Rating: 
Summary: "The prospect of an alternative."
Review: "The Gate of Angels" by British novelist, Penelope Fitzgerald, is set in 1912. The plot concerns the relationship between two very different people who meet under less-than-perfect circumstances. Fred Fairly is a Junior Fellow at the small university, Saint Angelicus--a place where "no female animals capable of reproducing were allowed on the college premises." In his capacity as a Junior Fellow, Fred is supposed to remain a single man, and that's probably just as well. He leads an almost monastic lifestyle in cramped university quarters. He's the son of a clergyman, and is experiencing a crisis of faith amidst his mother and sisters' enthusiasm for the Suffragette movement.
Daisy Saunders is from an impoverished working class background. She lives alone with her ailing mother who cooks horse hooves for the nasty grey gelatinous gravy they both survive on. Daisy begins working at age 15, and she commonly logs 12-hour days in a dark, airless room. Daisy longs to be a nurse, but as a woman from the working class, there's little hope that she'll ever achieve that goal. Daisy is destined for exploitation by the class system that will deny her a chance to prove herself. This is an age in which character and brains meant far less than one's class.
The novel begins with Fred Fairly and his life at Saint Angelicus. Fred is a rather stuffy young man, and unfortunately the sections of the novel that deal with Fred are almost insufferably dull. I was struggling with the novel--forcing myself to have the mental energy to finish it, when the novel shifted gears and introduced Daisy. Daisy appeared, and the novel suddenly improved. She's a wonderful character, principled, hard working, and dedicated. The character of Fred seems rather anemic next to Daisy. At the point of Daisy's entrance into the novel, I became riveted to HER story, and I had the sensation that I was reading a very Somerset Maugham-esque novel. The chapters concerning Daisy are alive and have a ring of authenticity that is sadly lacking in the initial section of the novel. The archaic nursing techniques add absolutely fascinating detail to the story. Penelope Fitzgerald created another marvelous female protagonist in her novel "The Bookshop", and that book, is in my opinion, Fitzgerald's far superior work--displacedhuman
Rating: 
Summary: nipped in the bud
Review: A delightful novella, which should have been longer. The questions it sets up, about physics, the soul, and the body, could fill a thousand pages. I enjoyed the characterizations, as well as the love story, and would like to know what's ahead for these two souls.
Rating: 
Summary: Charming
Review: A man of reason is confounded by the seemingly random event of a bicycle accident and it's inexplicable consequence: emotional (and sexual) obsession with a stranger. Finely drawn characters, with a plot and resolution that are a bit lighter and more hopeful than some of the author's other works.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy on the versimilitude
Review: I can't remember where I first heard of Fitzgerald, although I suspect it was from one of the well-read subscribers to Rondua, the Jonathan Carroll mailing list. She is not a magic realist or fantasy author (as far as I can tell from reviews of her work and the present volume), although the book in question could be considered a ghost story it one wanted to interpret it that way. Of the authors of my acquaintance, she most resembles Robertson Davies in style and form. I don't think that I am creating a relationship based on subject material, although I must admit that Davies also wrote a couple of novels of love and the university, as well as a collection of ghost stories.The year is 1912. Fred Fairly is a Young Fellow at Cambridge's St. Angelicus College, which has fairly strict ideas on the proper conduct of its members, including a requirement of non-marriage. While biking, Fairly collides with an unlit cart and is injured. Upon regaining consciousness, he finds himself in a bed with a fellow victim, who, by circumstance and a gold ring on her fourth finger, is mistaken as his wife. Fred finds the prospect not displeasing. In other hands--say P. G. Wodehouse or Thorne Smith--such a plot would be filled with spirited high jinx, including mistaken identities and timing difficulties. Fitzgerald's humor is not of that sort. Like Davies, it derives less from exaggeration and more from verisimilitude. This is not to say that there are not amusing passages. I especially enjoyed Fred's family: his suffragette mother and two younger sisters and his put-upon father, the Rector. This is Fitzgerald's eighth novel, and her ability in story and sentence construction is masterful. Although I found this book to be a little dry for my particular taste, I expect I will try a different vintage of hers at some later date.
Rating:
Summary: Better than "The Blue Flower"
Review: I was unsure about this book because I wasn't that moved by Fitzgerald's "The Blue Flower" but "Gate of Angels" really enthralled me. There is a lot of humor and affection here, and also an echo of Evelyn Waugh in the college setting. I have the feeling that I will read this work several more times with increasing enjoyment.
Rating:
Summary: Better than "The Blue Flower"
Review: I was unsure about this book because I wasn't that moved by Fitzgerald's "The Blue Flower" but "Gate of Angels" really enthralled me. There is a lot of humor and affection here, and also an echo of Evelyn Waugh in the college setting. I have the feeling that I will read this work several more times with increasing enjoyment.
Rating:
Summary: something was missing
Review: I'm a newcomer to the Penelope Fitzgerald camp. I found this one engaging and enjoyable,yet, I was left cold with Daisy. I found her a naive and rather shallow. Maybe it was because I found the breach of confidentliality disturbing. I found it much easier to identify with Fred's inner struggles. Somewhere, something was missing. I would have enjoyed more of Mrs. Wrayburn in the story. I think I want to read this one again sometime and definitely want to read more Penelope Fitzgerald.
Rating:
Summary: imaginative but not enjoyable
Review: I've read most of this author's other books and really liked them. This one was a bit too strange for me. I have to say the ghost story took some imagination--Fitzgerald has a lot of preoccupation with the supernatural--she must have had a few occult experiences. Anyway, I could follow the book and saw what she was doing, but unlike others, I didn't find it all that funny and I didn't ENJOY it like The Bookshop, or Offshore or Innocence. To me it seemed deadly serious and I had to force myself to finish it. it may be a lack of familiarity on my part with Cambridge and that era, but this one is getting donated to the library.
Rating:
Summary: A small miracle
Review: Penelope Fitzgerald is truly amazing. This novel is short, easy to read, and often very funny; at the end, you think "How charming!" and put it down. But it keeps echoing in your mind: no detail in the book is insignificant, and everything is subtly linked together to support its central themes. (Compare Pope Benedict's grace, the inscription on Aunt Effie's ring, and the angels on the college gate; or consider Fred's mother and sisters against Professor Matthews' seemingly irrelevant ghost story. And note Professor Flowerdew's qualms about the new atomic theory, which relies on the "unobservable" ... ) The book is far more moving than most novels five times its length, and leaves an indelible impression on the reader.
Rating:
Summary: A small miracle
Review: Penelope Fitzgerald is truly amazing. This novel is short, easy to read, and often very funny; at the end, you think "How charming!" and put it down. But it keeps echoing in your mind: no detail in the book is insignificant, and everything is subtly linked together to support its central themes. (Compare Pope Benedict's grace, the inscription on Aunt Effie's ring, and the angels on the college gate; or consider Fred's mother and sisters against Professor Matthews' seemingly irrelevant ghost story. And note Professor Flowerdew's qualms about the new atomic theory, which relies on the "unobservable" ... ) The book is far more moving than most novels five times its length, and leaves an indelible impression on the reader.
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