Falling Angels

In Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier has combined a moving elegy to the lost innocence of the 21st century's grandmothers and great-grandmothers with a reminder of the strength and modernity of their aspirations and achievements. Maude and Livy are aged six in 1901, when Queen Victoria has just died and the whole country is in mourning. In 1910 they are almost young women who have experienced their own personal losses and belong to a generation who are no longer prepared to wear black for months to mark the death of Edward VII. Their families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses ("no relation to the painter"), meet in a graveyard beside their family graves. One has a large marble angel erected above it, the other an urn (an allusion more to the morbidity of a Victorian columbarium than the eternity of Keats' pre-Victorian "unravish'd bride of quietness"). Their choices of a monument to death seem to reflect their differing attitudes to life, but Chevalier makes clear that these two families are forever linked in their fates and aspirations.

The story moves swiftly, switching to multiple narratives: young but quickly maturing Maude and Livy; the adult Colemans and Waterhouses; their servants; and Simon the gravedigger boy. Chevalier has chosen carefully who speaks when, and who, more importantly, keeps silent. Livy's little sister Ivy May is one of the most beguiling figures of the work, but is given only two sentences of her own (and those two bring a lump to the throat). Mrs Coleman's experiences with the campaign for women's suffrage are marginalised through silence; Maude and Livy tell instead of their reaction to the women's antics. And while Falling Angels may be a story of women, despite, or perhaps because of their exclusion from contemporary politics, Simon's observations are the most honest and revealing.

Chevalier herself writes after the story's end that "the Acknowledgements is the only section of a novel that reveals an author's "normal" voice. Every character uses their "normal" voice in this novel, and Chevalier's own voice excels in ensuring that each one is unique (for example, everything is "delicious" for Livy), so that, like Mr Coleman mourning his daughter growing up, you will "miss her when she goes". --Olivia Dickinson

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Wow - Rated
I read The Virgin Blue last year and absolutely loved it. So I'm delighted to say that I thought Falling Angels was even better. Written from multiple points of view, through the ages (in this respect it reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible), it presents us with a cast of characters who are all, in some way, flawed and broken. Poor mothers, weak husbands, vile children, selfish maids, bigoted in-laws.... yet you still care about them, because they're all so real. The symbolism and richness of writing is wonderful and had me mulling over it for days... looking for angels and the ways in which they're falling.

I must agree with a comment someone's made here earlier and say that the only thing I found annoying was the way that the two girls spoke as five year olds. But, I imagine, telling the tale with the vocabulary genuinely available to infants would make a rather poor opening to a novel.

Worth the read - Rated
I actually liked this book better on a second reading. It is a good story but I did not find the characters as strong as in her other books. An interesting historical setting and definitely worth reading.

Excellent book, disappointed by the ending. - Rated
I have read on another reveiw here that there are plans for a sequel to this book, perhaps this explains why i didn't feel the book had been fully resolved by the end and seemed lacking in some sense.

I look forward to finding out what happens in the sequel should she write it.

Another success by Ms Chevalier. - Rated
I was loaned a copy of Tracey Chevalier's "The Virgin Blue" in October of 2003 and within a year I'd read all her books!
What a fantastic author. She and Phikippa Gregory have opened up the genre of Historical Fiction for me.
"Falling Angels" certainly lived up to expectations.
It was fascinating on several levels: the interactions between the upper and lower strata of the middle class at the turn of the century, reactions to the death of Queen Victoria and the new reign of Edward VII, and the development of the Suffragette movement.
Maude Coleman and Livy Waterhouse meet and become friends at the age of 6, when their families visit the local graveyard as a mark of respect following the death of Queen Victoria. The friendship is not approved of by the parents, who are forced to mix with a family outside their class.
Various members of the two households recount the story over a period of 10 years. But it is when Maude's mother, Kitty, becomes involved with the Suffragettes that things really heat up.
This is the first book I've read relating to the fight for the vote, which I take so much for granted. It made fascinating reading.
Highly recommended.

Beautiful but Somewhat Lacking... - Rated
Do not get me wrong - this is a beautiful novel, one which deals with tragedy in a deeply moving way. From the very beginning the evocation of character is both sharp and powerful and the author's presentation of events streamed through the minds of her various protaganists is very effective. There were however moments when it seemed that one set of thoughts simply melded into the next, regardless of the character's age, class or status, and I think this let the novel down - greater delineation between each story teller would have enhanced the story. However this is pedantic - overall I would thoroughly recommend this text to anyone with an interest in the history of the period or even in pure human emotion.