This book is strong in
story and setting.
Summary:
Set among social upheavals of Edwardian London, this is a meditation on
change, loss, and recovery. The central characters are two young girls of the
same age, whose family plots are situated side-by-side in a cemetery. Lavinia
Waterhouse is respectably middle-class, devoted, like her conventional, doting
mother, to the right way to do things, although suspiciously well- schooled in
subjects like funerary sculpture and the English practices of mourning. Her
friend Maude Coleman comes from a slightly more privileged and free-thinking
background. In contrast with Lavinia's mother, Maude's mother Kitty Coleman is
well-educated by the standards of the day, and it has made her restless and
irritable. But neither her reading, nor her gardening, nor her affair with the
somber, high-thinking governor of the cemetery is enough for Kitty. She comes
alive only when she discovers the women's suffrage movement, and her devotion to the cause takes her away from Maude in every sense.
Although the point of view shifts between many characters, Falling Angels is essentially the children's story, since it is their lives that are most open to change. The narrative spans exactly the years of Edward VII's reign, from the morning after his mother Queen Victoria's death in January 1901 to his own death in May 1910. Chevalier uses the nation's dramatically different mourning for these two monarchs to signal the social transformations of the period.
I would NOT recommend this book.
Why?
Although the book is good at evoking the historical period, the plot
stretches credibility. When Maude and Lavinia, both five years of age, meet at
their families' adjoining cemetery plots on the day after Queen Victoria's
death, the friendship that results between serious-minded Maude and melodramatic
Livy is believable, despite the difference in social classes. But the continuing
presence in their lives of a young gravedigger, Simon Field, is pretty unlikely.
Other characters behave or talk inappropriately for their age or station in
life. Chevalier does prove she's a good observer of another era, especially in
portraying the sentimentality, prejudices and social change of the Victorian
age. When Maude's mother becomes involved with the suffragette movement, there's
more action. While it's obvious that tragedy is brewing, Chevalier shows
imagination in two neatly accomplished surprises, and it's worth sticking it out
to the end if you've gotten that far...But lack of interest in the characters tempted me to quit many times before that point!
Employee Initials: SB
Review Date: September 30, 2002
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