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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Elizabeth Knox's fifth book, her first to be published in the UK, plays out its huge themes in a small Burgundian village at the time of Napoleon. A novel of forbidden love, wine and immortality, it yields up its secrets--beautiful, tragic and horrifying--one by one, so they're as unexpected as the angel Sobran Jodeau, the young vintner, encounters in his vineyard one night in 1808. Xas is breathtakingly beautiful, has huge expressive white wings, leather trousers and smells softly of snow. He is a keen gardener, and also profoundly curious about mortals, how they feel, how they live, how they make their choices. They talk, and Xas persuades Jodeau to meet him--same time, same place--every year.
Jodeau marries, fathers children, and continues--bar a couple of years when he's off fighting, whoring and trying to keep his best friend alive on the Russian front--to meet with Xas. Their friendship deepens. Jodeau's wine improves, and the joys and troubles of village life wash around him. But this strange relationship between man and angel is inherently unstable, and following the death of Jodeau's beloved younger daughter, it veers off in a direction neither had anticipated. And then Xas tells Jodeau something that drives the vintner almost beyond madness. --Lisa Gee --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
"Original, often astonishingly vivid...Xas is one of the best angels since William Blake's."--Nina Auerbach, "The New York Times Book Review"
"Daringly exploring the spiritual worth of sesnual pleasure, New Zealand writer Knox's imaginative, imagistic tale soars."--"Entertainment Weekly"
"Rich prose and an original plot...a delightful, thought-provoking read."--Robin Vidimos, "The Denver Post"
"Strangely compelling...multilayered and challanging...[The Vintner's Luck] is not your typical angel story."--David Tedhams, "The Washington Post Book World"
"Elizabeth Knox spreads her odd and original gossamer over many things....[Her] imagination resembles one of those Burgundy slopes, mysteriously sunned and fed, that produces a vintage unlike any other."--Richard Eder, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"
"Daringly exploring the spiritual worth of sesnual pleasure, New Zealand writer Knox's imaginative, imagistic tale soars."--"Entertainment Weekly"
"Rich prose and an original plot...a delightful, thought-provoking read."--Robin Vidimos, "The Denver Post"
"Strangely compelling...multilayered and challanging...[The Vintner's Luck] is not your typical angel story."--David Tedhams, "The Washington Post Book World"
"Elizabeth Knox spreads her odd and original gossamer over many things....[Her] imagination resembles one of those Burgundy slopes, mysteriously sunned and fed, that produces a vintage unlike any other."--Richard Eder, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
...This is an extraordinary story that is rendered totally believable by the writer's beautiful lyrical style and skill. I've tried to describe this book to friends and was met with blank stares or raised eyebrows, in the end I just give them the book to read for themselves. The human characters are far from perfect, sometimes they are thoroughly dislikable, however it is the angel's own failings which provide the central humanity of this novel. I found myself sucked into the seductive prose, and emerged feeling as though I understood the darker side of all of us. I found myself wondering throughout how the author came up with these ideas; however, the results are so bewitching all I can do is shake my head in admiration. This book is about love, about desire, about our own failings and our perhaps unrealistic expectations of those around us. Read it.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read a lot of books, and this is the first book in ages which, once I had finished the final page, made me sit and think. The story is told in such a way you can picture events as they happen. The characters are portrayed in a way which makes you feel as though you know them. It makes you believe in something you may not have believed in before - God, angels, love. It might depress you. It may make you realise we're all mortal. It will be a book you read and remember, even if you don't necessarily enjoy it. And it is a book you will lend to all your friends because once you have read it you will want to discuss it. If you read one book this side of the millenium, let it be this one.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a wonderfully thought provoking and imaginative story. I have sent this book to many of my friends as I was compelled to keep it alive by talking about the story and characters with other people who had read it.
The two main characters are wonderful and I felt their passion, anger and sadness as if I were there.
My imagination created the most wonderful scenes through the writing of Elizabeth Knox.
I recommend it without hesitation.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An utterly beautiful piece of writing
I found this book in a strange shop in Akaroa, New Zealand which sold everything from children's toys to fudge. Read more
Published 4 months ago by R. A. Davison
A rare delight
Only very rarely am I lucky enough to read a novel and to enjoy it so completely that I am left delighted and drained, happy to be the presence of that prose and drained by the... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Rosamund
highly unusual
A 19th century vintner keeps up an annual meeting with a fallen angel. Having said that, it's hard to know what to write next - this won't be like anything else you've read. Read more
Published 21 months ago by William Jordan
A lack of warmth.
Recommended by a friend. I read the blurb, the premise was fascinating it seemed tailor made for me to love, so why didn't I love it? Read more
Published on 15 July 2009 by Book Critic
So beautiful, it stays with you.
Such a unique book. The writing is wonderful, I got carried away by line after line of beautiful images. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2009 by Ruth
Heartwarming - Heartbreaking
It's a lovely read, with a beautiful heart-breaking love story within it, I can't actually say that I could really see what Xas saw in Sobrane, maybe it was just because Sobrane... Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2007 by Erastes
Mind Blowing and Amazing
I never write these reviews though I'm forever in debt to the people who do; so when I read this book I felt I had to finally praise a book that was better and greater than the... Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2007 by R. Anselmo
Mixed response
I loved the premise of this book - that the vintner has a life-long assignation with the angel Xas on the same night every year, but overall found the book uneven and a bit... Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2006 by Roman Clodia
....
I don't say too much, otherwise I'll complain - a lot. Not because, like many books I've came across, it was terrible. Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2006 by Miss Shouty
beautifully written
The Vintner's Luck follows the adult life of Sobran Jodeau, a winemaker in Burgundy, France in the early 1800s. Read more
Published on 12 Jun 2005 by anibani
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