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Falling Angels is Tracy Chevalier's third novel. It
tells of how radically societies can change within the space of just a
decade. The novel starts off with the death of Victoria. Unlike the
death of Diana, a mere 90 or so years later, the Victorians had no trouble
knowing how they were expected to behave in the face of death, since the rules
of mourning were well-known to everyone. Kitty Coleman, however, hasn't
read the script, since she wears a dress of dark blue, which is not quite dark
enough, so it is sorely noticeable amongst the other mourners.
Curiously, everyone decides that the best thing to do in the face of the
Empress's passing is to visit their own family plots in their local
cemetery. With mortality being so much higher than it is today, visits to
the cemetery were far more frequent. However, this is the first time that
the Colemans meet their neighbours in death (literally): the Waterhouses.
More specifically, this is the first time that the two young daughters of the
family meet: Maud Coleman, and Lavinia Waterhouse (she complains about her name
being shortened to 'Livy', and ironically, she's obsessed with death).
Despite their preference for calling their daughter after a Roman writer, the
Waterhouses have chosen to adorn their family plot with a massive Angel (hence
the title "Falling Angels"), whilst the more modern, progressive
Colemans have chosen a large urn (Roman in origin).
However, it is Kitty who points out to her husband
that the practice of putting ashes into urns is a rather Pagan tradition.
But then again, a lot of the graves in Highgate Cemetery also have Egyptian
symbolism. This is a Cemetery of Empire, and with the steady abandonment
of its rules and customs over the next decade, Chevalier conveys a little of
how this Empire itself may have fallen. But Chevalier is mainly concerned
with the gradual change in the role of women, the Fall of the Victorian Angel
in the House. In truth, Richard Coleman has very little grounds for
criticising his wife's behaviour, since the novel opens with a bout of
wife-swapping, instigated by him. This is, in the face of it, rather
improbable: if Kitty has refused Richard access to her bed since the birth of
Maud, then why does she consent to this early trial of swinging? More
effective is Tracy Chevalier's depiction of how women have turned their
sexuality to their advantage in the twentieth century. Kitty usurps the
power of Richard's mother by judicial employment of her sexual wiles.
Although, if Richard's mother is anything to go by, there never was an Angel in
the House: but then again, I suppose that Mother-in-laws have always been
demons, especially in the music Hall tradition.
It's Simon Fields, the gravedigger's son, who
sings the songs of the music hall. Many of these songs and singers had a
transatlantic following. 1910, the year the book ends, was the year of
the first film made in California, when popular culture first began to flow
from West to East, rather than vice versa. Simon sings of "'Appy
'Ampstead" on p. 55, and one begins to suspect Tracy Chevalier's own
transatlantic origins when one learns that the composer of this song and its
singer were no other than Albert Chevalier (a distant relation perhaps, as
strange as that which exists between Camilla and Mrs. Keppel?). Tracy
Chevalier's knowledge of the local history of Hampstead is superb: we have the
opening of Hampstead Library and the Hampstead Scientific Society's
Observatory, and much lore, such as that concerning Guy Fawkes and Parliament
Hill. Although I had envisioned a much more modern, open plan cemetery,
Highgate's various nooks and crannies and the shenanigans that go on within, do
suit the plot of the book rather well (I've created a page about the cultural
context of Fallen Angels for interested readers, which contains photos of the
rather dark Highgate Cemetery).
Halfway through the novel, Kitty Coleman is
regenerated somewhat incredulously by an encounter with a Suffragette, the
comic Caroline Black. Much more powerful than Black's cowardly plotting
is the rather darker back alleys of Victorian sexuality that took half a decade
of female enfranchisement before being properly regulated. As Kitty
Coleman strives to assert her own individuality, she leaves the role of Angel
far behind. Lavinia, who professes that the old customs must be defended
and performed faithfully, is artless in her delicious attempt at blackmail.
The suffragette Captain with whom Kitty places Lavinia, Maud and Ivy May in
charge of at the Hyde Park rally is just as devoid of maternal instinct as
she. With the rise of radicalism in the suffragettes, there is more than
a hint that just as women are behaving differently, so they are being treated
differently. There's the underused, but the delightful Albert Waterhouse,
who has a couple of honest Freudian slips here and there (was Chevalier
thinking of a different suitor for Kitty originally?). I also liked the
voices of Mrs. Baker and Jenny Whitby, who although they don't have much, can
afford to be more honest and less self-deceiving. Highgate Cemetery is
supposed to be where Bram Stoker got the inspiration for a rather infamous
scene from Dracula, and perhaps 'Whitby' is a reference to that
novel. Whilst Stoker had the fall of the Angel in the House down as
something to be feared with horror, Tracy Chevalier sees it more as a black
comedy, because the Angel was always rather too ephemeral to be real. The
novel ends with the visit of Halley's Comet during King Edward's death, an omen
that was also sighted at the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066...
Authortrek rating: 8/10.
Kevin Patrick Mahoney
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Visit
our Tracy
Chevalier page, for Tracy Chevalier biography, Tracy Chevalier
bibliography, and Tracy Chevalier interviews |
Visit the following links to get an impression of the
cultural context of the novel:
Mutes at
Funerals - a definition see p. 11
The Price of a
Good Melancholy Mute - an amusing site about mutes
Buried Alive -
a review of the book by Jan Bondeson that features the "Young man at
Nunhead" limerick p. 13
Lebanon
Cedar - see p.16
A
Roman Funeral - mentions the Roman practice of using urns, see p. 18
Pictorial
Interpretations of The Lady of Shalott - mentions Waterhouse
19th
Century Cemeteries - mentions Highgate
Highgate Cemetery: A
Short History
Curios -
about Highgate
Chacun
a son gout - a definition see p. 47
Investigating
"The Tigers" - reveals that "'Appy 'Ampstead" (see
p. 55) was written by a certain Albert Chevalier - any relation to Tracy
Chevalier?
Albert
Chevalier - a bio
About
Hampstead - mentions Parliament Hill and Guy Fawkes (see p. 67)
Cremation vs.
Burial in Victorian England - from Tracy Chevalier's own webpage,
mentions the Highgate Columbarium (see p. 76)
Columbarium -
mentions the "dovecote" connection (see p. 85)
Michael
Faraday - see p. 120
Victorian
Mourning Customs from Collier's - very similar to those on pp. 126-127
Jay's of
Regent Street - from Tracy Chevalier's webpage, see p. 127
Isabella;
or, The Pot of Basil - read John Keats' poem here p. 130
Roaming
Royals have nothing on Mrs. Keppel - see p. 151
Friends of Highgate
Library - see p. 182
Andrew
Carnegie and Philanthropy towards Libraries - see p. 189
WSPU -
see p.193
Lily of
Laguna - see p. 196
Hampstead
Scientific Society - see p. 231
Women's
Suffrage Movement - from Tracy Chevalier's own webpage - "Deeds
not Words" see p. 286
Who
would be free, themselves must strike the blow? by Lord Byron p.287
Frederick Pethick
Lawrence - mentions 'At Homes' see p. 293
La
Sainte Union school for Girls, see p. 341
Comet -
Halley's Comet was also seen in the skies when King Edward the Confessor died,
see p. 399
|
Visit
our Tracy
Chevalier page, for Tracy Chevalier biography, Tracy Chevalier
bibliography, and Tracy Chevalier interviews |
