Angel (New York Review Books Classics)

God bless Netflix for having that wretched movie "Angel" available for instant streaming. Otherwise I may have never found this wonderful book, which is now one of my all-time favorites. To me this book is flawless--a masterpiece.This summer I saw the movie "Angel" on Netflix--I thought it was awful, yet I found it intriguing. Being an aspiring writer myself, I found the first half hour especially fascinating--this I watched over and over. Hearing that the star, Romola Garai, considered it her work she was most proud of, I watched it some more to see if it had more to offer than the shallow thrill of watching Angel skyrocket from disgruntled school girl to glamorous author. The movie is really bad, and in many important ways different than the book--not the least of which is how they transformed Angel from an insufferable, unattractive woman with about two redeeming qualities to a gorgeous bombshell whose worse offense seems to be a fatal combination of unrepentant cheekiness and ignorance. That change alone pretty much completely undoes the entire premise of the novel, which is actually about one of the most unattractive and repellent characters you will ever meet.Elizabeth Taylor does an outstanding job of explaining her characters--they just make sense, as bizarre as their lives sometimes are. Often in literature the picture does not add up--the author loves their characters too much to show us his real warts and instead just shoves on us a couple tired character flaws (pride! never knowing when to give up! a fear of water!). Angel is an exaggerated version of a person we have all met. She is self-absorbed to the max, oblivious to the world around her where it does not serve her purposes (she lives solely for praise and admiration, notices the criticism but condemns it without hesitation and therefore ignores it--and she is completely oblivious to the suffering of those closest to her: her mother, her husband, her friend Nora, and her many pets who are left to die in anguish and neglect even while she deludes herself that she is some kind of heroic animal rights activist.) But Elizabeth Taylor does not just use the book to drive home some point about, "Isn't this woman just awful? Isn't she terrible? Ha ha, she's so stupid, right?" No, somehow Angel, as disgusting and terrible as she is, ends up being a very likable and interesting character. This novel had me rethinking people I knew who had some of Angel's off-putting characteristics who I generally have just written off as "bad or annoying people."There is some great humor in this book. A short yet scathing letter from a detractor was a delicious surprise dropped in unexpectedly and not labored over for long, as many of the delights of this book are--"Dear Madam," she read. "Since you can only describe what you write of from your own experiences, we must deduce from this fact that you are nothing but a common whore. Please keep your excesses to yourself and spare yours in disgust, Lover of Literature." Angel gets her "comeuppance" in similar ways here and there throughout the book, but she displays a remarkable resilience that is actually admirable and inspiring. Ultimately, as disgusting as Angel is, to me she was an inspiring character. From the very beginning--if she wants something, she goes after it. Most people would never even dare to have the wishes she had from childhood, let alone actually try for them, let alone succeed.I know this may seem like weird praise, but one of the things I love about this book is the complete absence of a identifiable voice from the author (Taylor, not Angel). Fun is made of Angel over and over, yet the author does not come across as someone trying to be jolly or cutting--she just gives you information and it speaks for itself. Angel is never described as ugly or disgusting or odious directly. Instead you have people's hair-raising reactions to her (an enraged woman telling Angel to keep her misguided efforts of charity to herself, a reporter choking down spoiled food because he's too scared of Angel to reject it, a poor woman whose dog was killed by Angel's own pet, who Angel has the audacity to heap abuse and threats upon.) Taylor does not have a clear and recognizable voice in this book--but boy do her characters. Angel seems prone to inspiring angry diatribes from others--and they are a delight to read.I am a shameless bibliophile. I have read many of the "great authors." Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Jane Austen, Margaret Mitchell--I've read them all, and I liked most of them quite a bit. I can't put Taylor up on their level because I simply have not read enough of her work to make that judgement. But I loved this book--I cannot remember the last time a book so delighted me. Granted, being an aspiring writer myself may have played a role in my fascination of reading a book by an author written about an author. But I wish to God there were more books like this being written. Everybody today seems to rely on style or elaborate plots or having a "schtick"--they would do better to just create better characters like the ones you find here. Elizabeth Taylor must have been a very keen observer of human behavior in her life. She has an amazing understanding of it. She understands why people act like they act, why they think the way they think, and why they are the way they are. In a world of hamburgers and hotdogs, this book was like a choice cut of steak, grilled to perfection, served with savory and perfectly complimentary side dishes. There is no fat here to be trimmed off, no excess, no dragging in the middle, no filler.If you are the kind of person who finds other human beings fascinating and you are capable of recognizing and appreciating subtle or sometimes dark humor, you will likely enjoy this book. I think a lot of the beauty of this book would be completely lost on the "average" reader who relies on more obvious direction from the author on what they're supposed to be thinking. If you enjoy reading about extravagant lifestyles and people who clamber to the highest pinnacle of success, you will get that here, too. If you want to feel like somebody else out there understands you, you will likely feel after reading this that Elizabeth Taylor does. If you just want several hours of very absorbing entertainment to escape from this world we live in, this book may fit the bill for you. I have found reading this book strangely relaxing. It is like a breath of fresh air after hours locked in a room crowded with unwashed people----ahhhhh, it just feels good to read this book.

The novel's heroine is described within as an exotic bloom from a cactus plant: the novel ANGEL itself might be described the same way. Its title heroine grows up spoiled and adored by her shopowning mother and mother's sister; indifferent to their ideas for her future (or indeed to just about anything else), Angel discovers her gift for fantastic fictions translates beautifully into the publishing world, where she becomes a bestselling author of contempibly popular potboilers. Angel accordingly re-invents herself as a glamorous author figure of the Elinor Glyn school, and we follow her through her successes, marriage, eventual popular neglect, and poverty.ANGEL is a cult favorite among many British novelists, including Hilary Mantel, but is only really transcendent when it allows Angel to strive (at the beginning and the end of her career) against difficult odds. The scene, for example, where she tells off her aunt for planning to make her a ladies' maid is enormously funny and satisfying. But when Angel is rich and successful Taylor seems too invested in scoring points of of her heroine, as if she, too, feared what Angel might do if not kept in her place.

Elisabeth Taylor is a deft, sharp writer and this is a rewarding book. If you like the Jane Austen or Penelope Fitzgerald you will enjoy Elizabeth Taylor's beautifully crafted books.

Elizabeth Taylor's Angel is a good read, as other reviewers have noted, hence my 4 stars, but Kindle users should know that the current digital version has not had the OCR errors corrected, and this detracts from the reading experience. To Hachette Digital: It's one thing to deal with typos if you've downloaded some public domain novel off a free site, quite another when you've paid the publisher $9.99 on Amazon for the right to read it. It's disrespectful to both the author and the readers.

Really tried with this one, and it almost makes it on the beauty of her writing. So hard though to buy into the character and plot. No empathy trail here, but skillful and moving words.

Angel is a totally self-serving character but we're drawn to her because we almost see cracks in her facade, we kind of want her to break down and be human. She's driven to produce books which sell enormously well but have no literary merit. She's driven to be break entirely from her past and be her own creation. It's not pleasant book but it's an incredibly well written book, very subtle and somehow gripping, by an under-rated author

Angel is proof that we do not need to like our protagonist to want to know his or her life and story. Angel is far from likable, but there are few heroines as absorbing. I love this era of 20th century British literature, too. It's been months since i read Angel, and yet i remember the novel more vividly than the crime show i watched on TV last night. A gem of a book.

The title subject "Angel" was unsympathetic. Even when opportunities for redemption were presented to her, the choices she made through self-delusion created her downfall. The story line is hard to read ...no happy ending here. The writing was direct and unsentimental in its presentation of her character.

In the year of Queen Victoria’s death, a fifteen-year-old girl, living with her mother above a shop, decides to become a fêted author. Her first novel is a masterpiece, she thinks.This is the very enjoyable fourth novel I’ve read by Elizabeth Taylor. Brilliantly funny in places and ultimately poignant, proof positive that protagonists don’t have to be likeable to hook readers’ interest. Angel is a monster who makes other people’s lives miserable, who evokes pity in the few who manage to care for her, and whose stunted inner journey is not towards bonhomie. She is as persistently deluded as Donald Trump and as fascinating. An entertaining read.

Elizabeth Taylor was a understated English writer, who lived in Buckinghamshire, England who I would recommend to anyone who appreciates wit and dark humour. The eponymous heroine Angel is horrible but I couldn't help but feel sorry for her..And of course her victims - especially her unfortuate mother, her publishers.. and the dog savaged by her dog.Angel's wishes are fulfilled in this novel but only for a very brief time.Marion in Hailey Oxfordshire

This is a book about a character, truly a character, and her effect on those around her throughout her life. She is so real that you feel she is a living person., outside the covers of any fiction. At the same time, she is unique - you will not meet her like again. The writing is splendid, never boring. This is fine literature., and I cannot recommend it enough.

I found this an uncomfotable novel, very well written by a generally underrated writer. It concerns a a memorably unpleasant heroine with unshakeable self delusion, and a gallery of well drawn supporting characters. The last section is very melancholy. and it is a tribute to the writer that you can feel some sympathy for the dreadful Angel by the end. This was my third Elizabeth Taylor book and I will wait a while before returning to more of her work, They are brilliant but I was glad to get to the end of this last one.

I only discovered this book - indeed, this author - because of a completely inept François Ozon movie adaptation. How could such a distinguished cast be inveigled into signing on for such a wrong-headed script? It could only be that the original novel was a masterpiece - and so it proved.Angel is one of the unforgettable characters of literature - a writer of schlock who thinks champagne is opened with a corkscrew (she refuses to research, finding reading boring) yet who can channel a torrent of prose that shows flashes of brilliance amid all the overblown nonsense.All writers have some of Angel in them, as Hilary Mantel points out in her introduction, and Ms Taylor's grasp of all the nuances of her character is absolutely spot-on. Is Angel a lovable underdog, doing the only thing she can to escape from the drudgery of middle-class existence in a northern English town where to show any spark of imagination is to rise above your station? Is she an autodidact whose gulfs of astonishing ignorance are coupled (as ignorance often is) with Olympian levels of self-belief? Or is she a grotesque, self-absorbed and completely ruthless monster without a scrap of human empathy? She is all of these, and more.