Customer Reviews

Angel in the Forest: A Faity Tale of Two Utopias

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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.

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.