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nnjack68's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
frances_ab's review against another edition
5.0
I do enjoy Anthony Trollope's writing, both his series and his standalone novels, and this one was sheer delight. Ayala and her sister Lucy are orphaned in their late teens or early twenties, and sent separately to live with their relatives, one going into a wealthy family and one to family in much more limited circumstances. How they navigate the various social strata and ultimately establish themselves is the theme of this charming novel, and Ayala's search for her Angel of Light is the particular focus. With numerous interesting characters and romantic entanglements, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read.
samuel's review against another edition
4.0
I love Trollope. Is his prose sometimes stuffy? Yes. Are his politics sometimes timid? Sure. But no writer, to my mind, is so sensitive to the desires, shortcomings, and humanity of his characters. Trollope makes one care for even those characters who are most detestable—characters who would likely become stereotypes in the fiction of Austen, Dickens, or many others.
Ayala’s Angel reads like a light domestic comedy. If you’re looking for plots that reach beyond marriages of the (mostly) elite, it may not be for you. However, the novel contains insightful and sympathetic commentary on the plight of women in the marriage market and the degradation of human dignity that arises from mercenary marriages. Ayala and her sister Lucy are treated like property by many of the men who desire them and by the family that controls them, but the novel ultimately celebrates their ability to choose for themselves. That, for me, forms the novel’s moral core; Trollope recognizes endorses a woman’s right to self-determination.
Ayala’s Angel reads like a light domestic comedy. If you’re looking for plots that reach beyond marriages of the (mostly) elite, it may not be for you. However, the novel contains insightful and sympathetic commentary on the plight of women in the marriage market and the degradation of human dignity that arises from mercenary marriages. Ayala and her sister Lucy are treated like property by many of the men who desire them and by the family that controls them, but the novel ultimately celebrates their ability to choose for themselves. That, for me, forms the novel’s moral core; Trollope recognizes endorses a woman’s right to self-determination.
pgchuis's review
4.0
The story of two young women, Ayala and Lucy, whose parents die leaving no money and who are therefore taken in by relatives. Apart from the romances of these two sisters and their cousins, there is no other plot to speak of. Ayala, the younger, livelier sister, receives no fewer than three proposals, but rejects them all because she dreams of an ideal lover she thinks of as "an angel of light". I have to say that this theme is not as overdone as I feared it might be and Ayala does in the end come to view one of her suitors as such an angel. Lucy has a quieter romance with a poor sculptor she has known previously and is absent for such large stretches of the novel that I forgot all about her at times.
There were problems for me in the management of the various strands of the story; Trollope would tell us what Lucy was up to for a couple of chapter and then backtrack a month to pick up another character's story - this happened all the time and was confusing. There was a lot of unnecessary hunting, far too much of the rejected Tom taking it badly and whining to everyone and anyone off and on for the rest of the novel. Augusta and Traffick were dreadful in a good way. I wasn't sure what to make of Houston (and Trollope didn't seem too sure either). Captain Batsby had no discernible personality and seemed all over the place in his intentions towards Gertrude. Mr and Mrs Dosett grew on you. Finally I loved Jonathan, who seemed to have wandered in from a far more modern novel, and the scene with him, Ayala and the old couple in the railway carriage was probably the funniest I have encountered in Trollope.
Lots of reflections on the merits of marrying with a sufficient income/for money/for love/with an occupation.
There were problems for me in the management of the various strands of the story; Trollope would tell us what Lucy was up to for a couple of chapter and then backtrack a month to pick up another character's story - this happened all the time and was confusing. There was a lot of unnecessary hunting, far too much of the rejected Tom taking it badly and whining to everyone and anyone off and on for the rest of the novel. Augusta and Traffick were dreadful in a good way. I wasn't sure what to make of Houston (and Trollope didn't seem too sure either). Captain Batsby had no discernible personality and seemed all over the place in his intentions towards Gertrude. Mr and Mrs Dosett grew on you. Finally I loved Jonathan, who seemed to have wandered in from a far more modern novel, and the scene with him, Ayala and the old couple in the railway carriage was probably the funniest I have encountered in Trollope.
Lots of reflections on the merits of marrying with a sufficient income/for money/for love/with an occupation.
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