Collision course

I first read Penelope Fitzgerald's "The Gate of Angels" around fifteen years ago, and as a mark of how a reader can change and their perceptions develop over time, I must say that I scarcely remember its having made an impression on me then, but it certainly has done so now. Perhaps it was because I was in the baby/toddler/sleep-deprived/brain gone to mush stage back then - anyway, that's my excuse for my lack of appreciation.

This is a superb book. It shows a greater emotional engagement than does "The Blue Flower", but the same wry humour, attention to detail and intensely realised scenes. It is a love story, and without wishing to tease, I'm not going to say any more than that about the plot as I'd like appetites to be whetted, not sated!

This book is like a perfect miniature, executed with consummate skill: rich, well planned, deeply meaningful and pleasing to the eye. While I am mindful of this dictum which Penelope Fitzgerald quotes : "the element of wonder never lies in the phenomenon, but always in the person observing", I defy anyone not to wonder at this little masterpiece. It is controlled, but in a very light-handed way, and it looks deceptively effortless, but is the work of a gifted writer. I'm so glad the brain-fog has cleared and I've re-read it.

[By way of a footnote, my copy all those years ago was a 'cover gift' from "Woman's Journal" - how many women's magazines today give away Booker/Whitbread shortlisted novels?]

Comments

[Peg]

You make me want to read new authors, Cornflower. I ordered "The Blue Flower", "The Bookshop" and "The Gate of Angels". February is just three days off, so it is time to read a good love story. Thank you!

[dovegreyreader]

Oh how I adore Penelope Fitzgerald and how lovely to find a kindred spirit because plenty of people just don't "get" her.I have bored everyone with tales of how her family lived in the village here and her grandchildren were in the same classes as our children at school and I probably sat next to her at school assembly AND NEVER KNEW!If you have House of Air read The Moors, or I might already have suggested that because I do blog about it very regularly and monotonously.