Glen (November 23, 1969). "The Gory Road". San Francisco Examiner. p. 54. ProQuest 2197080643.
- ↑ Dery 2018, pp. 280, 282.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Hollander, John (February 1970). "Books in Brief". Harper's Magazine. p. 118. ProQuest 1301542790.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Barkham, John (January 4, 1970). "Conversation Piece on Wheels". Enquirer and News. p. B5. ProQuest 2092578827.
- ↑ Theroux 2011, p. 63.
- ↑ Barron, James (May 29, 1983). "What's New in the Book Business". The New York Times. p. A11. ProQuest 424631424.
- ↑ Gorey, Edward (1997). The Epiplectic Bicycle. New York: Harcourt Brace. ISBN 978-0-15-100314-3. OCLC 38542798. Search this book on
- ↑ Gorey, Edward (1999). The Epiplectic Bicycle. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-4165-3. OCLC 59406610. Search this book on
- ↑ Gorey, Edward (1978). Das epiplektische Fahrrad [The Epiplectic Bicycle] (in German). Translated by Widmer, Urs. Zürich: Diogenes. ISBN 978-3-257-26052-6. OCLC 231693457.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- ↑ Mason, Stanley (January 1983). "Edward Gorey". Graphis. Vol. 39 no. 223. p. 82.
- ↑ Gorey, Edward (1994). La bicyclette épileptique [The Epileptic Bicycle] (in French). Translated by Mauriès, Patrick. Paris: Le Promeneur. ISBN 978-2-07-074054-3. OCLC 417207943.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- ↑ Gorey, Edward (2005). La bicicletta epiplettica [The Epiplectic Bicycle] (in Italian). Milan: Adelphi. ISBN 978-88-459-1964-0. OCLC 799381082.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- ↑ Gorey, Edward (2026). Das epiplektische Fahrrad [The Epiplectic Bicycle] (in German). Translated by Setz, Clemens J. Düsseldorf: Lilienfeld Verlag. ISBN 978-3-910266-13-1. OCLC 1564099047.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- ↑ "Gorey Puppet Play Is for Adults". The Daily Yomiuri. Tokyo. February 3, 2007. p. 1. ProQuest 285788420.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 "The Epiplectic Bicycle". South China Morning Post. Hong Kong. August 2, 2008. p. 9. Gale A685871130.
Works cited
- Dery, Mark (2018). Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-18854-8. Search this book on
- Theroux, Alexander (2011). The Strange Case of Edward Gorey. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1-60699-384-2. Search this book on
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