Angel in the Forest: A Faity Tale of Two Utopias [Paperback]

Marguerite Young (Author), Mark Van Doren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1994

history of utopian 19th-c New Harmony, Indiana

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With the extravagance of a poet rather than the pedantry of a historian, Young's long out of print study conjures up the spirit of two failed 19th-century attempts to establish utopias in New Harmony, Ind. The first was the celibate, spiritual society of Father Rapp (1814-1825), the other the rational, socialist order of Robert Owen (1825-1827). Father Rapp presided over a strict, regimented community (dictated by the visitation of an angel), guiding his people to prosperity through the sale of everything from hogs and shoes to gunpowder and whiskey, but creating a repressive regime that required slavish obedience--sexual abstinence was enforced, even when it meant emasculating his own son when that son fathered a child. Owen, by contrast, preached a doctrine of rationality, equality, happiness and social sympathy, that people are not innately sinful but molded by institutions. To put his ideals into practice, he transformed the Scottish mill town of New Lanark according to humanitarian principles, and then purchased New Harmony from Rapp to create a model of socialist perfection--a vain but splendid dream. Young relates all this in a lavish style that evokes the magic and pathos of the experiments. She is a superb storyteller whose allusions, images and digressions are even more telling than the story told.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A superb drama of man's folly and wisdom. . . . Young is eloquent in the tradition of Whitman, Melville, and Faulkner." -- Martin Leowitz, Nation 5-12-45

"A work of immense erudition. The tale is crowded with superb originals. This is a book! Brilliance and wisdom . . . a masterwork." -- New Republic 4-16-45

"An interesting, showy but intense study of curious, wonderful and far-reaching patterns of thought and living." -- Kirkus 1-15-45

"Young's satiric portraits of sundry utopian eccentrics greatly strengthens her book." -- Carlos Baker, New York Times Book Review 4-8-45

"[Young] is a superb storyteller whose allusions, images, and digressions are even more telling than the story told." -- Publishers Weekly 7-11-94

Product Details

• Paperback: 331 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; 2nd edition (August 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564780546
• ISBN-13: 978-1564780546
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a stunner!!!, October 17, 2001

By 

M. Nesbit "One reader" (Daly City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angel in the Forest: A Faity Tale of Two Utopias (Paperback)

This book is difficult but so marvelous that it is well worth the effort required. If you are wed to the idea of so-help-me-God facts, this book isn't for you. It is full of magic and mystery and sheer out-and-out glorius poetry.

It is full of moonlight, spiderwebs and golden raintrees. If this book were visual art it would be a William Morris wallpaper.

It is full of the sadness and glory of the Sirens chapter of Ulysses. It has the heartbreaking beauty of nostalgia . It has the life affirming strangeness of Moby-Dick. It is like a thousand other things and utterly itself.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Harmony society Expose, October 5, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Angel in the Forest: A Faity Tale of Two Utopias (Paperback)

I read this book only for the content about George Rapp's Harmony Society. I found the style tedious and sarcastic. Young portrays George Rapp as a mystical despot and members of the society as under his thrall. However,she presented several points which interested me, especially regarding Rapp's views on celibacy. She implies that he emasculated his son (who subsequently died) when that son and his wife conceived a child. This may be true, but there are no bibliographic references in the book. I can't tell if this is an exageration for literary emphasis or fact. This book seems to belittle the dignity of the Harmony Society members. As someone with ties to the original Harmony Society, I found this unsettling.