When I picked the book I was intrigued by the time period and the vehicle of using several characters and their point of view to narrate the story. I read “Girl with the Pearl Earring” which I liked very much and thought the author did a marvelous job researching the period and bringing the time period and the characters were well developed. Based on my past experience with this author I thought I’d give it a try. Unfortunately I was deeply disappointed with this book.

Various characters in the story told short descriptions of events in the story – the descriptions by each character were too short to capture and develop the character and they told so little in each of their sections…I was begging for more detail and information. These brief narrations by the speaker causes the character to be undeveloped, flat, uninteresting and as a reader I was not able to get very involved with the character. I did not find that each character had their own distinctive voice such that without looking at the title of who was speaking I could immediately tell who was speaking. (In fact when the young girls were five they were speaking and thinking about things much too adult and sophisticated for their age so their voices felt believable.)
For most of the beginning of the book the comings and goings and discussions focused around a cemetery –boring. I was more than half way through the book before I saw a glimmer of a plot. At first I thought the plot would center on turn of the century women and unhappy marriage, affairs, unwanted pregnancy, finding a soul mate but that never really developed. As the plot switches away onto something else (women’s rights in turn of the century London, women suffragettes) I thought, at last here is the real plot but that was never really developed either. So much more could have been done to describe the women’s suffragette movement, the hardships, the imprisonment of the women and the frustration embarrassment and misunderstanding on the part of the men and society.
I imagine the author did extensive research on the era but that never came out in the story. The rich details, descriptions, of the times and the deep feelings, frustrations, fears and concerns of the characters were not brought out. I found the ending came abruptly but I guess after wondering all over the place the author had to finally just stop.

Overall this book was a big disappointment but I kept reading to the end to see why this book was published …I thought surely it must have something meaningful to contribute.

4,5⭐️

Victorians were obsessed with death and sex. This book opens with the death of Queen Victoria, and ends with the death of King Edward, placing it squarely in Edwardian times, but the Victorian obsessions of death and sex are the two themes of this novel, pushing and pulling each other forward to modern times or back towards the Victorian age.

The book follows two rival families sharing adjacent cemetery plots and who eventually become next door neighbors. The two little girls become friends, the fathers play cricket and go to pubs together, but the mothers are constantly comparing themselves to the other in every way.

Through the point of view of all of the different family members, servants, and the gravedigger's son, the nature of the families' friendship and rivalry is uncovered. This style of shifting 1st person narration was very effective for this book. With headings indicate who was writing, it was never confusing, and the plot unfolded itself slowly and beautifully as motivations for past actions others observed became clear.

Death surrounded these families. The girls were just old enough to understand death when Queen Victoria died. They live next door to the cemetery and visit their family plots. They learn how to mourn. They live in the shadow of death every day.

Sex was ever present as well: the wife that turned her husband away; the husband that went to wife swapping parties; sexual escapades with men who work at the graveyard, and the consequences of those actions. Sexual roles were explored as well, as men are told to handle their woman as one handles a horse, and an accidental encounter with a leading suffragette leads one of the wives deep into that movement.

Eventually, the families become too entangled with each other and with the Suffragette movement so that even the smallest things that these rivals and friends do will have unintended and drastic consequences.

This was an excellent novel.

در "سقوط فرشتگان" "تریسی شوالیه" با کنار هم قرار دادن دو خانواده "واتر هاوس" و "کولمن" به تقابل سنت و مدرنیته پراخته است. یکی شیفته و معتقد به ارزش های سنتی عصر ویکتوریایی و دیگری مجذوب تغییرات سریع جهانی که به سمت نو شدن می رود.
ماجرا توسط راویان متعدد بیان می شود. تقریبا همه ی شخصیت های درگیر ماجرا، با نگاه خود قسمتی از ماجرا را بازگو می کنند.
رمانی که به سادگی و روان پیش می رود و شما بی دغدغه به دنبالش می روید بدون وجود نکته خاصی.. فقط پیش می رود تا تمام شود همین.
من این کتاب را با ترجمه نینا فراهانی که نشر چشمه به چاپ رسانده، خواندم.

I seem to keep checking out Tracy Chevalier books because she is very prolific and there are always audio books by her on my library shelves! I think she is an interesting, good writer. A lot of her stuff like "Girl With the Pearl Earring" has some historical basis, but this one is simply a novel. I quite liked it. But it won't change your life or anything. :) I need Brad Ferguson to write brilliant reviews for me.

2.5

I didn't realize this was a slice of life novel, I'm not really a fan of those types of stories even though they tend to be well written a character rich, they just have nothing going on... That's what this book's main problem was. Nothing really happens for over 300 pages. But something inside of me wanted to finished it to the end.

I really like Chevalier's style of writing and generally like her books, but this books rambles on and on. There were points in the novel when it seemed like the plot would go somewhere but a letter would be burned, or the plot line would just end at the end of the chapter and never pick up again. Richard Coleman is so uninvolved in the story you could read his parts at any point in the book and would learn nothing new or different about his character. Kitty was a bratty wife who only cared about herself and never thought about anyone else even her own daughter Maude.

Over all like many people I'm left wondering, what's the point of this novel? what was the end goal or even the story? because as far as I could tell there wasn't one. The plus side is that it is relatively short and easy to get through. Chevalier's writing style is there just not her usual character development or story, oh well.

Chevalier’s second novel shifts from 17th-century Delft to London between the deaths of Queen Victoria and Edward VII. A lot of the action takes place in a cemetery, much like Highgate, populated by some 30 angel monuments, one of which eventually topples. The title presumably also refers to some of the female characters, who are in the process of abandoning the Victorian pedestals that have kept them somewhat set in stone. The narrative unfolds in a stream of brief, first-person accounts, less like letters (in which writers might choose their words less with “truth” than with ulterior motives in mind) and more like diary entries (supposedly unguarded and spoken “from the heart”—though characters can, and do, lie to themselves). Chevalier observes appropriate class distinctions in putting words in lower class mouths (e.g., those of cooks, housemaids, the youthful gravedigger, or “naughty boy,” who becomes chums across class lines with two young girls, habitués of the cemetery, who serve as chief protagonists); from a very early age the precocious Maude and Lavinia, on the other hand, sound little different than their parents.

Maude’s mother, the restive Kitty, contrasts notably with Lavinia’s mother, Gertrude (much mired in Victorian proprieties), not to mention with Kitty’s mother-in-law (a thoroughly unlikable version of Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey, without the wit). Fallen Angels and its cast perhaps resemble Upstairs, Downstairs of blessed memory more than that most recent BBC stately home juggernaut.

One experiences a lot about the Edwardian way of death as all these women (and their less visible husbands and paramours) confront Britain’s post-Victorian social growing pains. These include women’s suffrage, to which Kitty becomes thoroughly committed. Chevalier also suggests the sorts of unfortunate consequences that can result when various characters remain so unswervingly faithful to Principle that they forget or ignore "lesser" concerns. Humanity, it seems, is sometime left in this story to those who have little time for and can ill afford such principles.

This was my fourth (or fifth?) book from Tracy so I had an idea what should I expect- nearly perfect historical research, beautiful language, and original topic. So I didn´t mind waiting more than 60 pages, because… it is Tracy and Tracy normally has smooth but quite slow starts.
What was the result? It was definitely worth waiting! The book was not as witty as “The Lady and the Unicorn”, nor so good written as “Girl with a Pearl Earring” but I enjoyed. I liked the idea of “linked diaries” which enable a neutral position of the writer, was excited to read about cemetery as a place full of life and I felt in love with Simo and Ivy May.
So thank you, Tracy. I hope we will see each other soon again.

Gaslit England during the turn of the century. The story starts during the funeral of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) and ends during the funeral of King Edward VII (1901-1910). On their visit to the cemetery to pay respect to their beloved queen, two families meet: the Colemans and the Waterhouses and their relationships are started by the friendship between their two 5-y/o daughters, Maude Coleman and Lavinia Waterhouse. They meet when they are 5 years old and the story ends when they are in the brink of adulthood at the age of 15.

One noteworthy aspect of this novel: narrated in first person by n  each of the major charactersn without losing the story’s focus and the delivery of its message: that women are not the weaker sex.

The plot is thin and the prose is easy yet mesmerizing in its beauty. The frequent reference to cemeteries and death seems to be a reminder to its readers that we are all mortals and all of us will die sooner or later. So, it is but proper that we do what is right and contribute in our own ways to leave this world a better place just like what Kitty Coleman and her support to suffragettes’ dream of having women vote during elections. It also teaches us that we are all human being and we commit mistakes like Jenny Whitby’s pregnancy and Kitty’s affair with Richard and the abortion of their baby. It also shows us that time changes no matter what we do like how the Waterhouses try to hold on to their conventional beliefs compared to the openness of the Colemans to change.

The title comes from the angel in the grave of the Waterhouses that falls and breaks into parts in one of the scene. In another, it is Lavinia’s belief, being a more imaginative child, that the falling stars are actually falling angels that are falling because they are going to earth to deliver some messages. The more practical-minded Maude insists that they are meteorites and not angels. These are 5 year old girls in England in 1901 and this is an example of how Chevalier provides the contrast between the two girls.

Okay, those really are not new. The novel is cute though. Smooth reading and Chevalier’s attention to details and making use of those details to make her story worth-reading is something that I appreciated. There are still nice novels that do not need to have huge political impact, endorse some earth-shaking philosophy or use big words for me to enjoy. Sometimes, surprises come in small package and this novel for me definitely falls in that category. Not a 1001. Not a 501. No awards from Pulitzer, Booker, etc. No one of my friends here in Goodreads recommended this but definitely a joy, although there are two deaths towards the end, to read.

Maude Coleman and Lavinia Waterhouse become fast friends despite their different backgrounds when they meet in a cemetery where their families have plots. Their parents become acquainted, but do not develop bonds. When Queen Victoria dies in 1901 the Waterhouse family goes through all of the Victorian rituals whereas the Colemans look forward to a more modern England with the new King. The large angel atop the Waterhouse plot is a source of dismay to the Colemans whereas the Urns at the Coleman plot evokes similar feelings in the Waterhouses. Maude and Lavinia befriend Simon Field, a grave digger at the cemetery who shows them some of the intricacies of working in a cemetery. When Maude's mother Kitty Coleman gets involved with the suffrage movement against the wishes of her husband Richard, she sets in motion a series of events that result in tragedy for both families. Told over a period of 9 years this is a lyrical and beautifully written story of coming of age amidst changing mores and inexplicable circumstances.

I loved this book and chose it for my book group to read - almost everyone liked it. The story is told through the differing voices of a small group of people who live close to a large London cemetery and moves through years of the Edwardian period. The characters are entertaining, flawed and vividly brought to life - the readers sympathy swings from one person to another. The theme of women’s suffrage is explored in a frank and unglamorous manner. I think this describes so well how change takes place and how hard it can be for that to happen. Wonderful historical detail that never feels laboured.

I abandoned the last book I was reading because after reading halfway through the book, I felt no interest in any of the characters. The opposite was true of the people in this novel. I was immediately caught up in all of their lives from the beginning. And I must say, the beginning was rather shocking considering the novel started in 1901.
A cemetery and the suffragette movement provided dramatic backdrops for each character to narrate his/her story. I was amazed at how much one can learn about life and culture through death. England mourned the deaths of a queen and later a king. Meanwhile, families mourned personal losses according to the expected traditions of the time. Except for anyone daring to be a bit unconventional.
Speaking of unconventional, the women of the early suffragette movement had to be unconventional to say the least. The novel reminds us of personal sacrifices many have made long ago just to give women the vote.