Customer Reviews

The Revolt of the Angels

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The book tells the story of an archbishop's guardian angel who starts reading the bishop's books on Theology and becomes an atheist. The angel moves to Paris, meets a woman, has his wings fall off & takes up the harp to make a living, since he can't handle harmony. Then he meets the Devil. This is a very funny book, by the world's greatest ironist. A wonderful read for those who smile at people who pray on TV while squinting. Elegant prose even in English, better in French; a quintessential skeptic at his best.

Yes, Anatole France was a Nobel Prize laureate; No, that is part reason enough to read him (Who can name six laureates). If you need to be convinced, try The Revolt of the Angels.

An angel, Arcade, leaves heaven, comes to earth, uses his invisibility to steal books from a library, after which he joins a host of fallen brethren with plans to overthrow god. Fantastic? Think again. In the hands of France, the plot is a mere jot; he is more interested in expressing his contrarian view of the universe.

His knowledge of history and religious texts is amply demonstrated; however the main draw is his cynical philosophy and his virtuosity in descriptions. When one of the angels delivers a tirade, the lifespan of the universe is captured in paragraphs: Original sin is a fable concocted by god, the Reformation was started Luther "all swollen with beer and theology," and god's thunderbolt was stolen by Franklin. According to France, god foresees everything, yet is surprised by the most probable event. France is not interested in orthodoxy, this is not religious satire to make you laugh; this is one that causes you to painfully shake your head and smile.

The conclusion is obvious, but it brings us back to reality - nothing will change. By the end of this impressive work of literature we discover only one angel is in revolt and it is not Arcade. It is Anatole France.

There's a lot to work with in this idea. Angels exist on earth, lots of them, including many assigned duties as guardian angels. God's in his heaven, and all's right with the world.

But, at the hands of master satirist France, all is not right with the world. The god in this story is a petty, tinhorn tyrant. He has arrogated himself power of life and death over this world's little beings, but with no true understanding of the clockwork perfection of even his assigned corner of this universe. Many of those angels on earth have defected, and are plotting an insurrection against that god's dictatorial rule. They secure funding, they stockpile bombs of horrific power, and they brace themselves for the struggle ahead.

I'm no scholar of the French revolution, but one point of similarity leaps out: the rebels' near-total lack of plan for what happens after the current in-crowd is outed. And, once the angels take on some features of earthly flesh, they fall victim to many of the ills that human flesh is heir to. Those include love of money, love of women, and love of the anarchic plotting in itself.

There's a lot to like in this novel by Nobel winner France, but also a few things that didn't work for me. France move his plot forward using an alternation of many viewpoints - a technique that works poorly for maintaining cohesion in a story. This translation, from 1914, is generally readable and enjoyable, but a few of its phrases seemed stilted by today's standards. And, although I enjoyed the narrative, I was not always sure how the family story of the d'Esparvieus matched the larger story around it. France makes up for any failings, of course, in his repartee, including some well-place barbs at America and Americans.

//wiredweird

Excellent, starts a bit slow but proves itself to be a tour de force of comic invention, emotional intensity and general creativity. The story appears for the first forty pages to be a setup for a rather dull society world with one Maurice the owner of a vast collection of books and discovering one of them to have gone missing. After a bit of by the numbers effort to see who might have taken it, Maurice is met by the being responsible. It's his guardian angel, and as the result of reading the rationalist literary text the angel has decided that religion and the bonds of heaven are tyranny, and sets about to spread emancipatory consciousness among the order of angels. The title of the book wasn't symbolic, it features the direct plot of the book, with lots of unexpected turns, good insights and general hilarity. The strength of the discordant relationship between Maurice and his ex-guardian angel could carry the book in themselves--there's lots of hilarious and surreal scenes like where Maurice tries (unsuccessfully) to preach the virtues of religion, or when he challenges the angel into a duel over an issue of personal honor. Ultimately the book's scale is a lot wider than just that aspect, and it benefits from it.

Much of the book is a direct satire. It's from the early twentieth century and bits of this humor haven't aged well, but a lot of it has. For instance there's the effort by one angel to talk another into rebellion against the celestrial arrangement and the current social arrangement in France. The second angel protests, on the grounds that France needs no change and was already completely perfect. It then goes on a speech on how the main credit bank of Frane was particularly refined "as pure and chaste and the Holy Virgin."

The novel also has, late on, one of the most affecting inversions of Christian myth that I've seen. The text had previously established a gnostic worldview where the entity ruling by the name of God was a lying oppressor of less than ultimate power. It had also shown Satan and his followers to be free thinkers, who tried to defeat God from humanitarian altruist notions. Across the novel the new outbreak lead by Maurice's ex-guardian angel linked up with the old resistance and formede plans for a new front, gathering strength to a march against the status quo. In the last chapter Satan has a dream, whereby his invasion is successful, the God-being is cast down and he takes on the celestial throne. The scenario plays out longer, with Satan becoming more cold, distant and egotistical, remote from and callous towards the human suffering that motivated his earlier fighting. He starts to shroud himself in mystery and hierarchy and govern as a tyrant. Simultaneously, cast down from the seat of power and command, God begins to observe the suffering of the small people and has a turn towards compassion and activity. Satan awakes from the dream, sees that a successful invasion of Heaen would just switch roles, and calls off the attack, resolving to maintain his spirit of compassion and work to help in smaller ways. There's a basic attitude of decency built into this story that's rather affecting, combined with the very strong and narratively surprising ending tone of anti-militarism. Such moments, of which the above is only the culmination, establish a writer of great sensitivity and complexity as well as humor.

The novel is enormously rewarding and entertaining. Proof that at least sometimes the Nobel Award for Literature wen into deserving hands. I'm definitely going to look up more of Anatole France's writings.

Similar to and better than: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Similar to and also better than: The Hunchback of Notre Dama by Victor Hugo

"The Revolt of the Angels" is a wonderful tale spun around the dichotomy of existence. In this story, much like man, we're told of the polar feelings of angels. Journey through this text, from the start of the 20th century and see its elements laden with Gnosticism. Truly a different way to look at the conflicts of faith and what is deemed good and evil. Written in an intellectual fashion, containing a through understanding of biblical proceedings, "The Revolt of the Angels" succeeds in summoning up thought processes, even amongst the most pious of Christians. Just like Arcade's (one of the main characters of this tale) thirst and journey for knowledge, readers are proposed with philosophical and social dilemmas, which will leave you deep in thought.

~John J. Petrolino III: November 10, 2008

Author of Galleria: A collection of poetry and the short story "Three Lonesome Travelers"

Hilarious and silly. A perfectly ironic retelling of "Paradise Lost."