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Miss Garnets Angel (Thorndike General) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Salley Vickers (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: Feb 2002 | Series: Thorndike General

Salley Vicker’s sensational debut novel, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’ is a voyage of discovery; a novel about Venice but also the rich story of the explosive possibilities of change in all of us at any time.

Julia Garnet is a teacher. Just retired, she is left a legacy which she uses by leaving her orderly life and going to live – in winter – in an apartment in Venice. Its beauty, its secret corners and treasures, and its people overwhelm a lifetime of reserve and caution. Above all, she’s touched by the all-prevalent spirit of the Angel, Raphael.

The ancient tale of Tobias, who travels to Media unaware he is accompanied by the Archangel Raphael, unfolds alongside Julia Garnet’s contemporary journey.

The two stories interweave with parents and landladies, restorers and priests, American tourists and ancient travellers abounding.

The result is an enormously satisfying journey of the spirit – and Julia Garnet is a character to treasure.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Thorndike Press; Lrg edition (Feb 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0786236906
  • ISBN-13: 978-0786236909
  • Product Dimensions: 20.7 x 15 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,829,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon Review

There is something very old-fashioned and reassuring about Sally Vickers' novel Miss Garnet's Angel. The themes, self-discovery and redemption have the air of a bygone age, despite the novel being set in contemporary Venice in a world of holiday apartment lets and Pizza Express-funded restoration works. Julia Garnet is a middle-aged woman who has been practising economies of the spirit for years. Hers is a closed-in world, dusty with Marx's theories and when her friend and flatmate of 30 years dies Julia decides to spend the six winter months in Venice to recuperate from her loss. Miss Garnet is a dignified, brusque heroine and Sally Vickers' prose is likewise unruffled and controlled. Miss Garnet's epiphanies are as quiet and subtle as the "oro pallido" (pale gold) light in early Italian Art because, of course, art plays a part in this Venetian tale of emotional reawakening. Julia is moved by the depiction of Raphael in Guardis Tobias and the Angel: "something rusty and hard shifted deep inside Julia Garnet as she stood absorbing the vivid dewy painting and the unmistakable compassion in the angel's bright glance." She falls in love with Carlo, an art historian with crinkly eyes, white hair and a moustache. There are trials and tribulations to be undergone, Julia must unlearn all her old regimented ways of life, and this brings about heart ache and hurt. However, Vickers handles this with delicate sympathy, giving Julia Garnet a new sensitive view of the world, and the reader a resonant story of transformation. --Eithne Farry --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Subtle, unexpected and haunting.' Penelope Fitzgerald

'Very kind, very funny.' John Bayley

'Rich, complex and haunting…she makes the ancient story as riveting as Miss Garnet's own adventures.' Sunday Times

Reveals itself as a surprising exploration of the mysteries of imagination and faith.' Joanna Trollope, Daily Telegraph, Book of the Year

'A subtle, witty tale.' John de Falbe, Spectator

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Art, Venice and mid-life self-discovery - a refreshingly different novel. 25 Sep 2008
By S. Barnes
Format:Paperback
`Death is outside life but it alters it: it leaves a hole in the fabric of things which those who are left behind try to repair.' Thus opens the novel.

Julia Garnet and her long-standing companion and flatmate Harriet decide to retire from work together, on the same day, but when two days later Harriet unexpectedly dies, Miss Garnet decides it is time to take a trip abroad and settles upon six months in Venice. Cautious, dignified and unadventurous by nature, Julia is also a virgin and inexperienced in matters of the heart. Venice is quite a revelation.

Julia discovers feelings of passion for the first time when she comes across the Guardi panels in the Chiesa dell'Angelo Raffaele (Church of Angelo Raffaele), which depict the Apocryphal story of Tobias and the Angel. As she views the paintings ...'Something rusty and hard shifted deep inside Julia Garnet', and she goes on to make further emotional discoveries through her friendships and discoveries in the city of Venice. Julia discovers that for the first time in her life she is able to befriend others, and counts among her friends a couple she accused of queue jumping the taxi rank on her first day, a young boy, Nicco, the unsuitable and overly-attentive Carlo, a couple of young English church restorers, and a charming priest.

The ancient Jewish story of Tobias and the Angel is deftly interwoven amongst Julia's story of re-awakening and discovery. Tobias undertakes his journey of ancient times as Julia travels in the present day, and there are subtle threads between them.

Quite a surprise and not at all what I was expecting, `Miss Garnet's Angel' is a breath of fresh air to read.... Read more ›
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars a new take on death in Venice 20 Oct 2005
By Mrs. P. Foster
Format:Paperback
Following the unexpected death of her friend, Miss Garnett starts a new life in Venice - at an age when most would be settled and unchangable.
She is transformed by the beauty of her new surroundings, and sheds the inhibiting skin of her old life.
It is wonderful to read a story centred around someone over retirement age, that is not bleak, but life affirming.
The story has a number of unexpected turns, with several finely drawn characters, and a depth of history founded on the Book of Tobit.
Only one character - Toby - diappoints, with unconvincing description and dialogue.
This book is worth reading more than once, and would be a wonderful choice for taking on holiday to Venice.
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39 of 41 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written 15 July 2004
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I didn't know what to expect from Miss Garnets Angel, I half anticipated an antiquated read, fairly stereotypical but potentially heart-warming. An old lady, art and Venice suggested to me a sedate book, good to read but nothing new. The reality was very different.
The subtlety and delicacy of the writing, the way the story is so well crafted, the strands of the older Tobias story woven in seamlessly stunned me. Salley Vickers does indeed eulogise over art and architecture but she's also not afraid to add a harsher realism to the story. Miss Garnet is not some ephemeral creature steeped in a life of sorrow she's a real, solid character.
This was a book I read slowly so as to not miss anything, I set aside time in the day to read it and made sure everything was quiet. Usually I snatch at books and gulp them down, taking every opportunity to read but I found I didn't want to with this book.
The quiet sadness of Miss Garnet, the lyrical descriptions of the paintings and Venice and the poignant and well-crafted ending make this a gem of a book.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars reader from guildford 11 July 2002
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
A gentle and thought provoking read.

Miss Garnet's journey of personal discovery set amidst the beautiful and ethereal background of Venice is for readers who enjoy a period of reflection at the end of their read. The parallel story of Tobias and the Angel is a very clever and effective literary device which I'm sure the sensitive reader will appreciate.

Miss Garnet's utilitarian approach to life is held up for scrutiny. In the religious and atmospheric location of Venice her life's 'standards' seem trivial. It is her in her retirement that she looks back on her strictly secular life as a spinster and school-teacher in West London. The story of Tobias and the Angel make her question her previous behaviour towards her friends (Harriet, her live-in friend, in particular), and also towards her pupils.

Read this with an open mind and you will love it.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Towards an epiphany in Venice 25 Nov 2007
By Ralph Blumenau TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A repressed spinster in her fifties, retired from her career as an uninspiring school teacher, a communist and anti-religious, Julia Garnet travels to Venice, falls in love with it (devotees of Venice will relish the evocations of the city), is gradually thawed out by its beauty and stimulus and by people she meets there. She has rented an apartment in the Campo Angelo Raffaele, behind the church dedicated to that angel. She gradually comes to learn the story of Tobias and the Angel Raphael and indeed to show increasing interest in it; and she is also drawn closer and closer to Catholic imagery and to a Catholic priest.

Salley Vickers intersperses her narrative with instalments, with some additional inventions of her own, of the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha. With each instalment she adds a little more to the account in the Book of Tobit. At first these additions amount to very little, but the later ones are based on research that has been done which has found that the Book of Tobit (written during the time when the Jews were living under Persian rule) probably has Zoroastrian roots, and each subsequent instalment veers further and further away from the original.

One has the feeling that Julia's experiences in Venice should have some bearing on the story and vice versa; but it is difficult for a long time to see what these might be. For much of the book, the inserted instalments relating to the Book of Tobit seem to have no relevance, either directly or indirectly, to the passages on either side of the insertion - only towards the end do they converge.

Julia meets an English pair, a young man and a young woman, who are restoring the masonry in a chapel (invented by Salley Vickers) which also has a sculpted Raphael and also a painted panel of him.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading , very informative .
Once into the book I could not put it down ,Brilliant .as with the Cleaner of Chartres .Will look forward to reading a further publication of Salley Vickers .
Published 17 hours ago by phil
5.0 out of 5 stars Miss Garnet's Angel
Beautifully written, humorous, intelligent, thoughtful, provoking, a Biblical journey through Venice in Springtime through the eyes of an unexpectedly entertaining main character
Published 10 days ago by Historia
5.0 out of 5 stars It made me book a holiday to Venice!
This is an unusual, and quite atmospheric book. It moves at a gentle pace much like its central character. Read more
Published 26 days ago by W. F. Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars No deep message
Maybe I missed it but could not detect any deep message, as I think was promised. Nevertheless it was a good read.
Published 28 days ago by Niamh O'Byrne
4.0 out of 5 stars Read before you go to Venice
An intriguing tale set in the areas of Venice less frequented by tourists. If you know something of Venice, do read this.
Published 1 month ago by SG
5.0 out of 5 stars A gentle and wonderful story.
Fantastic, the tour around Venice throughout the story is magical .If you don't belive in 'fairies' or the belief in self read this!
Published 1 month ago by tricia hill
5.0 out of 5 stars compelling!
A wonderfully written book and beautiful description. So compelling, on a recent visit to Venice, I was intriguiged to find the church and where Miss Garner stayed. Brilliant!
Published 1 month ago by annon
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply lovely
Really nice story about what seems to be a lovely place I now would like to visit. Miss Garnet's Angel is a charming story.
Published 2 months ago by Wend
4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written
A little puzzling sometimes until you got used to it, switching from biblical times to to-day, but enjoyable nonetheless. Pity Miss Garnet had to die!
Published 2 months ago by Mrs. Shirley O. Nicholas
3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings
I thought the book started off well, but soon got board with the descriptions of Venice and churches. Read more
Published 2 months ago by L. M. Mclean
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