In the Company of Angels: A Novel

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Summary: Must Be Me
Review: "In The Company Of Angels", seems to have captured the feeling of others who have written about the book. N.M. Kelby certainly has written a charming short story but I fail to see what the fuss is about.

The locale she sets her story in is charming, and the metaphors she creates from the town's product are for the most part well done. But there was nothing in this tale that has not appeared in a variety of other forms, and has not taken place during this ever-popular time period.

I appear to be in the minority here, but I found the story too familiar, and at times a bit too precious

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Summary: N.M. Kelby puts readers In The Company of Angels
Review: "In times of war, the line between 'what is' and 'what is no longer' becomes confused," says the omniscient and poetic narrator of the future award winning first novel of N. M. Kelby. The smell and texture of fine chocolate, the oddity of black irises, the stench of smoke, the roar of war planes convey a heady realism, but something much stronger pulls us into this world of the bell-laden city of Tournai, Belgium during the horrible years toward the end of the war. "In times of war, logic no longer applies." What does apply and miraculously survive are various human loves (nuns for God and for each other; a man and a woman who should be bitter enemies; a community for its few survivors) and the mysterious ways of God (light shining from the palms of a beautiful traumatized child, perhaps an angel; doves fluttering from napkins; an elderly German nun, dead, meeting her parents in their field; a beautiful red headed woman who, angelic herself for all her rich corporality and love of chocolate, claims to have "saved an angel of God," a Jewish child ("How can she be an angel of God?". . ."That is the question you must ask yourself," she answers). And that is but one question the reader must ask too. The slim, gripping novel begs us: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

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Summary: The Transcendant Power of Love and Faith
Review: IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS is a gorgeously written and moving meditation on the transcendant power of love and faith. The language is exquisite and reads like poetry. Comparisons to Anne Michaels' FUGITIVE PIECES come to mind, but I think Kelby is better and her work rings truer. Kelby marries Jewish and Catholic mysticism in a narrative steeped in magical realism. However, unlike the prose of Latin American magical realists such as Marquez and Isabel Allende, Kelby's prose often seems a little too ethereal and not quite grounded enough. Some readers may also find the book a touch too sentimental and melodramatic in places. Many highly charged scenes loaded with pyrotechnics and special effects (a nun setting fire to herself, a woman wrapping rose thorns around her breasts) pile up on top of each other, possibly overwhelming the reader and ultimately taking the power away from these scenes. If Anne appears to be weeping on nearly every page, then what power can these tears have on the reader? The German Commander (although a major player, he isn't given a name) appears as a stock character. However, this is a brave and risk-taking book and the author deserves credit for her vision and courage. The ending is absolutely sublime.

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Summary: "Behold I tell you a Mystery"
Review: In times of wars throughout history (and we are in such a time at this moment) tales of miracles, reports of spiritual or celestial sightings arise out of the need to find meaning to the irrational state of fear, chaos, and terror. If ever there were a need for guardian angels it is in such times. And N.M. Kelby has created a clerical Mystery in her novel IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS. This novel tells a fine story but it is told almost in the form of an epic poem.

Tournai, Belgium 1940 is the setting and the characters who prepare this mystery play and perform it include a little Jewish girl (Marie Claire) and her grandmother/botanist, a chocolatier (Remy) and his wife (who is either mad or spiritually enlightened, depending on your stance)and daughter (Anne) who is a novitate in a convent decimated by the Nazi bombings leaving alive only Anne and Mother Xavier who head the Resistance in helping Jews escape the Holocaust. The other character is the Commander seeking destruction of the convent and the Resistance, little knowing that his much loved Anne known in his earlier times is part of the convent. The entire story takes a turn from calamity to whispers of salvation when Marie Claire is rescued by the nuns and begins to work her angelic miracles on the town of a hundred bells, the holy place of God called Tournai. The author weaves a beautiful web of intrigue, love, fear, passion, and resurrection among these unforgetable characters. No words are wasted: every line, every poetic utterance enhances this small story about how we choose to live our lives and how we grapple with our destinies and our spiritual journeys. In any other author's hands this would be a maudlin soap opera for a B movie. In Kelby's intensely personal style it becomes a parable. Highly Recommended. Thank you Sue, for introducing me to this experience.

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Summary: Miracles of Love and Roses
Review: Our book club chose In the Company of Angels for our February discussion. After several hours of interpretation, we realized the novel meant many different things to each reader. The characters caused more magical questions than answers! In the setting of horrible human existence under Nazi control, we were turning pages, marking passages, and debating themes as the characters told their story. The evening was one of our better discussions, and some members want to read the book again. It reads quickly, but find a discussion group before closing the book.

Rating:
Summary: The Transcendant Power of Love and Faith
Review: Perhaps it is only me, since "In the Company of Angels" gets rave reviews. But I found the book thin, lacking in compelling plot, but definitely poetic as one reviewer stated. It does have a beautiful cover but I found the sentence structure tedious and too repetitive. It's the author's first book apparently and that might explain her stage fright, her fear of loosening up. She'll do better next time I'm sure. And for many readers, she's already done well enough.

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Summary: Poetic, dream-like with a brutal message
Review: The reader from Budapest has done an excellent job of reviewing this book. It is a difficult book to review because much of the pleasure of the book is the subtle shifting of the readers perception of what is "factual", what is "subjective" and what is "true" within the context of the world of the novel.

In the Company of Angels is above all an understated story that explores a number of themes related to war, especially WW II including: the holocaust, the tension between duty and love, the use of convent as both an escape and a call, the relationship between devotion and insanity, denial as a response to the atrocities of war, the moral judgment of killing individuals in a war ... However, the book presents these horrors to us in a surprisingly gentle way; it sneaks up on us, catches us off-guard by changing the ground under us, reverses our preconceptions as to what is real.

The material for this wonder - a Jewish child whose family owned greenhouses, a novice nun whose father was a chocolater and whose mother was obsessed by religion, a young artist (and captain)who courted the future novice while providing data to the German army, the Mother Superior who has seen her convent and nuns evaporate under the hardships of war and moral choices in war.

This gentle, stark novel is an excellent meditation on war well worth its place on your must-read stack.

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Summary: Like walking into a dream!
Review: This book was way more than I thought it would be. Little Marie Claire is left alone and is saved by some nuns. Every time the nuns are with her they are overwhelmed by the smell of roses and she causes strange things to happen. The nuns must do all they can to save Marie Claire because she is Jewish. It is a very touching tale of love and miracles during WWII. I have to say that the last part of the book is the best. The entire book is dreamlike and will leave you speechless.

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Summary: roses et chocolat...et les anges...
Review: This is one of the most amazing, uplifting books I've had the pleasure to read in the last few years. The book is extremely dreamlike and very cinematic -- in the hands of a sensitive director, this would make a memorable, extraordinary film.

Marie Claire is a seven year-old Jewish girl, living in a small village in France, near the Belgian border. The time is World War II. She is an orphan -- she was forced to watch as the Nazis stood her parents in the village fountain and shot them, their blood flowing over and over through the fountain for all to see. Marie Claire is being raised by her grandmother, who breeds beautiful hybrid roses and irises. Her village is bombed, destroying almost everything, and killing everyone except this amazing child. She returns to the ruins of her grandmother's home and hides herself in the cellar, covering herself up to her neck with dirt, afraid of being discovered by the Nazis. After several days, she is found by two nuns from a convent just across the border in Belgium, who have come in search of survivors. They are amazed to find her alive -- and they are puzzled by many things about her, including the ever-present scent of roses. When they take her back with them to their convent, miracles begin to occur, centered around the young girl. At first the sisters think they are imagining things -- but as events transpire and unfold, they come to believe that 'the child saved is an angel of God', a prophecy told by the mother of one of the nuns.

The author's style is a gently flowing stream of images. She uses an incredible economy of words to convey so much in this wonderful first novel. I read this book twice in succession last week, and I could find not a single sentence in excess -- a remarkable achievement, extremely effective and deeply moving.

The story told here deals with some of the most horrific brutality that men have ever perpetrated on their fellow human beings -- but there is a beauty here as well, a gentle affirmation of faith and hope. This is an absolutely beautiful work of art -- tender and at the same time astonishingly powerful.

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Summary: A book that touched my soul
Review: Words seem to simple to describe this luminous, miraculous little book. The story of Marie Claire who is sheltered by Belgian nuns during the occupation of Belgium by the Germans is utterly unique and beautifully written. The characters are so well described that I felt as though I knew them. In all of my reading I have never felt my soul touched by a book -- everyone should read this book and believe in miracles!