The Adventures of Miles and Isabel [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Tom Gilling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002

Selected by The New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year, Tom Gilling's novel opens in a crowded playhouse in 1856 Sydney, Australia, where two spectacular lives are about to start. During her scandalous turn as Hamlet, a heavily pregnant (and unmarried) actress unexpectedly goes into labor onstage, shocking the audience. Indeed, one patrician spectator — who is also with child — is so moved that she too goes into labor. The babies born that night are Miles and Isabel, two dreamers destined to defy convention — and gravity. The Adventures of Miles and Isabel is a delightful novel set in rough-and-tumble, turn-of-the-century Sydney. A best-seller in Australia, it follows the strangely converging lives of these two young daredevils. United by a dream of flight — and true love — the couple attempts to rise above the obstacles of class and physics that stand in their way.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Already a best seller in Gilling's native Australia, this follow-up to The Sooterkin is wonderful and magical. It's the story of two headstrong people born under unusual circumstances on the same day in Sydney in 1856. One (Miles) becomes a "vehicle" for a traveling levitator, while the other (Isabel) is accidentally launched into the air owing to the error of a passing drunkard balloonist, whose notebooks Miles inherits after the balloonist's bizarre death. Synchronicities abound. After finally meeting, Miles and Isabel develop a passion for each other-and a dream of flying flares. The balloonist's arcane notebooks, some theater props, an uncle's early bicycle parts-can these things add up to flight, especially flight from Isabel's rich and objecting parents? The answer to that question determines how one interprets the ending. Can such a charming book end in tragedy? Find out for yourself. A great book for all collections.
Robert E. Brown, Minoa Lib., NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Writhing with labor pains, the very pregnant actress Eliza McGinty is on stage portraying Hamlet in lieu of the drunken actor originally slated for the part, while in the audience the demure Mrs. Ernest Dowling is having contractions of her own. Miles and Isabel would share more than the same birth date in 1856; they would be children of the Industrial Revolution, fascinated by the power of turning cogs and flying machines. Isabel is the child of privilege and a victim of her own femininity in a male-dominated society, and Miles is the illegitimate son of an actress traveling as part of a levitation act, but their common love of invention and possibility would put them on a journey of souls destined to meet. Fantastical and magical, this novel is peppered with humor and the excitement of a time period laden with anticipation and opportunities for the creative, restless minds of innovation. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1 Amer ed edition (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138611
• ASIN: B000VYL5F4
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,538,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A picaresque tale about the power of dreams., September 19, 2002

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Adventures of Miles and Isabel (Hardcover)

In a theater in Sydney, Australia, at the turn of the century, Eliza McGinty, a young actress, steps into the shoes of an actor too drunk to play the role of Hamlet one night and gives the performance of her life. Pregnant and unmarried, she goes into labor on stage and gives birth to a son, Miles. Her apparently contagious exertions stimulate a banker's wife in the audience to go into labor and give birth to a daughter, Isabel, that same night. Of different family backgrounds and social class, Miles and Isabel nevertheless reflect the remarkable coincidence of their births by growing up to be remarkably similar in personality-both are fiercely independent, adventurous, and determined to break free of the constraints on their lives. Most importantly, both have always wanted to fly.

A wry humor and light-hearted tone pervade the novel as Miles, tired of working as an assistant to Balthazar the Levitator and "flying" on stage each night, eventually sets off on his own adventures, learning everything he can from story tellers, inventors, and his own observations of nature in an effort to design a flying machine. Isabel, too, eventually sets off on her own, fleeing from suitors, a perverted distant relative, and the specter of a stifling life like that of her mother. It is, of course, no surprise that the fates which governed their births also bring them together so that they can continue their dreams of flight.

Gilling writes simply here, creating an old-fashioned story for the sake of story, a story easy to read, with no deep or hidden meanings, no symbolism, and no pretension. Filled with quirky characters and amusing anecdotes, the novel is straightforward and relatively mellow in tone. The boisterous humor, irreverent satire, and ironic detachment which made Gillings's first novel, The Sooterkin, such a wacky pleasure are sacrificed here in favor of charm, as Gilling becomes more involved with individual characters and dreams than with the society at large. Some readers may miss that harder edge. Mary Whipple

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Australian Icarus, June 5, 2003

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Adventures of Miles and Isabel (Hardcover)

in 1856, Miles McGinty and Isabel Dowling are born on the same day. That is the accident before fate sets in. Miles serves as medium for the levitator Zbiginil Wolunsky and thus starts his dream of flying. He grows up to be a penniless tinkerer, who refuses to give up his dream. One day he breaks his arm while helping to advertise Horatio's Boomerang Brandy. The kind man who caused the accident takes him in for the duration of recuperation. And there Miles meets Isabel.The youngest of six sisters, Isabel has had it with hand-me-downs, strictures of the household and being the last in the receiving line. So, as a tender teenager, she leaves home and travels through Australia, winding up with Uncle John - where Miles is nursing his broken arm and his dream of flying. After building all kinds of contraptions, he finally comes close to something that works. Isabel, of course, helps him and the two grow close.

I will not divulge the ending because it is too beautiful to be messed with by an amateur. Mr. Gilling, who wrote the incredible "The Sooterkin", again uses his unique imagination and the beauty of his language to give us a novel that will stay in our memory for a long time and uplift our spirits.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I believe., March 12, 2003

By 

Valerie S. Fowler "valgal00" (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Adventures of Miles and Isabel (Hardcover)

In "The Adventures of Miles and Isabel", Tom Gilling brings back the classic story of fated romance, but without any of the frivolous swooning our twenty-first century culture prefers to do without. This love story is set in the pre-aviation era of the 1850's and 60's... only it's not so much about the love between a boy and a girl as it is between a boy and a girl and their obsession with flight.

Miles is an intelligent, restless boy who is bursting with the unwavering confidence of his own ideals. He is the only son of Eliza McGinty, famed Australian stage actress, who went into labor with him during her controversial rendition of Hamlet. Isabel is an independent young lady who is submissive to nothing but fate. She is very much like her progressive and headstrong mother, Lousia Dowling, who was in the audience the night Eliza fell into labor with Miles. In a manner only providence can predict, Louisa's own contractions begin as she witnesses Eliza's laboring... and so Miles and Isabel enter the world.

The first two-thirds of this book set-up the inevitable meeting of the two young characters. Isabel is taken for a brief, impromptu flight in a hot air balloon by Tobias Smith, the area's first aviation entrepreneur. Several years later, Miles encounters a broken-down Mr. Smith who passes to him his personal journal full of notes and sketches of various flying machines. This is the beginning of a series of what some skeptics might call `coincidences', but what the rest of us will firmly believe is `fate' by the time the story is finished.

Gilling displays a commendable amount of research in this book. His grasp of the historical facts keep the story strong and intact. The engaging dialog between his unique characters is one of the facets that keeps you glued to the page. I highly recommend this book to any creative person. It combines the perfect mix of history, human interest and fantasy that makes a book truly timeless.