The Third Angel: A Novel
by Alice Hoffman
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Book Reviews of The Third Angel: A Novel
Book Review: Hope and herons
Summary: 5 Stars
We all make mistakes in our lives. Every one of us. Sometimes those mistakes destroy us, but, if we're smart enough to learn from them, they can make us better, more honest persons. In terms of mis-steps, the characters in Alice Hoffman's three inter-related novellas make some whoppers. Some of these characters are destroyed, but most most manage to go on, trying to figure out how and why they went wrong, trying to make something worthwhile of their lives, and learning along the way some important things about forgiveness and understanding.
Reading Hoffman's tale of love gone terribly wrong, of lives redeemed, is a rare pleasure. Her evocations of life during three different eras in London are spot on, her characters genuine. In places, her descriptions approach the poetic, beautiful and telling in their simplicity: "She didn't find any clues in all her searching, although she did discover that the single splash of color in the closet was a sheer pink blouse, a birthday present sent by Maddy last fall from Barneys. She couldn't help but notice that the store's tag was still attached." This one brief passage reveals much about the sisters, their personalities, their relationship. Images from the book linger after the final page has been turned: the purple jacket Frieda won on a bet, the hotel rabbit whose favorite nibble is wallpaper, the mossy lion statue at the hotel around which the stories revolve. There is a bona fide ghost, one of pain, loss, and regret, and then there's that eponymous third angel, who represents what? Possibility? Kindness? Empathy? You'll have to read the book to find the answer, for yourself, to this question.
Book Review: Is the third angel really walking among us?
Summary: 5 Stars
Alice Hoffman's latest novel, The Third Angel, is made up of three stories woven together by a common theme of love, abandonment, and betrayal. The stories go back in time beginning with The Heron's Wife is set in 1999. Maddy has to deal with the heartache and the folly of falling in love with her sister's fiancé Paul. In 1966 Frieda falls in love with a rock star addicted to hard drugs, and in love with someone else. With another jump back in time we meet Lucy. At 12, Lucy inadvertently causes the death of two of the three people caught in a love triangle.
The Third Angel is first mentioned in The Heron's Wife. As the doctor explained, The Angel of Death and the Angel of Life are well known. One or the other would always ride with him as he made house calls. He had no say in the matter. He never knew which one was along for the ride until he arrived at the designated location.
The Third Angel is different. He walks among us, but is rarely identified as an angel. He makes mistakes and sometimes needs rescuing. We think we're rescuing him but in truth, he rescues us. The characters in The Third Angel are flawed, they fell in love at the wrong time or with the wrong person, but they find a way to move on. They fix their broken lives and eventually reach out and become The Third Angel.
Book Review: Atonement
Summary: 5 Stars
This book can break your heart. Alice Hoffman writes with delicacy and compassion about life and death, about loving someone with such desperation that nothing else matters. She writes about how people must forgive themselves.
The three chapters in this book are set in different times, and have different characters. The stories, all centered in London, move back in time from 1999 to 1966 to 1952. All three are interconnected, and it's not until the end that the whole picture becomes clear. All involve hopeless, betrayed love.
In the first, "The Heron's Wife," a young woman has an affair with her sister's fiancé. "Lion Park" is about a young woman seduced by a drug-addicted rock musician. "The Rules of Love" involves a precocious 12-year-old girl who innocently causes the violent death to two people in a lover's triangle.
Many themes weave throughout the book -- love, weddings, abandonment, birds, rabbits, the power of the written word... and in the end, atonement.
An extraordinary doctor explains about the Third Angel. There is the Angel of Life and the Angel of Death, neither of which can be controlled. The Third Angel, however, walks among us. He's the angel that makes mistakes. Like all of us, he sometimes needs rescuing.
Book Review: Ugh.
Summary: 2 Stars
For the longest time, I'd wanted to read one of Hoffman's books. I'm sorry I'd chosen this one.
And I'm also angry that I it took such effort to get through; the final 75 pages were actioned strictly by discipline alone.
I can't recall when I last read a novel that so was NOT what I had been led to believe, especially with all the accompanying blurbs, the acclaim, the press.
Pedestrian.
Wholly lacking energy.
A decided lack of literary merit.
At times I felt I was reading a bullet-point summary.
Bland, bland, bland...and worse, contrived blandness.
I have no idea if this novel is a good representation of Hoffman's talent. I do know that it is a good representation of bad storytelling, bad craft, bad execution.
In a nutshell, the premise of 'The Third Angel' was well beyond her skills. Indeed, her reach FAR exceeded her grasp. If you want to see how a masterful writer handles multiple story threads, weaving a magical fabric in a truly artistic way, try 'Fall On Your Knees' by Ann-Marie MacDonald. In fact, I'm thinking that doing that next is the only remedy to this awful taste in my mouth.
Book Review: Imaginative but going nowhere
Summary: 2 Stars
Alice Hoffman has a gift of creative writing, but there is not much substance here in "The Third Angel". About 2/3 of the way through, I felt this book was just pulling me down, down, down and for no good reason-- and toward no particular end. No message to make the dreariness of these stories about unhappy people worth the time to read them, other than the fact that life is random in what it dishes out, and that lots of people make stupid choices. How depressing! This I can get by listening to the nightly news.
Also, most of the time I did not identify with the main characters in the 3 phases of the book. My own mother died of cancer while I was a young girl but nothing about the illness or death of a mother rang true for me. Perhaps this book feels more true for those who mourn the death of a spouse or child; other themes in the stories.
"The Third Angel" was a concept that was not very clearly impressed into my mind. I would have liked more development on that concept. It may have helped the book a lot.