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Vintner's Luck #1
The Vintner's Luck
An alternate cover of this ISBN can be found here.
"A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptize the first real sorrow of his life."
"A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptize the first real sorrow of his life."
The year is 1808, the place Burgundy, France. Among the lush vines of his family's vineyard, Jodeau, 18 years old and frustrated in love, is about to come face to face with a celestial being. But this is no sentimental "Touched by an Angel" seraph; as imagined by Elizabeth Knox in her wildly evocative and original novel, Xas is equipped with a glorious pair of wings ("pure sinew and bone under a cushion of feathers") and an appetite for earthly pleasures--wine, books, gardening, conversation, and, eventually, carnal love.
The fateful meeting between man and angel occurs on June 27. After an evening during which Sobran spills all his troubles and Xas gently advises him, the angel promises to return on the same night next year to toast Sobran's marriage. Thus begins a friendship that will last for 55 years, spanning marriages, wars, births, deaths, and even the vast distances between heaven, earth, and hell. In addition to the wonderfully flawed Sobran and his mysterious angel, Knox brilliantly limns secondary characters who are deeply sympathetic--from Sobran's unstable wife, Celeste, and his troubled brother, Leon, to his dear friend and confidante, the Baroness Aurora. Love, murder, madness, and a singular theology that would make a believer out of the most hardened atheist all add up, in The Vintner's Luck, to a novel that will break your heart yet leave you wishing for more. --Alix Wilber
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
112 people are currently reading
6124 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Knox
30 books962 followersElizabeth Knox was born in Wellington‚ New Zealand‚ and is the author of eleven novels and three novella and a book of essays.
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July 8, 2023
Real Rating: 5+* of five
There might be another perfect read for me this year, but I doubt very much it will come at me from this angle or evoke in me this memory.
In everyone's life there is a piercingly perfect moment. Its sounds and lights and emotions are all, in one frozen frame of the film it seems we must make for ourselves, exactly and precisely right. I had mine on a chilly autumn afternoon. My true love and I were walking the length of Broadway starting at 110th Street. We had reached the corner of Canal Street, many hours later as sunset was at its blue and rose and gold peak. I reached out and held his hand, looked down at the brown eyes laughing at my perceived reluctance to cross against the light. I was transfixed by the beauty of the scene. I was pierced by the sad certainty this would be the last time we would make this walk. I was utterly, completely, fully present for one of the few moments in my life. I smiled and sniffed and spoke some nonsense or another to him.
The world started again, we stopped in a bodega for coffee and some kind of lumpen doughy things to ease my hunger, his had already flown away from him as AIDS began to draw its noose. I could have eaten the entire place and been hungry because I was empty in a way I never knew I could be.
Perfection has a price. I'm still empty. I'll never be full; it's impossible. But age, aging anyway, lets me look at the size of the space he and I once filled and say, "my love, my love, I'll never have you or see you again, but how perfect you are and always will be."
He died eighteen months later. That was twenty-nine years ago.
Xas survived his love as well, and I feel him my brother as I grieve my quiet way through the years.
There might be another perfect read for me this year, but I doubt very much it will come at me from this angle or evoke in me this memory.
In everyone's life there is a piercingly perfect moment. Its sounds and lights and emotions are all, in one frozen frame of the film it seems we must make for ourselves, exactly and precisely right. I had mine on a chilly autumn afternoon. My true love and I were walking the length of Broadway starting at 110th Street. We had reached the corner of Canal Street, many hours later as sunset was at its blue and rose and gold peak. I reached out and held his hand, looked down at the brown eyes laughing at my perceived reluctance to cross against the light. I was transfixed by the beauty of the scene. I was pierced by the sad certainty this would be the last time we would make this walk. I was utterly, completely, fully present for one of the few moments in my life. I smiled and sniffed and spoke some nonsense or another to him.
The world started again, we stopped in a bodega for coffee and some kind of lumpen doughy things to ease my hunger, his had already flown away from him as AIDS began to draw its noose. I could have eaten the entire place and been hungry because I was empty in a way I never knew I could be.
Perfection has a price. I'm still empty. I'll never be full; it's impossible. But age, aging anyway, lets me look at the size of the space he and I once filled and say, "my love, my love, I'll never have you or see you again, but how perfect you are and always will be."
He died eighteen months later. That was twenty-nine years ago.
Xas survived his love as well, and I feel him my brother as I grieve my quiet way through the years.
August 8, 2016
he is neither soldier in the armies of the Lord nor adherent to the Day Star, son of the morning. he is his own creature, bound to earth.
oh sweet angel, caught between ice and fire; oh sweet prose, liquid and lapidary; oh sweet story, sinuous and subtle, that says so little yet feels so much.
a soulful and nourishing novel.
oh sweet angel, caught between ice and fire; oh sweet prose, liquid and lapidary; oh sweet story, sinuous and subtle, that says so little yet feels so much.
a soulful and nourishing novel.
December 16, 2010
If a man falls in love with a male angel one summer night on a hilltop in a French vineyard in 1808, if for years he sees this angel only once a year on this same hilltop, if the angel seems both intimate and impersonal at once, how will this affect the man’s ability to live his life as his family has lived for generations—raising children with his wife, making wine, interacting with the local nobility? What connection, if any, is there between the angel’s annual appearance and the success of each year’s vintage? What can the man make of the angel’s matter-of-fact telling of wildly incredible stories of heaven and hell? And, perhaps most important, what horrible things would be necessary for this angel to be more worldly because of his love for the man?
This book affected me deeply. For me, it falls somewhere between fantasy and allegory, tending toward the latter. The quiet, even voice somehow manages to evoke powerful response -- think "still waters run deep". It's not for everyone. It's unique.
This book affected me deeply. For me, it falls somewhere between fantasy and allegory, tending toward the latter. The quiet, even voice somehow manages to evoke powerful response -- think "still waters run deep". It's not for everyone. It's unique.
May 25, 2011
tl;dr SUMMARY VERSION: In The Vintner’s Luck, Book, I recommend an awesome concept, some interesting if distant characters, ~tragic gay angel love~, some thought-provoking religious mythology, some effective poetic language (infinite descriptions of wing movements, dead leaves, the Napoleonic Wars), a fast read, refreshing anti-agism (old people having sex! THE SCANDAL).
I caution against somewhat distant, unlikeable characters (and a massive cast), somewhat anticlimactic gay angel sex, some Twilight-style purple prose, and a nagging sense that this could have been so much more.
For fans of: gay angel fanfiction, metaphors, interspecies romance, character studies, gossip, gay angels whose names rhyme with “lass”, winemaking
OKAY SO HERE’S THE DEAL: I kind of liked this book. I kind of liked the movie. I disliked them, and liked them, for entirely different reasons, which makes sense because they are not remotely the same story. This turns out to be deeply unfortunate, because expecting one to be anything like the other only leads to disappointment (and disgruntlement, what with all the IF ONLYs).
The Vintner’s Luck, the book, is an extended metaphor on copies and symmetry as a French peasant and an angel fall in love and tangle with both the grand mythologies of Heaven and Hell and the domestic dramas of a small village (amid approximately a bajillion characters and subplots including marriages, re-marriages, murders, scholarship, wine-making, cancer, erotic asphyxiation, childbirth, and botany). The entire thing revolves around the ups, downs, and slooooow development of this relationship and its resulting consequences.
(The Vintner’s Luck, the movie, is a lovingly-documented homage to wine-making in the French countryside as a peasant dude named Sobran has lots of wine and children and sex with his hot wife and a wine-tasting widowed baroness. Oh, and every so often the dude talks to an angel with the face of Gaspard Ulliel for like three minutes...I have a whoooole separate essay on that thing but anyway).
NITTY-GRITTY BOOK REVIEW MOMENTS: What the Sam Hill is this style. What.
It is literally Metaphorception; SIMILE WITHIN METAPHOR WITHIN SIMILE! IN A METAPHOR! GREAT GOOGLY WOMAN JUST SAY SOMETHING OUTRIGHT FOR ONE SENTENCE JFC
So you stumble through the frankly atrocious bogs of metaphor in the first third of the novel, going Someday this will be rewarded by gay angel sex. Someday. If that be what you seek, reader, you best go get yo’self some Anne Rice instead. Knox reads like a sort of neo-Rice, with all the heaving, extended clauses and hyperbole, but more awkward and less sensually dreamy.
Sample quote: “Rich men would pay fortunes for even one ounce of the angel’s spit. His every secretion a potent love potion, sweet-scented, innocent as snow, fresh after days in the warmth, the proved yeast of greasy sheets.”
Uh, what? Not sexy. Also, ‘potent love potion’? ‘Innocent as snow’? I have read fanfiction less cringeworthy.
Xas is far and away the most interesting thing happening here – you can never quite get a read on Sobran the winemaker (Is he likable? Not sure. Relatable? Not sure…), the idea of his Baroness ladyfriend turns out to be more awesome than how she’s written (she could have been fleshed out into a serious badass), and his wife is just off on the sidelines being crazy. Xas’ injury, mutilation, and difficult transformative recovery are definitely the book’s high point (What can I say, I like my gay angels bloody). Not to be spoiler queen, but Lucifer shows up and gets shit done, Aurora the baroness cancer survivor figures shit out, and Knox creates a wonderfully creepy atmosphere when literally all sorts of shit starts dying supernaturally. If only Xas could have been pretty and dying and Sobran in a heartbreak coma ALL the time!
Some parts were creative (his things about walls! Of course! his thing about distances! Of course!).
Some part were engaging (I THINK MY DAD IS SLEEPING WITH MY INSANELY HOT ‘TUTOR FROM IRELAND’ DUN DUN DUNNN’),
Some parts were lyrically, poetically lovely ("Despair is gravity. What an appetite it has, hotter than hellfire. "Here, let me have you," it says." Combined with the epigraph and the final paragraph - whoa amazing.)
...but just some. Which is unbelievably annoying, because if you showed me those three moments about gravity and told me they came from a French peasant and an angel in love UGH MY HEART OH MY GOD FEELINGS. and yet somehow in context of what she does it's just like...oh, hm, that was pretty.
Also, Knox has like 45 balls in the air at once. Sobran has like 25 children; I could not keep them straight to save my life. Then they all got married and had more children, and I was just like WHAT THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE FRENCH NAMES WHO ARE YOU
The standout characters (in both book and movie) are those with the least screentime – in the movie, fatally, Xas is pretty and interesting and a flitting afterthought; in the book he’s so distant as to be unrelatable and the book’s most engaging moments almost all revolve around Lucifer’s badass appearance. Frustratingly, I felt much more interested in him than the angel we’d spent the last 200 pages on, and felt I knew him better, and I liked him more. LUCI COME BACK
Anyway, if I spent two hours watching this movie and three hours reading this book and an hour writing this, SOMETHING engaging was going on – but I’m afraid it might be that the concept of both is imaginative and cool and romantic (French peasant spends one night a year falling in love with an angel in his 1815 vineyard, I mean THAT IS A GOOD ONE) and then both mediums almost completely fail to capitalize. SIIIIIIIGH.
I caution against somewhat distant, unlikeable characters (and a massive cast), somewhat anticlimactic gay angel sex, some Twilight-style purple prose, and a nagging sense that this could have been so much more.
For fans of: gay angel fanfiction, metaphors, interspecies romance, character studies, gossip, gay angels whose names rhyme with “lass”, winemaking
OKAY SO HERE’S THE DEAL: I kind of liked this book. I kind of liked the movie. I disliked them, and liked them, for entirely different reasons, which makes sense because they are not remotely the same story. This turns out to be deeply unfortunate, because expecting one to be anything like the other only leads to disappointment (and disgruntlement, what with all the IF ONLYs).
The Vintner’s Luck, the book, is an extended metaphor on copies and symmetry as a French peasant and an angel fall in love and tangle with both the grand mythologies of Heaven and Hell and the domestic dramas of a small village (amid approximately a bajillion characters and subplots including marriages, re-marriages, murders, scholarship, wine-making, cancer, erotic asphyxiation, childbirth, and botany). The entire thing revolves around the ups, downs, and slooooow development of this relationship and its resulting consequences.
(The Vintner’s Luck, the movie, is a lovingly-documented homage to wine-making in the French countryside as a peasant dude named Sobran has lots of wine and children and sex with his hot wife and a wine-tasting widowed baroness. Oh, and every so often the dude talks to an angel with the face of Gaspard Ulliel for like three minutes...I have a whoooole separate essay on that thing but anyway).
NITTY-GRITTY BOOK REVIEW MOMENTS: What the Sam Hill is this style. What.
It is literally Metaphorception; SIMILE WITHIN METAPHOR WITHIN SIMILE! IN A METAPHOR! GREAT GOOGLY WOMAN JUST SAY SOMETHING OUTRIGHT FOR ONE SENTENCE JFC
So you stumble through the frankly atrocious bogs of metaphor in the first third of the novel, going Someday this will be rewarded by gay angel sex. Someday. If that be what you seek, reader, you best go get yo’self some Anne Rice instead. Knox reads like a sort of neo-Rice, with all the heaving, extended clauses and hyperbole, but more awkward and less sensually dreamy.
Sample quote: “Rich men would pay fortunes for even one ounce of the angel’s spit. His every secretion a potent love potion, sweet-scented, innocent as snow, fresh after days in the warmth, the proved yeast of greasy sheets.”
Uh, what? Not sexy. Also, ‘potent love potion’? ‘Innocent as snow’? I have read fanfiction less cringeworthy.
Xas is far and away the most interesting thing happening here – you can never quite get a read on Sobran the winemaker (Is he likable? Not sure. Relatable? Not sure…), the idea of his Baroness ladyfriend turns out to be more awesome than how she’s written (she could have been fleshed out into a serious badass), and his wife is just off on the sidelines being crazy. Xas’ injury, mutilation, and difficult transformative recovery are definitely the book’s high point (What can I say, I like my gay angels bloody). Not to be spoiler queen, but Lucifer shows up and gets shit done, Aurora the baroness cancer survivor figures shit out, and Knox creates a wonderfully creepy atmosphere when literally all sorts of shit starts dying supernaturally. If only Xas could have been pretty and dying and Sobran in a heartbreak coma ALL the time!
Some parts were creative (his things about walls! Of course! his thing about distances! Of course!).
Some part were engaging (I THINK MY DAD IS SLEEPING WITH MY INSANELY HOT ‘TUTOR FROM IRELAND’ DUN DUN DUNNN’),
Some parts were lyrically, poetically lovely ("Despair is gravity. What an appetite it has, hotter than hellfire. "Here, let me have you," it says." Combined with the epigraph and the final paragraph - whoa amazing.)
...but just some. Which is unbelievably annoying, because if you showed me those three moments about gravity and told me they came from a French peasant and an angel in love UGH MY HEART OH MY GOD FEELINGS. and yet somehow in context of what she does it's just like...oh, hm, that was pretty.
Also, Knox has like 45 balls in the air at once. Sobran has like 25 children; I could not keep them straight to save my life. Then they all got married and had more children, and I was just like WHAT THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE FRENCH NAMES WHO ARE YOU
The standout characters (in both book and movie) are those with the least screentime – in the movie, fatally, Xas is pretty and interesting and a flitting afterthought; in the book he’s so distant as to be unrelatable and the book’s most engaging moments almost all revolve around Lucifer’s badass appearance. Frustratingly, I felt much more interested in him than the angel we’d spent the last 200 pages on, and felt I knew him better, and I liked him more. LUCI COME BACK
Anyway, if I spent two hours watching this movie and three hours reading this book and an hour writing this, SOMETHING engaging was going on – but I’m afraid it might be that the concept of both is imaginative and cool and romantic (French peasant spends one night a year falling in love with an angel in his 1815 vineyard, I mean THAT IS A GOOD ONE) and then both mediums almost completely fail to capitalize. SIIIIIIIGH.
February 5, 2025
Not your usual love story. 🍷🍾
Watch my BookTube deep dive on the weirdest Women's Prize nominees . 👀
"The angel's hands were against his face and neck and he was being kissed, and it wasn't a kiss of trouble, of crossed swords, but the kiss of a coupled harness—the present suddenly hitched to the past."
What I thought this book would be: An erotic love story between a vintner and an angel (as promised by the blurb). I anticipated HEAT and HEDONISM. I prepared myself for feathered embraces, stolen kisses, bodies meeting in secret sessions amid grape vines and sun-warmed soil.
But alas . . .
What this book actually is: A quiet story of a rarely-explored love between a man and an angel who meet once a year. While it's understood that they are (eventually) intimate, we rarely see them do more than kiss. Is there a price to pay for them being together? YES. But does it cut to the heart because the characters have developed so solidly in one's mind? No.
Let me explain.
The story is told chronologically. Each chapter accounts for one year. Some chapters are a few pages long. Others a mere paragraph. One is a single sentence. These short interludes do not allow enough time for the relationship between Sobran and his angel lover, Xas, to bloom.
But . . .
There is a character named Aurora who had my full attention. Her friendship with Sobran is lovely to witness: The tenderness they share, the secrets they guard. And when she faced grave hardship, I was glued to the page, concerned for her well-being and wondering how Sobran would take the news. Three cheers for Aurora, who stole the show in this book!
Also . . .
There's a faint subplot of a murder mystery that runs throughout the book. Its presence is strongest at the beginning of the book, but all answers are not provided until the very end. I would have loved to see this murder mystery subplot developed further.
For those who could not make it to the end, here's the reveal about the murders:
Overall, I found much to enjoy about this book (even if it didn't quite deliver on the promises made in the blurb). I'm not opposed to exploring more of Elizabeth Knox's work.
--
ORIGINAL POST 👇
Of all the books on my Spring TBR, this one is the most unusual.
It concerns a man named Sobran Jodeau who is stumbling through his family's vineyard in 1808 when he drunkenly swoons and is caught in the arms of a male angel. 😇❤️
The angel has a reputation for being a favorite of both God and Satan.
Over time, Sobran falls passionately in love with the angel and, according to the blurb, this relationship complicates both of their lives.
Dated cover aside (this was first published in the 1990s), I'm extremely excited to read this book, especially because the opening pages appear to have gorgeous prose.
Watch my BookTube deep dive on the weirdest Women's Prize nominees . 👀
"The angel's hands were against his face and neck and he was being kissed, and it wasn't a kiss of trouble, of crossed swords, but the kiss of a coupled harness—the present suddenly hitched to the past."
What I thought this book would be: An erotic love story between a vintner and an angel (as promised by the blurb). I anticipated HEAT and HEDONISM. I prepared myself for feathered embraces, stolen kisses, bodies meeting in secret sessions amid grape vines and sun-warmed soil.
But alas . . .
What this book actually is: A quiet story of a rarely-explored love between a man and an angel who meet once a year. While it's understood that they are (eventually) intimate, we rarely see them do more than kiss. Is there a price to pay for them being together? YES. But does it cut to the heart because the characters have developed so solidly in one's mind? No.
Let me explain.
The story is told chronologically. Each chapter accounts for one year. Some chapters are a few pages long. Others a mere paragraph. One is a single sentence. These short interludes do not allow enough time for the relationship between Sobran and his angel lover, Xas, to bloom.
But . . .
There is a character named Aurora who had my full attention. Her friendship with Sobran is lovely to witness: The tenderness they share, the secrets they guard. And when she faced grave hardship, I was glued to the page, concerned for her well-being and wondering how Sobran would take the news. Three cheers for Aurora, who stole the show in this book!
Also . . .
There's a faint subplot of a murder mystery that runs throughout the book. Its presence is strongest at the beginning of the book, but all answers are not provided until the very end. I would have loved to see this murder mystery subplot developed further.
For those who could not make it to the end, here's the reveal about the murders:
Overall, I found much to enjoy about this book (even if it didn't quite deliver on the promises made in the blurb). I'm not opposed to exploring more of Elizabeth Knox's work.
--
ORIGINAL POST 👇
Of all the books on my Spring TBR, this one is the most unusual.
It concerns a man named Sobran Jodeau who is stumbling through his family's vineyard in 1808 when he drunkenly swoons and is caught in the arms of a male angel. 😇❤️
The angel has a reputation for being a favorite of both God and Satan.
Over time, Sobran falls passionately in love with the angel and, according to the blurb, this relationship complicates both of their lives.
Dated cover aside (this was first published in the 1990s), I'm extremely excited to read this book, especially because the opening pages appear to have gorgeous prose.
July 20, 2024
I don't know how many of you realise this, but from the age of 11 or so, I grew up in New Zealand. Our English curriculum makes it compulsory for us to do a reading log for every English class, covering a variety of books. In order to support our local heritage the log needs to include at least one book by a local NZ author each year. Shouldn't be too hard, right? We produced Joy Cowley, Maurice Gee, Katherine Mansfield, Phillip Mann and Witi Ihimaera. Shouldn't be too hard at all.
Except for one problem, of course. I loved the Shadrach books, and of course I'd read Whale Rider. The Doll's House and Mrs Brill are two of my favourite short stories by local authors. The real trouble, however, was with my inability to find a local author whose work became 'a book I liked' rather than 'a book by an NZ author that I liked'. Note that I say Mansfield's short stories are only among my favourite locally-written stories. I spent years looking for a book written by someone locally which I could rank right up with my 'books I love regardless of the author's nation of origin'. To love an author regardless of any sense of Kiwi loyalty would be nice.
So rewind a little to sixth-form English class. Ms. Titter (yes, that was her real name, god help her) sends me off to the library during class because my 'local author' segment for my reading log is blank. I trudge down reluctantly, having used up a majority of my stock reviews for the log in earlier years (one can only review so many Joy Cowley books as a young adult, trust me). About two minutes into my search and I decide, in the way I always did until I hit Uni and had to be responsible for myself, that I can't be bothered. So I procrastinate. Casually, I stroll down to the 'K's and decide to flick through a King volume until the bell goes. I'm looking, looking... Nothing. Ah f--
Hang on, what's this? It's a beautiful spine of silver with a lovely red font, subtle and clean, eye-catching in its simplicity. Oh hey, beautiful. Wanna come home with me?
I pick the book out of the tightly packed-shelf. It has a black koru mark on the cover under the school library logo, indicating that it's by a local author. Score! The cover is smooth and cool to the touch. I turn to the back cover, expecting a story based in NZ or with some NZ influence, as I often find this is what local authors tend to write about. Imagine my surprise when I see nothing but praise for the book, something I've never seen on a NZ book cover before. Praise from the U.K. Times, praise from Entertainment Weekly, praise from Independent Sunday...
Hang on. Really? Well alright then. Hey beautiful. You're coming home with me.
"1808 Vin bourru (new wine)
A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptise the first real sorrow of his life."
Oh hel-lo, beautiful. I think we'll get along just fine.
I firmly believe in one thing above all else; a book's opening page, and especially that crucial opening sentence, can make or break it for the reader. That single line there *points* shows how this book is going to turn out from the get-go. Every sentence in this book is just that beautiful, with each word treated with the respect it deserves as it is carefully placed within the sentence and woven into the story. There's a subtlety that's indicated in the cover, yes, but also a tenderness, a sense of kinship and a persistent underlying feeling of secrets waiting to be told. That sentence promises the world, and the story delivers.
Not only did it pique my curiosity as to what Sobran's issue was, it's also very indicative of Sobran's behaviour and personality. He's stubborn, so he does what he wants. He's simple, but self-aware. He's young, he feels too much and he's got a lot to learn.
"Someone had set a statue down on the ridge. Sobran blinked and swayed. For a second he saw what he knew - gilt, paint and varnish, the sculpted labial eyes of a church statue. Then he swooned while still walking forward, and the angel stood quickly to catch him."
For a book that hinges on poetic, the stark abruptness of that reveal is odd, startling, much like Xas himself.
"'God help you,' Xas said, with feeling."
Please, go ahead. It's perfectly fine. I didn't need my heart anyway. Go ahead, take what you want.
I should have known that I'd love him anyway, because he reads. I have such a hideous, awful weakness for anyone who loves to read, enough so to spend his spare time creating a library. He's happy, "so long as the books keep appearing".
"They stopped under Jacob Wrestles with an Angel.
'Which angel was it?' Sobran asked, looking up at the capital. Xas could always be distracted by a question.
'That was Yahweh, I think,' Xas said, 'being obtuse.'"
His curiosity is wonderful. Xas is like a child in that way, he's seen the world but he still feels ignorant, he's still surprised by the little things and he's constantly thirsting to learn more about people, about life, about religion, about humanity, about himself and about everything. He's sweet, he's kind, he's confused, he's careless, he's indecisive, he's innocent in the face of expectation... He's perfect. He's perfect, from beginning to bittersweet end, and even the sequel can't destroy him.
"Aurora felt she had come to her own execution. She looked around for an avenue of escape. The surgeon stood over her. He had no colour in his face. She didn't want to watch as he laid out the knives. Someone draped a cloth over her face. She was dead already."
Aurora is utterly magnificent. In 19th century Europe, she's well-read despite being a woman. She handles the estate, the vineyards and her father's business. She's unafraid to criticise, she's exhaustingly curious and she won't think twice before being honest. She doesn't let her marriage define her, she gives her children a chance to think for themselves and she supports her friends with an unfailing sense of loyalty. She's pretty much a woman completely out of her time, and she'd be out of character if she weren't hindered by the customs and restrictions that her time-period and society place on her. It's the fact that she tries to work around it despite the overwhelming expectations that makes her so admirable. I wish I were half the woman she is.
"'I'm sorry, Sobran.'"
Then there's Léon, Céleste, Paul, Baptiste, Bernard, Antoine... The book is rich with varied characters and an ever-changing storyline. It's about Sobran's life, more than anything else, and the impact Xas has on it. So of course the story changes a bit, because life is full of changes and surprises. It's endlessly fascinating and written so beautifully that it makes me ache.
When I finished this, I cried. I still cry every time I read it. It's beautifully written, carefully thought-out and so full of emotion that it's hard not to fall in love, even if you know you shouldn't.
"Sobran caught the angel's hands and held them. 'I've found you,' he said, then, 'I have an idea. Listen.'"
It took me several years, but I found a story that I loved regardless of the author. Go figure. I read the library copy and bought my own the very next day. I then read that one until it fell to pieces. My second copy ended much the same way. My third, so far, is faring better, but if it falls apart I'll be buying it again. No amount of money in the world will balance out my love for this.
"You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible."
If you haven't read this, I can fix that. I'm hosting a giveaway here. If you want a copy of this book, well, here you go. I have three to give away.
Giveaway closed. Sorry guys!
Except for one problem, of course. I loved the Shadrach books, and of course I'd read Whale Rider. The Doll's House and Mrs Brill are two of my favourite short stories by local authors. The real trouble, however, was with my inability to find a local author whose work became 'a book I liked' rather than 'a book by an NZ author that I liked'. Note that I say Mansfield's short stories are only among my favourite locally-written stories. I spent years looking for a book written by someone locally which I could rank right up with my 'books I love regardless of the author's nation of origin'. To love an author regardless of any sense of Kiwi loyalty would be nice.
So rewind a little to sixth-form English class. Ms. Titter (yes, that was her real name, god help her) sends me off to the library during class because my 'local author' segment for my reading log is blank. I trudge down reluctantly, having used up a majority of my stock reviews for the log in earlier years (one can only review so many Joy Cowley books as a young adult, trust me). About two minutes into my search and I decide, in the way I always did until I hit Uni and had to be responsible for myself, that I can't be bothered. So I procrastinate. Casually, I stroll down to the 'K's and decide to flick through a King volume until the bell goes. I'm looking, looking... Nothing. Ah f--
Hang on, what's this? It's a beautiful spine of silver with a lovely red font, subtle and clean, eye-catching in its simplicity. Oh hey, beautiful. Wanna come home with me?
I pick the book out of the tightly packed-shelf. It has a black koru mark on the cover under the school library logo, indicating that it's by a local author. Score! The cover is smooth and cool to the touch. I turn to the back cover, expecting a story based in NZ or with some NZ influence, as I often find this is what local authors tend to write about. Imagine my surprise when I see nothing but praise for the book, something I've never seen on a NZ book cover before. Praise from the U.K. Times, praise from Entertainment Weekly, praise from Independent Sunday...
Hang on. Really? Well alright then. Hey beautiful. You're coming home with me.
"1808 Vin bourru (new wine)
A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptise the first real sorrow of his life."
Oh hel-lo, beautiful. I think we'll get along just fine.
I firmly believe in one thing above all else; a book's opening page, and especially that crucial opening sentence, can make or break it for the reader. That single line there *points* shows how this book is going to turn out from the get-go. Every sentence in this book is just that beautiful, with each word treated with the respect it deserves as it is carefully placed within the sentence and woven into the story. There's a subtlety that's indicated in the cover, yes, but also a tenderness, a sense of kinship and a persistent underlying feeling of secrets waiting to be told. That sentence promises the world, and the story delivers.
Not only did it pique my curiosity as to what Sobran's issue was, it's also very indicative of Sobran's behaviour and personality. He's stubborn, so he does what he wants. He's simple, but self-aware. He's young, he feels too much and he's got a lot to learn.
"Someone had set a statue down on the ridge. Sobran blinked and swayed. For a second he saw what he knew - gilt, paint and varnish, the sculpted labial eyes of a church statue. Then he swooned while still walking forward, and the angel stood quickly to catch him."
For a book that hinges on poetic, the stark abruptness of that reveal is odd, startling, much like Xas himself.
"'God help you,' Xas said, with feeling."
Please, go ahead. It's perfectly fine. I didn't need my heart anyway. Go ahead, take what you want.
I should have known that I'd love him anyway, because he reads. I have such a hideous, awful weakness for anyone who loves to read, enough so to spend his spare time creating a library. He's happy, "so long as the books keep appearing".
"They stopped under Jacob Wrestles with an Angel.
'Which angel was it?' Sobran asked, looking up at the capital. Xas could always be distracted by a question.
'That was Yahweh, I think,' Xas said, 'being obtuse.'"
His curiosity is wonderful. Xas is like a child in that way, he's seen the world but he still feels ignorant, he's still surprised by the little things and he's constantly thirsting to learn more about people, about life, about religion, about humanity, about himself and about everything. He's sweet, he's kind, he's confused, he's careless, he's indecisive, he's innocent in the face of expectation... He's perfect. He's perfect, from beginning to bittersweet end, and even the sequel can't destroy him.
"Aurora felt she had come to her own execution. She looked around for an avenue of escape. The surgeon stood over her. He had no colour in his face. She didn't want to watch as he laid out the knives. Someone draped a cloth over her face. She was dead already."
Aurora is utterly magnificent. In 19th century Europe, she's well-read despite being a woman. She handles the estate, the vineyards and her father's business. She's unafraid to criticise, she's exhaustingly curious and she won't think twice before being honest. She doesn't let her marriage define her, she gives her children a chance to think for themselves and she supports her friends with an unfailing sense of loyalty. She's pretty much a woman completely out of her time, and she'd be out of character if she weren't hindered by the customs and restrictions that her time-period and society place on her. It's the fact that she tries to work around it despite the overwhelming expectations that makes her so admirable. I wish I were half the woman she is.
"'I'm sorry, Sobran.'"
Then there's Léon, Céleste, Paul, Baptiste, Bernard, Antoine... The book is rich with varied characters and an ever-changing storyline. It's about Sobran's life, more than anything else, and the impact Xas has on it. So of course the story changes a bit, because life is full of changes and surprises. It's endlessly fascinating and written so beautifully that it makes me ache.
When I finished this, I cried. I still cry every time I read it. It's beautifully written, carefully thought-out and so full of emotion that it's hard not to fall in love, even if you know you shouldn't.
"Sobran caught the angel's hands and held them. 'I've found you,' he said, then, 'I have an idea. Listen.'"
It took me several years, but I found a story that I loved regardless of the author. Go figure. I read the library copy and bought my own the very next day. I then read that one until it fell to pieces. My second copy ended much the same way. My third, so far, is faring better, but if it falls apart I'll be buying it again. No amount of money in the world will balance out my love for this.
"You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible."
If you haven't read this, I can fix that. I'm hosting a giveaway here. If you want a copy of this book, well, here you go. I have three to give away.
Giveaway closed. Sorry guys!
January 18, 2016
I finished this book this morning, and I cried. This book is heartbreaking, but in the most beautiful, profound way possible.
At its simplest it's a book about a vinemaker, Sobran, and his relationship with an angel, Xas, he was fortunate enough to stumble upon one night, while looking for relief from heartbreak. A relationship that ends up defining both their lives, and hugely impacts the life of everyone else around them.
And this is why it is in no way a simple book, and never will be. It is a love story, yes, and a grand one at that, but it is so much more.
It is very much also about how we each handle the events thrown our way. How we choose to deal with loss, betrayal, lust, passion, lies and faith. Faith most of all. Faith in God, ourselves, each other, in circumstance.
Elizabeth Knox has a way with words. Her descriptions, thoughts and characters seem as real as anything I've ever seen with my own eyes.
Something I particularly enjoyed, although it frustrated me at first, is how half the story is not written. It takes place outside the paper, in a place the reader can't see, only imagine, and many big events are never described, simply hinted at. That led me to pay closer to attention to the events that played out on the paper before me, because I knew they had to be important, had to mean something, since they made it to the book in such detail, while others were left out.
I cannot describe what I believe this book is about, because the truth is I don't know. This book has left me with more of a feeling. It's not something I can explain, really, I just know that for a time being I will feel as if Sobran, Xas and this story is more important than anything else in my life. All I know is this; I won't forget it.
I intend to read this book again, and then a few times after that, just to make sure I understood it all (I never do), and because as long as I keep reading, they don't have to spend an eternity apart, they don't ever really have to say goodbye.
At its simplest it's a book about a vinemaker, Sobran, and his relationship with an angel, Xas, he was fortunate enough to stumble upon one night, while looking for relief from heartbreak. A relationship that ends up defining both their lives, and hugely impacts the life of everyone else around them.
And this is why it is in no way a simple book, and never will be. It is a love story, yes, and a grand one at that, but it is so much more.
It is very much also about how we each handle the events thrown our way. How we choose to deal with loss, betrayal, lust, passion, lies and faith. Faith most of all. Faith in God, ourselves, each other, in circumstance.
Elizabeth Knox has a way with words. Her descriptions, thoughts and characters seem as real as anything I've ever seen with my own eyes.
Something I particularly enjoyed, although it frustrated me at first, is how half the story is not written. It takes place outside the paper, in a place the reader can't see, only imagine, and many big events are never described, simply hinted at. That led me to pay closer to attention to the events that played out on the paper before me, because I knew they had to be important, had to mean something, since they made it to the book in such detail, while others were left out.
I cannot describe what I believe this book is about, because the truth is I don't know. This book has left me with more of a feeling. It's not something I can explain, really, I just know that for a time being I will feel as if Sobran, Xas and this story is more important than anything else in my life. All I know is this; I won't forget it.
I intend to read this book again, and then a few times after that, just to make sure I understood it all (I never do), and because as long as I keep reading, they don't have to spend an eternity apart, they don't ever really have to say goodbye.
August 10, 2009
My flatmate recommended this to me with much high praise. And read my copy before I got my hands on it, and cried at it a lot. I have to confess, when I started reading it, I didn't really get into it. The story is about a man who agrees to meet an angel (or an angel who agrees to meet a man?) at the same time every year, for one night every year. The story focuses on these meetings, so what we get are glimpses into a life. It isn't just the meetings, but it focuses mostly on them, rather than the minutiae of daily life. As a consequence, it takes time to get to know the characters. I think it was that that kept me from getting too deeply into the story.
It actually reminds me of a line from the first page: He took a swig of the friand, tasted fruit and freshness, a flavour that turned briefly and looked back over its shoulder at the summer before last, but didn't pause even to shade its eyes. And then: Again he tasted the wine's quick backward look, its spice -- flirtation and not love.
Not only is that a lovely thought, and it tastes nice to synaesthetic little me, but it kind of describes how I felt about the book at first.
I didn't really know what to expect from the story. There's a little mystery in it, about some murders that happen in the area, and then there's the love story between the man and the angel. I found both of them compelling. There are also glimpses into heaven and hell, provided by Xas, the angel, and the intervention of Lucifer -- things that really point at a greater plot, I suppose, but we see it framed in the same way as Sobran, the human, does.
The writing is also nice. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that this book tasted, as a whole, like wine, but it wasn't always the same kind of wine. I didn't read that much of the book aloud, actually, but it was still strongly synaesthetic for me. (I can't imagine books without synaesthesia. You'll have to pardon me always explaining books in synaesthetic terms: sometimes, there are no others.)
The love story is the part that really captured me, I have to say. It isn't easy, Xas holding back from it, and then Sobran becoming angry and not wanting to see Xas, and then Xas' disappearance... There's enough of it to catch hold of your heart, though, and when you're reaching the end of the book, it really, really begins to hurt.
I didn't actually cry, although it was a close thing: I was desperate to read the last twenty pages, so had to read them under my grandparents' eagle eyes, and that wasn't conducive to a full-on sob fest...
I really do love the last lines:
You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity.
Impossible.
It actually reminds me of a line from the first page: He took a swig of the friand, tasted fruit and freshness, a flavour that turned briefly and looked back over its shoulder at the summer before last, but didn't pause even to shade its eyes. And then: Again he tasted the wine's quick backward look, its spice -- flirtation and not love.
Not only is that a lovely thought, and it tastes nice to synaesthetic little me, but it kind of describes how I felt about the book at first.
I didn't really know what to expect from the story. There's a little mystery in it, about some murders that happen in the area, and then there's the love story between the man and the angel. I found both of them compelling. There are also glimpses into heaven and hell, provided by Xas, the angel, and the intervention of Lucifer -- things that really point at a greater plot, I suppose, but we see it framed in the same way as Sobran, the human, does.
The writing is also nice. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that this book tasted, as a whole, like wine, but it wasn't always the same kind of wine. I didn't read that much of the book aloud, actually, but it was still strongly synaesthetic for me. (I can't imagine books without synaesthesia. You'll have to pardon me always explaining books in synaesthetic terms: sometimes, there are no others.)
The love story is the part that really captured me, I have to say. It isn't easy, Xas holding back from it, and then Sobran becoming angry and not wanting to see Xas, and then Xas' disappearance... There's enough of it to catch hold of your heart, though, and when you're reaching the end of the book, it really, really begins to hurt.
I didn't actually cry, although it was a close thing: I was desperate to read the last twenty pages, so had to read them under my grandparents' eagle eyes, and that wasn't conducive to a full-on sob fest...
I really do love the last lines:
You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity.
Impossible.
Read
January 4, 2025I, err, I thought I'd read this. But I turned out to have read an entirely different book about angels.
I'll try to write a proper review at some point but for now: this was beautiful. Harrowing, complicated, terrible. Ultimately deeply human.
I might have cried.
A lot.
I'll try to write a proper review at some point but for now: this was beautiful. Harrowing, complicated, terrible. Ultimately deeply human.
I might have cried.
A lot.
January 30, 2018
4.5 stars
My heart has been completely pulverised.. holy hell
My heart has been completely pulverised.. holy hell
March 13, 2010
Deceptively simple story of the relationship between a fallen angel and a French vintner across a lifetime. Superficially, there are some aspects of the book I didn't like - the characterization is a bit weak and parts of it tend towards melodrama. However, there's so much going on under the surface: the way that Sobran's life is shown to parallel the making of a wine, the theme of symmetry/duplication, Xas' relationship with Christ, the way the divine interacts with the natural.
Xas' single annual visit overshadows everything else that happens to Sobran during the year; when Xas nearly dies, he sucks the life out of nearby organisms to heal; copies of things and people end up in Heaven or Hell after they are destroyed. There's a pattern here - this book depicts God and the Devil as parasitic, poaching ideas and vitality from the human world. But this "fearful symmetry" of God's souls in Heaven lacks the true individuality that can only be gained by real experience. Niall's soul isn't Niall, it's a distillation - like wine is the distillation of the earth and sun and plants and labor that went into it, not the things themselves, only a reminder, a "backward glance." Xas, the preemptive copy of Christ, goes to Earth, where he experiences the reality of these things - sensuality, sin, death, life. Unlike Christ, he doesn't get to return to Heaven after his ordeal (the mutilation of his wings).
Note also the significance of their first meeting - Xas catches the falling Sobran, an event which then comes up in the closing narration. "It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible." It occurred to me that this might function as a reference to the Biblical Fall of Man, which Christ's sacrifice was supposed to redeem. In this version, there is no redemption (it's "impossible" to save a human from falling/gravity), and it's Xas who falls, sins, and lives.
Plus there's the hot-half-naked-angel-on-handsome-Frenchman action. You know you want to get on that.
Xas' single annual visit overshadows everything else that happens to Sobran during the year; when Xas nearly dies, he sucks the life out of nearby organisms to heal; copies of things and people end up in Heaven or Hell after they are destroyed. There's a pattern here - this book depicts God and the Devil as parasitic, poaching ideas and vitality from the human world. But this "fearful symmetry" of God's souls in Heaven lacks the true individuality that can only be gained by real experience. Niall's soul isn't Niall, it's a distillation - like wine is the distillation of the earth and sun and plants and labor that went into it, not the things themselves, only a reminder, a "backward glance." Xas, the preemptive copy of Christ, goes to Earth, where he experiences the reality of these things - sensuality, sin, death, life. Unlike Christ, he doesn't get to return to Heaven after his ordeal (the mutilation of his wings).
Note also the significance of their first meeting - Xas catches the falling Sobran, an event which then comes up in the closing narration. "It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible." It occurred to me that this might function as a reference to the Biblical Fall of Man, which Christ's sacrifice was supposed to redeem. In this version, there is no redemption (it's "impossible" to save a human from falling/gravity), and it's Xas who falls, sins, and lives.
Plus there's the hot-half-naked-angel-on-handsome-Frenchman action. You know you want to get on that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2016
The way each book deals with issues of structure, chronology, plotting, characterisation, and, of course, theology, are radically different to what I expected.
THE VINTNER'S LUCK should stand (and fall) on its own merits. But if comparisons must be drawn, one might look at how Neil Gaiman characterizes religious mythology in his fiction. Heaven and Hell are made real, as are Lucifer, God, and a host of angels, all given motivations and decisions to make.
This would all work out pretty well, but Knox chooses an intuitively obvious structure for conveying her plot: one chapter for each year that takes place. This makes sense, except that the angel and the vintner engage in lovers spats. It draws the events of the novel out longer than necessary. Knox cheats the structure a couple of times as well, when it suits her to draw chapter endings in more conventionally dramatic fashion.
We're allowed to see the life of the vintner, but the experiences of the angel are related to us by him, in small bursts. Thus, we are given portraits only of secondary characters in the vintner's life. Of those, only his friend and employer, the Baroness, is vividly painted. For that matter, the vintner's character is muddled, as the themes of the book are played out within him.
Ultimately, THE VINTNER'S LUNK is an interestingly imagined tale, but doesn't always handle its characters and plotting well in order to present a cohesive end-product. On the plus side, you don't need to be a wine connoisseur to enjoy it.
THE VINTNER'S LUCK should stand (and fall) on its own merits. But if comparisons must be drawn, one might look at how Neil Gaiman characterizes religious mythology in his fiction. Heaven and Hell are made real, as are Lucifer, God, and a host of angels, all given motivations and decisions to make.
This would all work out pretty well, but Knox chooses an intuitively obvious structure for conveying her plot: one chapter for each year that takes place. This makes sense, except that the angel and the vintner engage in lovers spats. It draws the events of the novel out longer than necessary. Knox cheats the structure a couple of times as well, when it suits her to draw chapter endings in more conventionally dramatic fashion.
We're allowed to see the life of the vintner, but the experiences of the angel are related to us by him, in small bursts. Thus, we are given portraits only of secondary characters in the vintner's life. Of those, only his friend and employer, the Baroness, is vividly painted. For that matter, the vintner's character is muddled, as the themes of the book are played out within him.
Ultimately, THE VINTNER'S LUNK is an interestingly imagined tale, but doesn't always handle its characters and plotting well in order to present a cohesive end-product. On the plus side, you don't need to be a wine connoisseur to enjoy it.
February 6, 2017
In the France of 1808, Sobran the vintner gets roaring drunk, feeling sorry for himself because of troubles with a romance. He stumbles out into the fields and when he passes out, he is caught by an angel before he hits the ground.
The very first chapter was intriguing. It made me eager to find out why the angel was there in the first place, and who or what was in the whirlwind that made him suddenly stand at attention and promise to meet Sobran once a year on the same date and in the same place. He had been reluctant to agree to the meetings until that whirlwind came along. Why?
But as each year's meeting is described, I began to lose interest in that puzzle and in Sobran's world, and I couldn't make myself keep reading. I might try it again someday when I can focus better.
DNF
The very first chapter was intriguing. It made me eager to find out why the angel was there in the first place, and who or what was in the whirlwind that made him suddenly stand at attention and promise to meet Sobran once a year on the same date and in the same place. He had been reluctant to agree to the meetings until that whirlwind came along. Why?
But as each year's meeting is described, I began to lose interest in that puzzle and in Sobran's world, and I couldn't make myself keep reading. I might try it again someday when I can focus better.
DNF
October 12, 2015
4.5*
The first time I read this I was totally engaged, this time not so much. I think the period when was when both I & this book lost focus.
The prose is still so beautiful & lyrical to read though and at the start I soared with the story & found the book very hard to put down. & I loved the chapter headings- all connected with winemaking and all relevant to the chapter.
Not perfect but still most highly recommended.
Edit; Sounds like the 2009 film managed to miss the whole point of the book. I think I'll skip it.
The first time I read this I was totally engaged, this time not so much. I think the period when was when both I & this book lost focus.
The prose is still so beautiful & lyrical to read though and at the start I soared with the story & found the book very hard to put down. & I loved the chapter headings- all connected with winemaking and all relevant to the chapter.
Not perfect but still most highly recommended.
Edit; Sounds like the 2009 film managed to miss the whole point of the book. I think I'll skip it.
February 10, 2023
I found this book was often extremely beautiful and wonderful to read, but I don't think I completely connected with it at any point. I expect I'll get around to rereading it someday and it wouldn't surprise me at all if I liked it more on the second go, but for now it's a strong three stars.
February 26, 2018
He swooned while still walking forward, and the angel stood quickly to catch him.
Sobran fell against a warm, firm pillow of muscle. He lay braced by a wing, pure sinew and bone under a cushion of feathers.
This is Sobran and Xas' first meeting.
Sobran, the son of a vintner in the early 19th century, is drowning his sorrows in wine - Celeste, the girl he loves, is forbidden to him, there is madness tainting her family's blood, so his father has not given his blessing to the match.
It's between two vineyards that Sobran meets Xas, an angel who has only stopped for a moment. Intrigued by Sobran's very human complaints, Xas reassures him that next year they will meet again and they shall toast to Sobran's marriage.
And so they do, and from then on, once a year, Sobran, an ordinary French peasant, shares the events of his life entwined with the story of his vineyard.
Sobran brought the angel his discontent, a savour to their talk, a refinement, like a paper screw of salt for a lunch to be eaten out-of-doors, at the edge of a meadow.
Xas doesn't speak much of himself or of the curious double mark on his arm, made by Lucifer and God, who determined that "Xas shall go freely." Perhaps angels are mysterious by nature. But along the years Sobran learns of Xas' love for botany (he's trying to grow a garden, and has a special fondness for roses), of Xas' interest in books, of Xas' other human friends - there was an old monk who passed away and was much mourned, there is a Turkish woman to whom he asks for advice regarding Sobran's troubles - it's difficult for an angel to understand humans, sometimes.
And year after year, wine vintage after wine vintage, what they feel for each other grows.
But angels live forever... and men do not.
What he had wanted, with all his heart, was to match this being stride for stride over the miles. But a crippled angel will outstrip a man.
Even if this doesn't seem like the kind of story to interest you as a reader, Elizabeth Knox's writing makes it worth reading the whole thing.
It's not just the fact that she wrote an angel who, from all the emperors and kings and princes, chose to get to know a poor French peasant.
It's the fact that the book employs some of the most beautiful language I've ever read.
It's the fact that it follows wine vintages, and crisp or earthy flavours, and burgundy tinges, the fact that it's a love story told through the red stain cast by the sun piercing a full glass of wine.
It's the fact that it's a love story with characters that feel real, and it's slow and alluring, and you get to taste it and see it slowly mature as if it were encased in an oak barrel.
It's the fact that it'll break your heart, once you finish reading it.
March 3, 2014
lovely.
...but heartbreaking in its loveliness.
this book was ordered in june—and arrived in november, for some reason.
lucky me. i thought it was beautiful.
thanks for the gift, scarecrow!
...but heartbreaking in its loveliness.
this book was ordered in june—and arrived in november, for some reason.
lucky me. i thought it was beautiful.
thanks for the gift, scarecrow!
March 10, 2011
This is a difficult novel to review. ‘Strange’ is the word that springs to mind. The premise – a lifelong friendship between an angel and a vintner – interested me, because I like surreal and/or paranormal stories. When I started reading, I couldn’t put it down because the imagery was beautiful and the philosophical discussions on religious beliefs interesting although, at times, too obscure. So, what was the problem I had with this story? I couldn’t get emotionally attached to any of the characters. There was enough in the novel to keep me reading, but not enough to make me really care any more than an occasional twinge what happened to the characters because I was disconnected from their motives and emotions. Both Xas (the angel) and Sobran (the vintner) were not easy to know, and this was to the detriment of the story. The style was also difficult: too often, the reader was expected to make conceptual leaps of logic and/or imagination that, rather than intriguing me, simply made me lose interest. For such a beautifully written book, it’s a pity that it only engaged my head, but not my heart. I may have read the book, but I didn’t “live” it. Another reader may engage more with the characters and so enjoy the book more than I did.
June 19, 2015
This book- I'm not sure what to rate it.I liked it somewhat. The unorthodox love story between a man and a angel sounded like it would make for a great story. But honestly? I found it to be a slow and dragging read. It didn't catch my attention until I reached 30% and then again towards the 50'ish % mark. Being that the story took place during the 1800's I think that had some to do with it. Not the historical aspect of it, but in the way it was written. So I think this is one of those moments where it was me not you kind of a thing. So with that being said, I also think this is going to be one of those rare moments where I will like the movie more than the book. Gaspard Ulliel plays the angel! So that in itself is already a win!
The Vintner's Luck- Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOol...
The Vintner's Luck- Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOol...
September 25, 2008
Spoilers, I guess: This is a very silly book about an angel who meets a completely uninteresting French vintner in the early nineteenth century and they fall in love. I never understand anyone's relationships, but this took the cake. Also, there are a lot of characters who are not more than names -- the author tries to hang a story on this silly premise by fleshing things out with the vintner's ever-increasing family, but, who cares? There aren't enough details to make it a historical fiction. It's a prosaic story aside from the fabulous idea that an angel would visit a man once a year for his whole life.
However, she writes well, and some of the imaginative details are very cute, so if you like fantasy, give it a try.
The ending didn't add much of anything for me, the revelation of the angel's "identity," and the implication that sex is a fallen occupation. *Yawn*
However, she writes well, and some of the imaginative details are very cute, so if you like fantasy, give it a try.
The ending didn't add much of anything for me, the revelation of the angel's "identity," and the implication that sex is a fallen occupation. *Yawn*
May 6, 2019
~Buddy read with bert as an act of rebellion against Christmas and Christmas books.~
I finished this in early hours of Monday morning and I'm still dazed by what I read. Because this book caused my heart to swell to twice it's size, broke it a little, kindly put it back together again, broke it some more, made me cry, and made me fall in love with an angel.
I just adored it.
I finished this in early hours of Monday morning and I'm still dazed by what I read. Because this book caused my heart to swell to twice it's size, broke it a little, kindly put it back together again, broke it some more, made me cry, and made me fall in love with an angel.
I just adored it.
“You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible.”
December 19, 2018
Complete symmetry is an insult to God. Lucifer does everything as perfectly as he can.This is a beautiful work with some really nasty motivations behind it. What with Tumblr's ongoing Nipplegate and sex workers and queer people once again being eradicated in the name of the children no one can be bothered to equip with a bill of rights, leastwise in the USA, I am done with queer phobia, not to mention other bigotries, being normalized in my historical fiction. On the other hand, this novel reads like the very best of Rice before I discovered how far her selfish ridiculousness went: luxurious, sensual, subtle, and full to the brim of the sort of historical context I fled towards via fiction so often during my teenage maturation. If the comparisons to rice is not a compliment in your mind, I don't blame you it's more what could have been, or perhaps what it was at the very beginning, long before the mysticism turned rote on the marketplace and Rice's imagined worlds grew stale and pathetic in their confines of jealousy and misapprehension of how literature truly functions. The fact that I managed to get a copy from an actual publisher in New Zealand only adds to the magic. How far it has come, and how far it has yet to go, for good or ill.
For all the mysticism previously recounted, the Goodreads blurb gives a fairly accurate description of the main narrative thrust of the novel, angel and queer love and all. Some may find the fraught tension generated by sexualities rendered deviant for the sake of European ideological conquest heart rending, but I don't buy homophobia wrought on the level of any deity, especially one spliced together by any human author, however well equipped with high vocabulary and hypnotic syntax she may be. Indeed, even the machismo of heterosexuality is made the driving motivator behind one of the long term tragedies whose mystery plagues the novel's mortal characters, but what I felt during the revelation was not catharsis, but disgust at the insipidity of yet another toxic masculinity rendered for the sake of pathos and other girlfriend in the refrigerator nonsense. It was maddening to have the narrative's otherwise wonderfully holistic loveliness stabbed through by such bigotry, and historical accuracy means nothing when the tenets of heterosexuality itself weren't established till after Sobran's agonized yearnings. I'd still recommend the book as a lovely and singular work of romance of all things, but with a bucketful of salt. It wouldn't do well to take this work as reinforcement of hate when so much beauty to exist in spite of it all.
This is, despite my caveats, one of the better books I had left on my shelves after so long a time. It's so good that I'm even more critical of its failures then I would have been had it merely been mediocre, which goes some way in explaining the tenor of my review. I'm not sure if I'll go for the sequel, But I can't imagine myself passing it by if I came across it, especially if it's another New Zealand edition. It is the sort of serious level of supernatural that I crave further instances of its world building philosophy of, however much I sneer at its heteronormative Eurocentricity. Compromise, compromise. Perhaps in the more modern sequel I'll have less bigoted nonsense and more queer loveliness to view with awe.
Sobran found that he couldn't say, in prayer, 'God help me.' He didn't feel shame or fear. His desire was a triumph – Xas was so fine that of course Sobran should love him. God had made Xas beautiful, had made his clever tongue. 'What am I supposed to do?' Sobran asked God, laughing, and waving his desire up like the smoke of a sacrifice. 'This is what you get, Lord, for your great work.'
August 13, 2016
4.5 I AM WRECKED!!! I went through the gauntlet with this book, up & down so many times. My half star deduction was personal due to my inability to relate a bit with the depth of the religion discussion. I am still contemplating weather to read on into the next or leave it here, as I kinda like where it left.
February 19, 2024
It's hard for me to rate this book because it had so much impact on my imagination when I read it at a formative age. Sobran Jodeau is a young, passionate and tempestuous man. He sits one night above his family's vineyard, drinking stolen wine, and meets an angel. The angel, Xas, is the only point of the otherworldly in Elizabeth Knox's novel: beautiful, lost and tender, Xas becomes Sobran's "luck", gently guiding him through life, though they agree to meet on only one night of the year. Knox's novel captures windows into Jodeau's life, beginning in 1808 and ending in 1863. Over this period, Sobran's fortunes becomes intertwined with Xas's, and with Aurora, the young widowed Baroness who owns the nearest Châteaux. Sobran's sprawling moves up in the world, but his thoughts always centre on Xas. The story is richly detailed, lushly imagined and full of sexuality. Rereading it, I notice some moments of clunky writing, or plot points that don't entirely make sense, but it lives up to my expectations, and remains compelling and unique.
November 21, 2019
I found this book absurdly confusing. I wasn't sure about the structure and I don't think I like the main character Sobran.
As a concept though, it was brave and I think quite original.
I won't add spoilers, but it's spread over a long period with brief snippets into each moment. I'm not a fan of this device either.
But there were moments in the book that were really poetic and beautiful. It's almost worth it for the last paragraph which is absolutely heartbreakingly gorgeous. But I did find it unsatisfying at times.
I'd probably read it again to get a better understanding of it.
As a concept though, it was brave and I think quite original.
I won't add spoilers, but it's spread over a long period with brief snippets into each moment. I'm not a fan of this device either.
But there were moments in the book that were really poetic and beautiful. It's almost worth it for the last paragraph which is absolutely heartbreakingly gorgeous. But I did find it unsatisfying at times.
I'd probably read it again to get a better understanding of it.
April 30, 2015
There will never be words to adequately describe this masterpiece. In these pages, Knox explores humanity, the idea of originality, of the influence of the divine. And of course she writes of love, loving because of, not in spite of. In my opinion, this is a very original piece, a novel idea. Hundreds if not thousands have toyed with the influence of angels on humans, though few have dipped their toes into the influence humans have on angels.
January 5, 2018
This book had me in tears. Knox has a wonderful way of carving words and phrases to create such beautiful imagery and meaning, I think this book is going to stay with me for a while.
Read
April 5, 2023you know in cartoons when the character gets rolled over by a boulder and theyre utterly flattened. thats how this book made me feel
November 13, 2023
i can see why this was popular on tumblr back in the day /derogatory
June 26, 2016
Could we only this once make an exception? Only once? I tell you to read this book and you just do it?
Because the book left me rather speechless, you see? So please, don’t expect this review to be very eloquent. I fear it might be a little unsubstantial.
I wish I could talk about The Vintner’s Luck with wisdom and insights because I feel like this is what it deserves, but, annoyingly, I find myself lacking. So I’ll be focusing on feelz instead…
The Vintner’s Luck is beautiful and sad. It’s holding unto your heart and feels wonderful and terrible at the same time:
This book touched me deeply and while the feeling of wonder and amazement was predominant, I think it also hung heavy over my head.
Sobran and his angel Xas meet every year, and I thought this allowed for some very interesting and unique pacing. We’re following Sobran’s whole adult life and partly that of the people he knows and loves.
Sobran’s and Xas’s relationship goes through many phases and not all of them are pleasant but my fascination and caring always won over the negative and the heart-break.
What I think is very fascinating is that we find many modern and quite forward themes in this book that is set in France in the first half of the 19th century. Although still befitting the time in its depiction of women, relationships, and religion, for example, I love that the book surpasses conventions and expectations. Basically, I think that there is a lot of depth and invention to all of these aspects. The book takes these themes and creates something new and challenging – even to us today – by not letting itself be put into boxes.
There’s a sequel to this book that I’m really looking forward to. Elizabeth Knox is a new to me author and I’ll make sure to look into what else she has written. The Vintner’s Luck for one goes straight to my favourite shelf and I highly recommend it.
_________________________
Genre: paranormal historical fiction
Tags: angel, wine, spanning a whole life
Rating: 5 stars, favourites 2016
Notes: Read sequel with Emma from H&H
Blog: Review for Just Love Romance
Because the book left me rather speechless, you see? So please, don’t expect this review to be very eloquent. I fear it might be a little unsubstantial.
I wish I could talk about The Vintner’s Luck with wisdom and insights because I feel like this is what it deserves, but, annoyingly, I find myself lacking. So I’ll be focusing on feelz instead…
The Vintner’s Luck is beautiful and sad. It’s holding unto your heart and feels wonderful and terrible at the same time:
I had to give myself up to you for your lifetime. What is faith when you feel you’ve lost something forever? I had to have you – someone I could lose forever.
This book touched me deeply and while the feeling of wonder and amazement was predominant, I think it also hung heavy over my head.
Sobran and his angel Xas meet every year, and I thought this allowed for some very interesting and unique pacing. We’re following Sobran’s whole adult life and partly that of the people he knows and loves.
‘Plant a pepper tree. It should be big enough within twenty years to set a table under – all summer for your family, and for us, on our one night.’
Sobran’s and Xas’s relationship goes through many phases and not all of them are pleasant but my fascination and caring always won over the negative and the heart-break.
What I think is very fascinating is that we find many modern and quite forward themes in this book that is set in France in the first half of the 19th century. Although still befitting the time in its depiction of women, relationships, and religion, for example, I love that the book surpasses conventions and expectations. Basically, I think that there is a lot of depth and invention to all of these aspects. The book takes these themes and creates something new and challenging – even to us today – by not letting itself be put into boxes.
There’s a sequel to this book that I’m really looking forward to. Elizabeth Knox is a new to me author and I’ll make sure to look into what else she has written. The Vintner’s Luck for one goes straight to my favourite shelf and I highly recommend it.
_________________________
Genre: paranormal historical fiction
Tags: angel, wine, spanning a whole life
Rating: 5 stars, favourites 2016
Notes: Read sequel with Emma from H&H
Blog: Review for Just Love Romance
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