Customer Reviews

A Quiet Belief in Angels (Thorndike Basic)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I don't think the writing is at all elegant. On the contrary, I found it cloying. The undergraduate literary pretensions and fantasies are everywhere from using the "catcher in the rye" images on the first page to the dedication to Truman Capote. Those things presage the preciousness of his writer-protagonist ("for that's who I was, who I will always be . . . nothing more than the storyteller, the teller of tales" --why the redundancy, by the way?) whose forthcoming book at the end is "tipped to be the number one bestseller of the year" (nobody in publishing speaks of a book's prospects that way). Add to that the metaphors run amok ("Special moments--sporadic, like knots tied, irregularly spaced as if crows on a telegraph wire"--which is it, knots or crows?). Everything is so fraught. Even rough-hewn Reilly Hawkins speaks in overwrought metaphors. He describes a deceased older brother as having "eyes like back-lit sapphires." Would an uneducated Georgia farmer in 1941 describe a man as having "eyes like back-lit sapphires?" How would he know what "back-lit" even meant? Why would he say such a thing when the rest of the time he is incapable of subject-verb agreement?

The silly redundancy mentioned above is clearly part of the author's conscious style. I admit to finding it tremendously irritating; it's a cheap attempt to heap emotional weight onto a phrase for no good reason. Other examples:
". . . and so the events of that day seemed all the more disparate and incongruous."

"Death came that day. Workmanlike, methodical . . ."

". . . but in some small way an omen, a protent."

"Her hair was flax and linen . . ."

"Just for a heartbeat, a fraction of a second."

"She changed the subject--suddenly, unexpectedly-- . . ." [Not technically synonyms, but a redundancy in this context.]

". . . at first nothing more than a spark, an ember . . ." [Again, not precisely a synonym, but redundant.]

Young Joe has the same problem with his writing, which is stylistically remarkably like Ellory's: ". . . a ghost that walked with him, beside him . . ."

Other problems:
* Where does Joe get his broad vocabulary as a young man? There's no mention of books in the home (except one Steinbeck), his parents are uneducated, and there's no mention of diligent reading of any kind on his part.

* Laverna Stowell was found dead June 7, 1941, exactly six months before Pearl Harbor, but young Joe Vaughn already knew all about the arrests of the Jews and their murders in concentration camps, something most of the world didn't know much about until the camps were liberated. Even Rielly has heard about it! And Joe's mother has the whole thing already completely figured out--"Adolf Hitler has been slowly poisoning the minds of the German people, and he has been doing this long before he went to war." The Holocaust is central to the story, yet the fact that characters know of it at all that early, much less in such accurate detail, is an anachronism.

* Reilly says his father died of cancer from smoking black cigarettes, but the link between cancer and cigarettes was not widely known in 1941--another anachronism.

* Joe Vaughn scoffs at the existence of the Boogeyman but believes that a personified Death literally came along the High Road to claim his father?

* Sheriff Dearing said all the Guardians would be "grounded" as punishment--in 1941 rural Georgia? The term didn't exist. He might as well have given them a time out. Another anachronism.

* So many scenes ring terribly false e.g., his mother explaining about her affair with Kruger and Joe suddenly being completely okay with it, mature and philosophical at 14 and willing to admit his own sexual yearnings--yeah, right.

* A friend gets Joe's prison memoir published and the book prompts an appeal of his murder conviction to the Supreme Court of the United States. How? Never explained. Why the Supreme Court? Never explained--it seems to have gone straight there, which is silly for a murder case. SCOTUS awards him a new trial which he wins (why he wins is never clear).

Sorry, but this book is a mess in my opinion. Reading it was more an annoyance than a pleasure.

This book was a wonderful surprise. It had me from the open:

"Rumor, hearsay, folklore. Whichever way it laid down to rest or came up for air, rumor had it that a white feather indicated the visitation of an angel.

On the morning of Wednesday, July twelfth, 1939, I saw one, long and slender and unlike any kind of feather I'd seen before. It skirted the edge of the door as I opened it, almost as if it had waited patiently to enter, and the draft from the hallway carried it into my room."

And kept me reading with beautiful passages like this:

"Love, I would later conclude, was all things to all people. Love was the breaking and healing of hearts. Love was misunderstood, love was faith, love was the promise of now that became hope for the future. Love was a rhythm, a resonance, a reverberation. Love was awkward and foolish, it was aggressive and simple and possessed of so many indefinable qualities that it could never be conveyed in language. Love was being."

Joseph Vaughn's childhood is marred by murder of several local girls, all presumably at the hands of a single serial killer. These events color not only his childhood, but his entire life as he becomes obsessed with the crimes. He can't seem to catch a break, his life rocked time after time by tragedy. A gifted writer, Joseph eventually moves to New York City in an attempt to leave it all behind, but it's not that easy.

This was a really sneaky mystery. Ellory drops little breadcrumbs every so often, and just when you think you know what's going on, things take a turn. I was wrong about who the killer was, yet it all made sense in the end. The setting is also worked into the story very well... the attitudes of people due to World War II play a significant part, as well as the small town southern setting. This is Ellory's fifth book, and I can't wait to track down the others. I am a new fan.

This was an interesting story,however the book dragged at times.How many times do we need to hear about the nightmares that Joseph had?It was repeated over and over.Every time he fell asleep we were treated to him waking up in a sweat,etc.
Also these people in Georgia knew alot about Hitler and the holocost long before the rest of the world did.For people that inteligent they should have solved the murders quickly.
For me this book could have been more enjoyable if the author cut 50 to 75 pages of reduntent content

A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS by R J Ellory

The town of Augusta Falls is in pain. It must come to terms with the rise of Hitler's power and the dawning of WWII. To the town's inhabitants, this is mostly a psychological war. If they don't feel directly the affects of mass murderer, Adolf Hitler, they have their very own serial killer in their midst. They are plunged into depression and a dark fugue as young girls are brutally slain. The main protagonist, Joseph Vaughn, seems doomed.

It's hard to write a review worthy of A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS. The novel seems created by some mythical hybrid, Truman Capote and John Steinbeck. An unthinkable crime befalls a bucolic town, sprawling landscapes, schoolhouses, and murdered girls abound. I'm not sure this book is for everyone. It's very intense and introspective. For example there is a lot of repetition, but Ellory digs a deep well of emotion. Also, it's not just sad, it' morose. Given the quality of the novel, I'm willing to make allowances for aspects some people might consider flaws. R. J. Ellory is not only a master of language, but also an excellent researcher. His first person narrative feels truly authentic. The book seems as though it was indeed written by someone from the era where the book takes place. My personal feeling is that this is one of the best books I've come across in a long time.

got this book simply because of the excellent reviews on amazon.co.uk. Indeed many people had written comments like "wow", "awesome" and "best book I have ever read".

I feel I must write another review (88 already written by now) just to say that the book is indeed very good, but it certainly does not deserve the fanatical reviews received.

The main character of the book Joseph does not command the sympathy of the reader for the life he is given. The reason for this is his unerring capacity to do very little when faced with his life's challenges. He seems to drift through the book ensuring only that he captures his feelings and thoughts for the reader.

The book is very well written in a classic novel approach. Excellent use of vocabulary and prose bring the Georgia landscape to life.

The story itself is a little on the unbelievable side. So many murders, so many police departments involved and yet so few clues, so few suspects. Indeed many of the pieces of the puzzle are only delivered in the final 20 pages.

Still its an excellent read, I enjoyed it very much. It's a page turner, you do need to know what happens next

More a quiet belief in Ellory than in angels.

This book, the first novel I have read by R.J. Ellory is simply astounding. The depth of despair that the book conveys, the feeling of loss, of sadness, of hope, of further loss is incredible. If anyone feels anything when they read a book, then this book will have the senses working overtime. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my humble opinion.

To Roger Ellory, thank you for such a wonderful book!

After all the praise that this book has received, I was looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately, I found it disappointing. There was little in the way of characterization -- all the boys/men read as quite similar, as did the women, with the exception of Alex, but she was far too much of cliché, both as Joseph's teacher and later as his lover, for me to care about her. In addition, it became obvious quite early on who the serial killer was, and it was just a question of getting to the end to be sure. The whole looking-back-from-a-death-scene feel was another cliché that bugged me. I prefer a narrative that is immediate to one that is reflected on from a great distance.

I'm sorry to say after so many glowing reviews that 'A Quiet Belief in Angels' is a huge disappointment. After a promising start I soon found the writing to be pretty slow paced and it feels very forced and laboured at times. It plods along and then a phrase or sentence jumps out at you where you think 'that actually describes that quite well' but then you realise that you've been brought crashing out of the story and that it actually feels a touch cliched. It only stands out as good compared to the rest of this plodding and basic work. It seems to me that Ellory desperately wants to write as well as Steinbeck (as he alludes to him a great deal and the style and period is very reminiscent of Steinbecks work) and as a result this book feels derivative and never comes close to living up to Steinbeck's greatness. In addition, he blatantly rips off Steinbeck when copying the idea of a Germans house being burnt down, as Steinbeck wrote exactly this in his East Of Eden novel. I'd suggest you forget this book and go straight to Steinbeck's masterly and beautiful books (The Grapes of Wrath can not be recommended highly enough). I found the storyline to be pretty formulaic and the ending predictable and nowhere near as shocking as the author may have wanted it to be. There are many flaws, such as being written in the first person and the main character working out who the murderer is and then seeming surprised at the end when it is revealed, as well as numerous chronological and historical inaccuracies that should have been picked up in editing. It is a shame that this book was chosen by Richard and Judy for their book club, as other better written and coherent books are out there that could be read by a huge amount of people to get turned on to great writing, rather than this book which I personally felt to be uninspiring and flawed pulp fiction. I can only apologise to those who loved this.

R. J. Ellory's story A Quiet Belief in Angels is nothing short of a literary masterpiece. The landscape and time of rural Georgia from the 30's to the 60's is illustrated with an artistic touch. The setting sets the tone and feel of this amazing mystery that spans decades and concludes as beautifuly as it begins. You are drawn into the mind and heart of Joseph Vaughn as he travels through various stages of his life; all the while he is haunted by the tragic events of his youth. It is an epic journey that leaves you breathless. R. J. Ellory is almost poetic in his use of language without resorting to poetry itself. To me personaly--He is on a par with J.D. Salinger. If there is such a thing as a classic literary mystery, this is one that should not be missed by any fan of the mystery genre.

As an American (Southern born, in my 50s) I found all the dialogue jarring, and the attitudes of small-town Southerners in the 40s totally off-kilter. It would certainly have been preferable if people in Georgia had the (much more open-minded) attitudes Ellory ascribes to them - but every time he re-writes history (or puts incredibly unrealistic-sounding dialogue in their mouths - and there is way too much dialogue), he takes you right out of the story. Which is a shame, because it's an interesting story.