Miss Garnet's Angel

"Miss Garnet's Angel" is a novel about a middle-aged lady who undergoes an epiphany in Venice. Her epiphany is somehow connected with the Angel Raphael, who occasionally flashes across Miss Garnet's field of vision, and features in a painting that is an element in the plot (or more precisely, half of which is an element in the plot). The epiphany is also connected, although not in a way that bears close analysis, to the apocryphal story of Tobias and the Angel. Miss Garnet falls in love with a man who, we later discover, is merely simulating an interest in her in order to approach a young boy to whom she is giving (sadly unsuccessful) English lessons. It is not clear why the man, Carlo, has to take this cruel and roundabout route to the boy (and this strand in the plot is never resolved - did the ruse work, or did it not? And why did Salley Vickers drop one, never to be pursued, hint that Carlos might be the boy Nicco's father?). Despite the appalling disappointment of discovering that Carlo's love was not genuine, Miss Garnet undergoes a transformation in Venice, finds redemption in beauty, and abandons her lifelong allegiance to communism in favour of a form of religion (a highly syncretic form which embraces elements of Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastroism at least, and also leads Miss Garnet into a friendship with a dog-loving monsignor). In addition, the transformation involves a newly discovered liking for prosecco, lilac dresses and hats with veils.

I, like Miss Garnet, am a lady of a certain age. I am not, it is true, a childless spinster or a teacher who has realised only upon retirement that my teaching career was sterile, meaningless and devoid of human contact. (Quite incidentally, I am an alumna, like both Salley Vickers and Miss Garnet, of Girton College, Cambridge.) So it might seem likely that "Miss Garnet's Angel" would have appealed to me. Unfortunately, from many points of view it did not.

The first reason has to be that the novel is really not very well written. Comparisons to Jane Austen and Henry James are entirely unjustified. Ms Vickers has a writing style which is at best wooden, at worst incomprehensible. Her word order is strangely mannered and her punctuation leaves an enormous amount to be desired (starting with the elementary point that only questions end with question marks; statements do not).

The second reason is that, while the novel is obviously intended as a didactic parable, it is not clear what it is teaching us. That unrequited love is a salutary experience? That middle-aged ladies should beware of the attentions of attractive gentlemen? That salvation is to be found in angels? That twins are in some significant sense not what they seem (Sarah and Toby - whose names, for reasons that remain obscure, echo those of characters in the tale of Tobias and the Angel - are taken by Miss Garnet for twins, but subsequently turn out to be lovers)? That psychotherapists are evil (`twin' Sarah has had a nasty encounter with a `false memory' therapist)? That pleasant little `human' encounters - with charming American tourists and sympathetic ladies on trains, for example - are the road to redemption?

The third reason is that the figure of Carlo (the gentleman with designs on the young boy) is a character who leaves a very bad taste in the mouth. He is apparently charming, urbane, attentive and cultured, but beneath this beguiling exterior he is a devious paedophile. This, combined with the denial of any possibility that Miss Garnet's devotion to her lifelong companion Harriet is in any way homosexual, gives an insidious and abiding feeling that, together with the angels, there is covert homophobia hovering around this novel. Speaking as a heterosexual woman, I did not like it.

A modern E.M. Forster? (1/1 people found this helpful)

I began reading this and was reminded of Forster's 'Where Angels Fear to Tread' where the impact of the beauty of Italy changes the moral and spiritual world of the main protagonists but Vicker's lacks the subtelty of the earlier writers work and it soon becomes clear that the retelling of the Tobias myth set in modern Venice, though cleverly conceived, failed to convince me at the end.

However, please read this novel as it is well written and does take you to another time and place.

Towards an epiphany in Venice (1/1 people found this helpful)

A repressed spinster in her fifties, retired from her career as an uninspiring school teacher, a communist and anti-religious, Julia Garnet travels to Venice, falls in love with it (devotees of Venice will relish the evocations of the city), is gradually thawed out by its beauty and stimulus and by people she meets there. She has rented an apartment in the Campo Angelo Raffaele, behind the church dedicated to that angel. She gradually comes to learn the story of Tobias and the Angel Raphael and indeed to show increasing interest in it; and she is also drawn closer and closer to Catholic imagery and to a Catholic priest.

Salley Vickers intersperses her narrative with instalments, with some additional inventions of her own, of the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha. With each instalment she adds a little more to the account in the Book of Tobit. At first these additions amount to very little, but the later ones are based on research that has been done which has found that the Book of Tobit (written during the time when the Jews were living under Persian rule) probably has Zoroastrian roots, and each subsequent instalment veers further and further away from the original.

One has the feeling that Julia's experiences in Venice should have some bearing on the story and vice versa; but it is difficult for a long time to see what these might be. For much of the book, the inserted instalments relating to the Book of Tobit seem to have no relevance, either directly or indirectly, to the passages on either side of the insertion - only towards the end do they converge.

Julia meets an English pair, a young man and a young woman, who are restoring the masonry in a chapel (invented by Salley Vickers) which also has a sculpted Raphael and also a painted panel of him. Rather obviously they are called Toby and Sarah (like the characters in the Book of Tobit - though at this point a reader who has not already read that book would not yet know this). The closest correspondences between the Book of Tobit and the plot of the novel are with this pair; and these begin only about half-way through the novel. Only once or twice are there correspondences with Julia herself.

The story of Julia in Venice and of her interest in the Book of Tobit would stand well on its own, even if one does not look for any parallels. It has many wise reflections about human relationships and personal development. There are allusions to other literature; there are digs at arid rationalism and a reference to a destructive Freudian analysis (Salley Vickers is a Jungian analyst). The book reads easily, though there is the very occasional slight clunkiness of expression or description which betrays that this is a first novel. If I feel that I cannot give it the full five stars it is because I felt I was being invited to look for a more satisfying connection between the novel and the story of Tobias and the Angel, which the book, perhaps teasingly, withheld from me for so long. It is true that the revealing of psychic histories has something in common with a detective stories, but for me the way the two genres were mixed in this novel did not quite come off.

If you haven't read it, don't bother. (6/17 people found this helpful)

Ok, it is not awful, but nonetheless I honestly can't recommend this book to anyone.

The book is set in one of the most beautiful and romantic places in the world, but struggled to convey any sense of beauty or romance whatsoever. Possibly because it lacked a real love story or an intensity or a passion for anything,...

I was really irritated by the fact that every other sentence was in brackets. Although generally speaking, putting words/sentences in brackets is more than acceptable, when overused can become extremely tedious. It just left me wondering why the author was unable to convey what she wanted to say within the main body of the text. Apart from that, it wasn't badly written, but nothing spectacular either.

The characters seemed very unreal and I felt the author was only able to provide sketches of personalities, rather than allow the characters to come to life. The book would have been much better if there had been more likeable characters such as the priest, who brought a bit of life to the story.

In fairness, I do think the book was aimed at a more mature reader (or someone who is at a point in their life, where they need to look back and re-evaluate the choices they have made) who perhaps would get more enjoyment from the book than I did. Nonetheless I am surprised anyone would give it 5 stars. A `Miss' for me.

Not even worth one star (6/44 people found this helpful)

Why does this book look so wonderfully promising and yet contain a plot which is utterly trite and inane? The publishers should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act. I am sick of buying and reading books which from the blurb and editorials promise to be 'engrossing' and 'inspiring' and yet, like this one, turn out to be banal and downright pointless. Yuk!

Salley Vickers

Editorial Review:

Reader Reviews:

Redemption through angels? (0/1 people found this helpful)

A modern E.M. Forster? (1/1 people found this helpful)

Towards an epiphany in Venice (1/1 people found this helpful)

If you haven't read it, don't bother. (6/17 people found this helpful)

Not even worth one star (6/44 people found this helpful)

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