Angel by Elizabeth Taylor 10 out of 10

 Angel by Elizabeth Taylor

10 out of 10

Angel is a phenomenal, outstanding book that does not seem to have the recognition it deserves – somewhat ironically, given that the main character, a popular writer for some time, complains about her descent into irrelevance – and on goodreads it has only 1672 ratings to date, which is nothing when compared with books that Angel Deverell could have written, let us say Inferno, which has more than two hundred times more notes on the same readers’ site.

This marvelous novel was however adapted into a film and it is included on The Guardian 1,000 Books Everyone Must Read list (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction) – where this reader has learned about it and the fact that there is a miracle person called Elizabeth Taylor, other than the protagonist of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Cat on a Hot tin Roof and other great motion pictures.

The main character of this extraordinary narrative is a complex woman, a personage that we appreciate at times, only to reject soon after, born in 1885 endowed with a remarkable imagination that would soon find expression in the tall tales that her teacher does not believe she wrote and when told to her younger neighbors get her in trouble, for she insists she lives at Paradise House, where she has white peacocks – eventually, she would buy those birds, albeit she would not be as happy with them – it seems that she is not lucky in her pets, or these are not lucky with their owner, as Esme would put it.

As a teenager, the heroine is unhappy with the modest life she has in front of her, where at one point her aunt – who has been contributing to the payment for her education – suggests that she would join her at Paradise House to learn from her how to become a maid and later serve Angelica, the daughter of the lady of the mansion, whose name Aunt Lottie has taken to use for the protagonist, causing a tremendous commotion and horror, following which Angel dedicates herself to writing a book that would save her from servitude.

The arrogant, brave, rather obnoxious, detached, determined writer sends her manuscript to various publishing companies and she is rejected a few times, until Theo Gilbright and his partner find merit in the rather preposterous, flamboyant, eccentric novel and send a proposal for an advance to the author, who travels to London, where she meets with rigidity the proposals of the kind, careful professional who is worried about moeurs and the possible lawsuits that could follow the printing of names of duchesses that could be offended by the work.

The success of the writer is mixed, for the public seems to love her style – we could compare it to Dan Brown, although surely the style and scope are different, those of us who have not read him could suspect, but the popularity without substance could be compared – while critics loath the style, the excesses, the preposterous use of terminology, mythology that the uneducated young woman does not know and she refuses to learn about – she does not read and when Theo sends her volumes she does not engage with them, rejects other writers and knows little if anything about the great masters.

Most of the highbrow, educated public rejects the stories, in fact, the aristocrat from Paradise House is appalled by Lady Irania and makes that clear to Aunt Lottie, who in turn causes something of a scandal when she vocalizes her contempt and states that she would rather see the writer dead than have to face this humiliation, caused by scenes in the book that the society of the age found more than outré, daring and for many they were simply scandalous.

Nonetheless, the success with the public translates into a commercial profit and the heroine becomes relatively rich – at least for a good while – she moves from the modest lodgings and employs maids, even if her mother would experience a severe, terminal downfall as a result and when she is visited by a lord and his relatives, she is awed by the painter Esme Howe Nevinson, while his sister is such an admirer of the writer that she kneels in front of her and kisses her friend, as the beginning of a long, complicated relationship between the two women.

Fascinated by Esme, Angel would use the admiration of his sister, who has just had an unfortunate experience in Italy, where brother and sister went on a trip, the handsome painter becomes intimate with an Italian girl, then disappears and the infuriated, dishonored family confronts the sister, who has to pawn her jewelry to pay for the honor to be restored and then informs her uncle about it, once she is safe home, causing the sibling to be disinherited and Angel to comment when she hears about it that she would never have done that to a brother.

The intrepid, gritty, infatuated author finds where Esme lives and takes her huge dog – that had been involved in a vicious attack in which he had killed another pet, without his guilty, unsympathetic, rather villainous owner taking responsibility – to his humble lodgings, where she offers three hundred pounds – an exorbitant sum at that time, perhaps over one hundred thousand in the currency of the present – for a painting she does not like – nothing he creates means anything to her – and in addition she initiates a series of sittings for a portrait.

Eventually, Esme marries the heroine, although from their honeymoon, if not even before that, it is clear that the two figures are very different – perhaps incompatible – although he tries to avoid hurting his spouse, while she has always had a habit of imagining things, creating an alternative universe, a reality in which things are not what the others see and experience, where she refuses to see the truth about her birth, husband and so much more.

Angel keeps pestering Theo – who has to invent an imaginary partner in his turn. Blaming him for decisions that make sense for anyone but the preposterous writer – when her commercial success diminishes and then disappears altogether – in terms of critical consecration, she has always been destroyed by the experts – refusing to accept that the publishing house or anyone else could do nothing about the changing tastes of the readers.

Esme would fight in the First World War, but he feels so distant from his wife as to not bother to come home during the leaves he has from service and when Theo meets with Nora – who is in charge of the financial accounts of the author and knows that the expenses are overwhelming them – they both have the chance to see that the man is unfaithful to his wife, although the latter might have the chance to know about that only later…perhaps too late, if at all.

Angel is one of those glorious books that we do not learn about alas, expect if we are lucky and find about them from The Guardian list say, or happen to fall upon a note like this one…lucky you, isn’t it…