Customer Reviews

The Club of Angels (New Directions Paperbook)

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The first of Brazilian author Verissimo's novels to be translated into English, The Club of Angels is a fascinating, carefully detailed, and darkly humorous study of ten deaths, the deaths of ten gourmands following their favorite meals. The men have been friends for more than twenty years, meeting once a month for sumptuous feasts together. They represent all levels of society and have achieved differing degrees of professional success, enjoying and respecting each other because of their shared love of food and their long friendship.

When Ramos, their leader, dies of AIDS, a mysterious successor, Lucidio (whose name suggests "God's light") suddenly appears and begins to plan and prepare their feasts. One by one, month after month, the club members die, but no one suggests canceling the meals, each of which features the favorite main course of one of the members. In fact, Verissimo suggests that the victim's pleasure is dramatically increased when he knows that his death is the end result of the meal. Each victim, in fact, always asks for the one extra portion of the meal, even after it becomes obvious to the club members that the person taking the extra portion will die.

Verissimo explores the phenomenon of death philosophically--"We grow up with our murderer," he says, and "We never [know] when he [will] kill us." But, he believes, "knowing the hour and manner of our death [is] like being presented with a plot, with a denouement, with all the advantages that detective fiction has over life." Knowing when and how one will die is the ultimate privilege. An ironically named "Mr. Spector" features prominently in the ending, by which time only Daniel, the narrator/chronicler of the events, and Lucidio remain alive.

Playing with the reader's perceptions from the outset, Verissimo writes with tongue firmly in cheek, the ironies piling up as the deaths continue. His observations about life and death, about men and their friendships, and about our responsibilities, if any, to each other add depth to this unusual novel. The ending, which extends the concept of "orgiastic release" to its logical conclusion, will satisfy even the most jaded reader. Strange, thoughtful, and very clever, this novel is a fine introduction to a writer whose next novel, Borges and the Eternal Orangutans, contains broader humor within a more complex, imaginative structure. n Mary Whipple

A nice translation of a Brazilian author's work. A clever story of a group of men who gather monthly to dine with one another. The introduction of a marvelous chef restores the appetites of the men for one another's company and a zest for life--or is it death? A fascinating examination of what motivates people knowing that fate is staring at them in a plate of a favorite food.

While the ending is a little too pat, the book raises interesting questions and is a gem worthy of the short amount of time it takes to read.

starting with a macabre and devious story of a very secret club of epicures who cook & eat the deadly fugu fish in japan, verissimo's club of angels leads readers onto wicked & twisted terrains of gluttony & its implications. the book tells the tale of a group of friends who started out full of ambition in their youth and traces their path into the failure of the present.

verissimo's deft touch and light hand ensures a delecable read. although the plot cals for a heavy suspension of disbelief, thereward is well worth it.

a slight comic masterpiece.

For 22 years, ten Brazilian men got together once a month for a gastronomic feast. Eight of them had grown up together and developed their culinary tastes around the beef stew with egg farofa and fried banana served in their favorite bar. Hence the name of their club. But the eldest and their intellectual leader died of AIDS, and even though he was replaced by another, the group had lost its pizzazz and was falling apart. Enter Lucídio. He offers to cook the meal that Daniel, one of the members and the first-person narrator, is scheduled to host. The featured dish is a marvelous boeuf bourguignon. Everyone raves about it and the club is re-energized. There is only enough for one person to have a second helping, and Abel, whose favorite dish happens to be bouef bourguignon, claims it, remarking, "Now I can die." The next morning he is in fact dead, from a heart attack. At each succeeding monthly dinner of the club, Lucídio is the cook, the meal is fabulous, there is enough for one person to have seconds, and the next morning that gourmand is dead.

No doubt many authors could make an entertaining novel out of that premise - a hybrid of sorts of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club". But Luis Fernando Verissimo, a Brazilian author born in 1936, spins an especially sly and witty intellectual romp. THE CLUB OF ANGELS is part mystery story, part mordant satire, part roguish philosophy, and all in all a helluvalotta fun.

Let me tempt you with a brief excerpt:

"[G]astronomy was a cultural pleasure like no other, for no other brought with it the same philosophical challenge by which appreciation demanded the destruction of the thing appreciated and where veneration and consumption were one; no other art could equal eating as an example of the sensory perception of an art, any art, with the one exception, he thought, of actually stroking Michelangelo's David's butt."

Everyone in the book wants "more, more, more, more . . .". So in the spirit of the book, here's one more excerpt:

"All women come from one of two different lines, the Judaeo-Christian and the Greek. Those from the Judaeo-Christian line were descended from Eve, whom God had made from Adam's rib in order to serve man, tempt him and accompany him in his fall and ruin. Those from the Greek line were descended from Athena, whom Zeus had plucked from his own brain, and those women never missed a chance to remind men that they were sprung from the head of a god and had nothing to do with men's insides or with their damnation. Gisela belonged to the latter group."

Oh, yes - as each dinner concludes, a different line from Shakespeare's "King Lear" is quoted. Plus, the translator is Margaret Jull Costa. Finally, THE CLUB OF ANGELS is only 135 pages. Even for slow readers like me, reading it takes no more than three or four hours - about the time required for an epicurean feast. Enjoy yourself!

This book is an absolute delight if Borges has any special place in your heart, if you ever enjoyed Poe and if well-written literary intellectual snobbery tickles you at all. I found myself charmed and smiling throughout.