Ethel & Ernest

Product Information

Overall a near fine copy and rare to find signed without dedication by Raymond Briggs to the title page. También me hubiese encantado que las páginas fuesen más grandes para poderme sumergir aún más en los dibujos: para notar mejor el tacto de la moqueta, la rugosidad del papel de pared, el calor de la chimenea de ladrillo, el silbido de la tetera.

The BOOK has been inscribed by the author to the title page : 'For Anthony May, with best wishes, Raymond Briggs, 23 March 2001'. When the book begins Ethel is a lady's maid cleaning a window and Ernest a milkman riding by on his bike. Muy recomendable para pasar un rato agradable conociendo a esta gran pareja que seguro que os llega al corazón. pero que quienes la vimos recordamos muy nítidamente los primeros minutos en los que, a modo casi de cortometraje paralelo al film, se narra la vida de un matrimonio en unas pocas escenas y se condensa en algunos minutos una preciosa e inolvidable historia de amor.While reading this book it brought nostalgic feelings for me and my family and I appreciate how much my grandparents had to go through so much being immigrants in a foreign country, getting a job and trying to provide food and clothes from my mother and her siblings. It's this style which allows him to make such striking statements, and which got him onto last year's Christmas stamps. Ha pure i capelli lunghi - chiaramente propendé per la sinistra; il sentore della guerra prima, il nazismo e i bombardamenti poi). Briggs’s illustrations are full of humor, marvelous detail, and obvious love for the people who inspired the title characters.

En esta historia también se habla mucho sobre la paternidad: sobre volcar las ilusiones en los hijos y que después sus sueños sean distintos a lo que se proyectó para ellos, sobre crecer posicionándose en contra de todo lo que se mamó.Ernest, five years younger, is an easygoing milkman with socialist ideals and an enthusiastic interest in current affairs and the latest technology.

And as the times are changing, you get to see Ethel and Ernest not liking a different political party in government, men growing long hair, women wearing shorter skirts, and how quickly the world they grew up is changing especially having a women in Parliament. They want children and it takes them some time to have their first and the doctor tells them they will have to stop there.Briggs' portrait of his parents is a strange book - without real plot or narrative, it jumps from one situation to another in a disjointed and unique style, capturing small vignettes of twentieth century life but never quite expanding on them. So I am glad to have read this rather different story about how Briggs imagines his parents's 43 years together. Their son became a famous illustrator and author and never had to live below poverty level or be a working class. There is no commentary or moralising, no idyllic or disasterous childhoods, no extolling of the values of family life or solidarity during the Blitz or respect for one's elders - just a series of snapshots of married life, mortgages, ancient washing machines, political disputes (Ernest is a staunch socialist, Ethel an unreconstructed Tory) and hospital endings.

We enter the 1930s and the times are rough during these period because of high unemployment, recuperating from WWI, and economic depression. Full of the ordinariness of ordinary lives, even if extraordinary times are happening around them, but this ordinariness is suffused with love and heart and truth.It was a quick read - it took me about half an hour - so I would recommend it if you like comic strips that are well drawn and are rather amusing.