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Books : A Quiet Belief in Angels
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Rating: 
- Swampy falsities! I didn't believe a word!
'I am an exile' states the ill starred narrator of Ellory's homage to To Kill a Mocking Bird. We are in a Southern small town scratching at the door of childhood innocence, privately listening to a narrator weighed down by the grim lessons of the past. Ellory takes care to detail the details of this past, mingling references to the wider world of the Second World War with the glimpses of daily impoverished Southern Life. Joseph Vaughan, the hero of this Richard and Judy recommended read, falls in love with his teacher and also has to face the uneasy sexual revelation that his widowed mother is sleeping with his German neigbour in return for the odd dollar or two each week. In the midst of this rites of passage narrative, we encounter murders most horrid; a serial child killer is loose, and the close community has to face the terrible revelation that it might be one of them.
All this sounds perhaps familiar and of course all stories repeat other stories and are haunted by echoes of others. Yet Ellory renders his narrative more ponderous and self-consciously 'regretful' than any novel I can remember. If you don't spot the killer before breakfast then you are probably being too distracted by pool side eye candy ...and all joy to you as this novel irritated me with its 'nostalgic' tone and unconvincing, self-condemnatory narration that wallowed in cliche and heavy handed signals of 'fate.'
Interestingly I suppose, it reveals the imaginative truth that intimacy cannot just be presumed created textually, especially through the indiscriminate littering of insinuating italics and wordly 'wise' guilty retrospect:
'How I sat across from Dearing, a man who had walked through my childhood with me, and the way his face sort of folded around the eyes, a sense of defeat, a ghost upon his shoulders, and the tone of his voice as he said...'( p.154)
Look at the weight of meaning engendered via the word 'How'. We hear the sigh of regret and then we are 'programmed' to acknowledge wistfully with the unlucky narrator, that retrospect gives shape to the chaos of life. But do we 'see' Dearing at all? Is he present in this word of sighs? And why does the final clause peter out into ellipsis? Of course we know( sigh) that Joseph 'knows' more as he writes now, than he ever could know at the time( sigh) and that such revelation( sigh) is best told through detail that privileges weary. blighted characterisation. Unless a character is 'real' to the reader before they are to be made dramatically 'useful' , then a writer cannot make his/him real through such heavy handed signposting. It's just posturing and I found myself trying to look behind these set pieces, blinking to see if anything or anyone was really there.
Guess what? Not a glimpse!
Rating:
- Emotional rollercoaster!
I had seen A Quiet Belief In Angels at the top of the book chart for a while and decided it was time for me to see what all the fuss was about.
Rarely does a book live up to the hype that has surrounded it but R.J Ellory delivers such a haunting, emotional story that even 5 stars doesn't do it justice.
It starts during the late 1930's in the deep south of America and continues for three more decades. The story is based on a young boy, Joseph Vaughan, and a series of murders that desolates a town in Georgia. The raw emotion, fear and tension of the residents of Augusta Falls is almost life like and you have genuine sympathy for the nightmare that they are going through.
Its extremely well written and you will more than likely end up flying through it. If its a happy story you're looking for then I would advise you to go elsewhere but if you are after a thrilling emotional rollercoaster with heart wrenching content, then this is the book for you.
Brilliant!
Rating:
- Major New British Talent
Actually "New" probably doesn't do the author justice as this is his fifth novel but AQBIA seems to have made a real breakthrough after being highlighted by Richard and Judy. Having loved two of his previous novels, this book fully meets the high standards set by Candlemoth and A Quiet Vendetta (which is my personal favourite!).
It's very hard to categorise Mr Ellory's books; I know they tend to be labelled as crime novels and whilst they certainly work at that level, they're a world away from the formula "hook and twist" releases that you find in this genre which are often structured to simply deliver a 'whodunnit' moment in the last chapter. And for me, that's what makes RJ Ellory's books so refreshing; they are studies of character and emotion first which in turn, makes the crime element far more believable.
Beautiful atmospheric writing, engaging underlying historical themes and situations, I can't recommend RJ Ellory's books enough. If you haven't read any of his previous work, this is a great place to start!
Rating: - Stunning!!
How many superlatives do you want? stunning, haunting, genius, provocative, distressing, pacey, heartbreaking, taut, gripping, unputdownable.................read this book.
Rating:
- Not a 5-star book
I tore through the first half of this tale in no time at all, lapping up the atmosphere of the American South and finding myself wanting to be there, despite all the dangers. The sign of a good read, no? Trouble is, the pace soon starts to drag. There's a big pinch of flab in the midsection where the writing style becomes Steinbeck like and experimental, and where characters are brought to life in adjective soaked descriptions only to fall off the radar minutes later and never be heard of again. It feels like a 300 page book fleshed out to please a publisher who really wanted 400.
While the writing does pick up considerably towards the end, by this time the main character has undergone so much misery and torment that you no longer find yourself flinching at any of it. Not only that, but the serial killer's notoriety is never discussed, and criminal investigators take little interest, despite the death toll of a plane crash and an M.O. that makes Ted Bundy look like a saint. We are lead to believe that almost nobody's interested; no newspaper wants to follow the case, no police department has the manpower or brainpower to figure out what's going on. None of it feels very real.
Anyway, this isn't a bad book by any account, it's just not a very good one, despite what Richard & Judy would have you believe. Who are they to recommend this sort of stuff anyway?
- Swampy falsities! I didn't believe a word! 'I am an exile' states the ill starred narrator of Ellory's homage to To Kill a Mocking Bird. We are in a Southern small town scratching at the door of childhood innocence, privately listening to a narrator weighed down by the grim lessons of the past. Ellory takes care to detail the details of this past, mingling references to the wider world of the Second World War with the glimpses of daily impoverished Southern Life. Joseph Vaughan, the hero of this Richard and Judy recommended read, falls in love with his teacher and also has to face the uneasy sexual revelation that his widowed mother is sleeping with his German neigbour in return for the odd dollar or two each week. In the midst of this rites of passage narrative, we encounter murders most horrid; a serial child killer is loose, and the close community has to face the terrible revelation that it might be one of them.
All this sounds perhaps familiar and of course all stories repeat other stories and are haunted by echoes of others. Yet Ellory renders his narrative more ponderous and self-consciously 'regretful' than any novel I can remember. If you don't spot the killer before breakfast then you are probably being too distracted by pool side eye candy ...and all joy to you as this novel irritated me with its 'nostalgic' tone and unconvincing, self-condemnatory narration that wallowed in cliche and heavy handed signals of 'fate.'
Interestingly I suppose, it reveals the imaginative truth that intimacy cannot just be presumed created textually, especially through the indiscriminate littering of insinuating italics and wordly 'wise' guilty retrospect:
'How I sat across from Dearing, a man who had walked through my childhood with me, and the way his face sort of folded around the eyes, a sense of defeat, a ghost upon his shoulders, and the tone of his voice as he said...'( p.154)
Look at the weight of meaning engendered via the word 'How'. We hear the sigh of regret and then we are 'programmed' to acknowledge wistfully with the unlucky narrator, that retrospect gives shape to the chaos of life. But do we 'see' Dearing at all? Is he present in this word of sighs? And why does the final clause peter out into ellipsis? Of course we know( sigh) that Joseph 'knows' more as he writes now, than he ever could know at the time( sigh) and that such revelation( sigh) is best told through detail that privileges weary. blighted characterisation. Unless a character is 'real' to the reader before they are to be made dramatically 'useful' , then a writer cannot make his/him real through such heavy handed signposting. It's just posturing and I found myself trying to look behind these set pieces, blinking to see if anything or anyone was really there.
Guess what? Not a glimpse!
Rating:
- Emotional rollercoaster!I had seen A Quiet Belief In Angels at the top of the book chart for a while and decided it was time for me to see what all the fuss was about.
Rarely does a book live up to the hype that has surrounded it but R.J Ellory delivers such a haunting, emotional story that even 5 stars doesn't do it justice.
It starts during the late 1930's in the deep south of America and continues for three more decades. The story is based on a young boy, Joseph Vaughan, and a series of murders that desolates a town in Georgia. The raw emotion, fear and tension of the residents of Augusta Falls is almost life like and you have genuine sympathy for the nightmare that they are going through.
Its extremely well written and you will more than likely end up flying through it. If its a happy story you're looking for then I would advise you to go elsewhere but if you are after a thrilling emotional rollercoaster with heart wrenching content, then this is the book for you.
Brilliant!
Rating:
- Major New British TalentActually "New" probably doesn't do the author justice as this is his fifth novel but AQBIA seems to have made a real breakthrough after being highlighted by Richard and Judy. Having loved two of his previous novels, this book fully meets the high standards set by Candlemoth and A Quiet Vendetta (which is my personal favourite!).
It's very hard to categorise Mr Ellory's books; I know they tend to be labelled as crime novels and whilst they certainly work at that level, they're a world away from the formula "hook and twist" releases that you find in this genre which are often structured to simply deliver a 'whodunnit' moment in the last chapter. And for me, that's what makes RJ Ellory's books so refreshing; they are studies of character and emotion first which in turn, makes the crime element far more believable.
Beautiful atmospheric writing, engaging underlying historical themes and situations, I can't recommend RJ Ellory's books enough. If you haven't read any of his previous work, this is a great place to start!
Rating:
- Stunning!!How many superlatives do you want? stunning, haunting, genius, provocative, distressing, pacey, heartbreaking, taut, gripping, unputdownable.................read this book.
Rating:
- Not a 5-star bookI tore through the first half of this tale in no time at all, lapping up the atmosphere of the American South and finding myself wanting to be there, despite all the dangers. The sign of a good read, no? Trouble is, the pace soon starts to drag. There's a big pinch of flab in the midsection where the writing style becomes Steinbeck like and experimental, and where characters are brought to life in adjective soaked descriptions only to fall off the radar minutes later and never be heard of again. It feels like a 300 page book fleshed out to please a publisher who really wanted 400.
While the writing does pick up considerably towards the end, by this time the main character has undergone so much misery and torment that you no longer find yourself flinching at any of it. Not only that, but the serial killer's notoriety is never discussed, and criminal investigators take little interest, despite the death toll of a plane crash and an M.O. that makes Ted Bundy look like a saint. We are lead to believe that almost nobody's interested; no newspaper wants to follow the case, no police department has the manpower or brainpower to figure out what's going on. None of it feels very real.
Anyway, this isn't a bad book by any account, it's just not a very good one, despite what Richard & Judy would have you believe. Who are they to recommend this sort of stuff anyway?