I finished Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels this week. I knew I would like the book since I loved her Burning Bright, which includes the bizarre poet William Blake among its characters. Falling Angels, like Burning Bright, centers around real places and events while following the lives of its fictional main characters. The two girls at the heart of the story, Maude and Lavinia, meet for the first time in a cemetery while participating in public mourning for the death of Queen Victoria.
During the course of the story, Maude and Lavinia find themselves living in a rapidly changing world. Lavinia clings to the traditions that flourished under Victoria while Maude must reconcile her ideas of family and her place in the world with the increasingly outrageous behavior of her suffragette mother. All of the important people in the girls' lives have a chance to speak for themselves and add their own information to the appearance and truth of the other characters. Lavinia's melodramatic views remind me of myself when I was younger, but her sister Ivy May, a silent figure in the background of the story, may stick with me longer.
I tend to finish books in clusters and I also finished reading Blood and Gold by Anne Rice this week. Longitude will probably be polished off along with some leftover birthday cake tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment