Falling Angels

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Surely there is no difference between the decomposed remains of a buried body and the ashes of a burned one. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives-wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and their servants, and a gravedigger's son-Falling Angels is graced with the luminous imagery that distinguished Girl With a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels is another dazzling tour de force from this master of voices (The New York Times Book Review).

It’s such an unusual story—a fallen angel (now a demon) spies on the Israelites for Satan during their captivity under Pharaoh, the plagues that follow, and the Exodus. Rather than being complicated each characters voice rings true and a full picture of these families is painted.Above all, there was my mother’s own struggle with her growing doubts about God and the afterlife — she who had once been the Pope’s representative in Battersea. By his mother's bedside in a Galway hospital, 30 years later, he starts to unpick the past, looking for clues to his identity. I began doing volunteer work at the cemetery to get to know it better, and read about the history of Victorian cemeteries, mourning etiquette, graveyard monuments, symbolism. I was interested in the discussion about cremation/burial, with Kitty favouring cremation in opposition to her mother-in-law as they visited the columbarium (a place for keeping cinerary remains, ie ashes) that had recently been opened at the cemetery. S.), a spin-off from the Dickens novel Bleak House which takes place partly in the horrifying London cemetery Tom-All-Alone's, about an unfairly dismissed policeman who accepts work as a private detective for a sinister lawyer.

Although the present tense of the book did get annoying to read, Barbara Gowdy is probably one of the best authors when it comes to creating three-dimensional characters. Pure by Andrew Miller (2011), about a young engineer commissioned to close the reeking Paris cemetery Les Innocents and exhume the bodies in 1785, shortly before the French Revolution. The Field household is ruled by Jim Field - a philandering, heavy-drinking used car salesman - who is keen on the militaristic discipline of his children, and on keeping up appearances for the neighbors. What interested me most is the transitional period between the Victorian era, with its strict social codes and elaborate commemoration of the dead, and the modern world where religion has lost its value and death is no longer celebrated.I love it when a book I’m reading involves a period in which my grandparents or great-grandparents were alive. I will admit before I started it I thought ‘Highgate better be in this a lot’ because I am slightly obsessed at the moment and didn’t know if the rest would interest me but it did greatly. Did you know how Falling Angels was going to end before you wrote the story, or did the ending become clear as you were writing? I will be reading that now though as I don’t think I have any others of hers, unless some are hiding somewhere in the house.

The magic in The Scribe is ancient and the war is underground, but everything feels so natural and real.

Despite his poor treatment of his wife, he is still oddly protective of her, insisting that his daughters watch her all the time. His severely depressed wife Mary - a one-time dancer - has escaped into apathy and alcoholism a long time ago. Written in the form of a field guide to help travelers traversing the landscape pocked with these entities, A Field Guide is a phenomenal read and lends insights into the myths and religious entities of various cultures. Gee," you might be thinking, "1) That's a bit disconcerting, 2) I bet the book explores how she gets involved in these meaningless flings because of emotional void of her home life and how she feels about that. But the girls' penchant for visiting the cemetery to compare urns and angels brings new dangers, not least in the shape of Mrs Coleman's sexual liberation at the hands of the superintendent of graves, a fulfilment that leads her pell-mell into the hands of the Suffragettes.