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Air and Angels
Air And Angels Hill, Susan
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
19 people are currently reading
235 people want to read
About the author
Susan Hill
139 books2,267 followersSusan Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1942. Her hometown was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and some short stories especially "Cockles and Mussels".
She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became interested in theatre and literature. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. Hill states that she attended a girls’ grammar school, Barr's Hill. Her fellow pupils included Jennifer Page, the first Chief Executive of the Millennium Dome. At Barrs Hill she took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King's College London. By this time she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. The novel was criticised by The Daily Mail for its sexual content, with the suggestion that writing in this style was unsuitable for a "schoolgirl".
Her next novel Gentleman and Ladies was published in 1968. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I'm the King of the Castle, The Albatross and other stories, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 1968 and 1974.
In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year.
Librarian's Note: There is more than one author by this name.
She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became interested in theatre and literature. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. Hill states that she attended a girls’ grammar school, Barr's Hill. Her fellow pupils included Jennifer Page, the first Chief Executive of the Millennium Dome. At Barrs Hill she took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King's College London. By this time she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. The novel was criticised by The Daily Mail for its sexual content, with the suggestion that writing in this style was unsuitable for a "schoolgirl".
Her next novel Gentleman and Ladies was published in 1968. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I'm the King of the Castle, The Albatross and other stories, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 1968 and 1974.
In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year.
Librarian's Note: There is more than one author by this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
September 15, 2013
Ah, lovely book - I'd forgotten how beautiful Hill's prose is:
'And looking up, Kitty saw love, and knew it at once for what it was, though she had never seen it in this way before. And, for a second only, she was puzzled and afraid. But then what she felt was simply adult, fully grown up in that moment, as if she had crossed a bridge or walked through some door and had gained all the wisdom and the knowledge of the universe of the human heart, and could never now go back'
READ it!
'And looking up, Kitty saw love, and knew it at once for what it was, though she had never seen it in this way before. And, for a second only, she was puzzled and afraid. But then what she felt was simply adult, fully grown up in that moment, as if she had crossed a bridge or walked through some door and had gained all the wisdom and the knowledge of the universe of the human heart, and could never now go back'
READ it!
April 15, 2017
Susan Hill went to my school, although long before me, so I've always had an interest in her and been impressed by the breadth and variety of her writing. Set in the late 19th or early 20th century, this novel recounts with great sensitivity and beauty a bachelor academic's obsession with a young girl, which leads to his 'misconduct' and downfall, and leaves us with a final question mark about the fate of the girl. Haunting and evocative with her usual chilling sense of doom-laden landscape, as well as ability to evoke an era.
May 4, 2009
Susan Hill doing what she does best, weaving a complicated tapestry of human emotions. Set mainly in Cambridge and the beautifully evoked Fens it's hard to decide which time period this is set in but the characters are as fully defined as ever.
November 17, 2023
A strange and melancholic story, very well written.
January 24, 2014
It took me a little while to get into this book as it is slow-paced but it is beautifully written and I would recommend.
October 24, 2021
Beautiful, beautiful prose. Makes all seem right with the world (which is weird considering the subject matter.) I want to read more of this author.
July 14, 2018
This book has a nice dreamy quality about it, but it doesn't really get going either in plot or in some moral-philosophical-social way. It's pretty good, but ultimately kind of blah.
This blandness stems from the plot and characters that the author has created. Although I'm sure she intentionally chose not to sensationalize anything, she might have done more exploring of the psychological terrain than she did. There are authors who are great at saying little and having it mean a lot, but she isn't quite up to the task.
It's not clear when the book takes place, but it seems not to have cars in it, but does have train travel. So that puts it in the last half of the 19th century, a time when England was at its mightiest, and that wealth enabled a lot of people to spend privileged lives as thinkers, collectors, poets, and so on. In this book, the privileged one is a professor at Cambridge, who is so revered that he is asked to be the Master of a College. He's unmarried and lives with his spinster sister, who has adored him and waited on him hand-and-foot since they were children (she's 9 years younger).
This professor, Mr. Cavendish, seems on the surface to have an ideal life. Students and fellow teachers/administrators look up to him. He's an expert on birds and is writing authoritative studies of them. He is satisfied with the path he has chosen. But.... there's something missing. He's passive, never been in love, doesn't care much for church though he goes regularly, seems to only have distant friendships. He cares about his bird studies, and that's it.
He doesn't even seem to know what he's missing until he has a momentary glimpse of a 15-year-old girl on a bridge in Cambridge. He falls hopelessly in love, and it turns out he gets to meet her because she's come to England from India to live with her aunt, who is a friend of the professor's sister. Seeing this girl -- her bird-like grace and innocence -- raises all sorts of feelings in the professor, and his life unravels.
But there are subtleties to this book. Don't expect a standard-issue romance. That's what makes this literature, rather than a trash novel. The weakness is that there's no good reason for the professor to fall for this girl -- a point made clear by the author. And so it's hard to see behind the events to what's going on inside his mind and heart, nor that of his sister, who is saddened by both the scandal and her brother's obvious decline in interest in his life's activities.
As a final note, I'll remark that I'm American. So there might be some level of reference that a person more familiar with England and Cambridge would find compelling, but which escaped me. Same with the descriptions of India as experienced by British rulers, which I found illuminating and well done without romanticism (a lot of discussion of the boredom of parties, the oppressive heat, the fear of dark-skinned servants).
This blandness stems from the plot and characters that the author has created. Although I'm sure she intentionally chose not to sensationalize anything, she might have done more exploring of the psychological terrain than she did. There are authors who are great at saying little and having it mean a lot, but she isn't quite up to the task.
It's not clear when the book takes place, but it seems not to have cars in it, but does have train travel. So that puts it in the last half of the 19th century, a time when England was at its mightiest, and that wealth enabled a lot of people to spend privileged lives as thinkers, collectors, poets, and so on. In this book, the privileged one is a professor at Cambridge, who is so revered that he is asked to be the Master of a College. He's unmarried and lives with his spinster sister, who has adored him and waited on him hand-and-foot since they were children (she's 9 years younger).
This professor, Mr. Cavendish, seems on the surface to have an ideal life. Students and fellow teachers/administrators look up to him. He's an expert on birds and is writing authoritative studies of them. He is satisfied with the path he has chosen. But.... there's something missing. He's passive, never been in love, doesn't care much for church though he goes regularly, seems to only have distant friendships. He cares about his bird studies, and that's it.
He doesn't even seem to know what he's missing until he has a momentary glimpse of a 15-year-old girl on a bridge in Cambridge. He falls hopelessly in love, and it turns out he gets to meet her because she's come to England from India to live with her aunt, who is a friend of the professor's sister. Seeing this girl -- her bird-like grace and innocence -- raises all sorts of feelings in the professor, and his life unravels.
But there are subtleties to this book. Don't expect a standard-issue romance. That's what makes this literature, rather than a trash novel. The weakness is that there's no good reason for the professor to fall for this girl -- a point made clear by the author. And so it's hard to see behind the events to what's going on inside his mind and heart, nor that of his sister, who is saddened by both the scandal and her brother's obvious decline in interest in his life's activities.
As a final note, I'll remark that I'm American. So there might be some level of reference that a person more familiar with England and Cambridge would find compelling, but which escaped me. Same with the descriptions of India as experienced by British rulers, which I found illuminating and well done without romanticism (a lot of discussion of the boredom of parties, the oppressive heat, the fear of dark-skinned servants).
November 4, 2021
This is a novel, about Thomas Cavendish, a dean at a Cambridge College, who is in his 50's, very bookish and wrapped up in his work. He loves birds and enjoys his solo trips to the Norfolk coast to do his birdwatching, His unmarried sister lives with him and entertains ideas of him marrying one of her friends. Out of the blue he is offered the job of master of the college, a job for which he is expected to be married. He is struggling to decide what's best, never really having been very ambitious, and becoming more aware of how his choice will impact on those around him. While he is procrastinating about this decision, he unexpectedly and shockingly falls in love with a teenage girl. This overtakes his entire life and sets in motion a train of events that end tragically. The novel unwinds very gradually, and moves between Cambridge, India and Norfolk. I loved the story and the slow speed at which it revealed itself, but I didn't like the way the story dotted about between people and locations so frequently (almost from paragraph to paragraph), especially in the beginning, that it put me off to some extent. But the story is quite fascinating.
July 30, 2019
A wonderful book from Susan Hill and what a complete surprise. This was written some years ago and I came across it by accident but very pleased that I did. The novel charts the lives of many characters both in the scholarly landscapes of Cambridge but also of a Colonial India. Always an admirer of Hill and the versatility of her writing this book was so lyrical and evocative of time and place. It felt like I was reading a work by a completely different author maybe an A S Byatt or more currently Sarah Perry and the very poetic writings of Jon McGregor. It is a book of sadness, of disappointments in life and unrealised emotions in a suppressed society affecting both the men and women in the narrative with ultimately tragic consequences. This novel from Hill has left a lasting impression on me and endorsed my opinion that she is somewhat underrated as a writer probably because of her concentration on more mainstream works in the ghost story and detective genres.
February 24, 2024
This book reads almost academic, like something to be assigned in school, and takes a minute to get used to the prose. I can see how my younger self would have been bored with the pacing and language, but as an adult, I agree with others that the writing is poetic. The characters are well developed, and the story has enough intrigue to continue to the end. The taboo nature of it's main story is dealt with in a respectful way, and much is left to the judgement of the reader. More of a 3.5 but i rounded up.
October 4, 2019
H'mmm
Beautifully written but not earth shattering. Very slow, a bit predictable, and more than slightly creepy, if I'm honest, and, sadly, not in a ghostly way. Characterisation, I thought, was a bit inconsistent at times. Occasionally gripping (I read it in a sitting) but mainly meandering and never became the novel I hoped it would. Started to lose interest towards the end. No twist or startling denouement.
Beautifully written but not earth shattering. Very slow, a bit predictable, and more than slightly creepy, if I'm honest, and, sadly, not in a ghostly way. Characterisation, I thought, was a bit inconsistent at times. Occasionally gripping (I read it in a sitting) but mainly meandering and never became the novel I hoped it would. Started to lose interest towards the end. No twist or startling denouement.
May 9, 2020
Proper powerful slow burner, this one. Imagine a book which spent a hundred pages on the construction of the titanic and a hundred on the calving of an enormous iceberg and then fifty pages on their collision and you have a bit of a sense of how this book is structured. Yes not much happens for a long time, but the prose is vivid without ever being overwrought and the characters are all sympathetic and flawed. What a brilliant writer, what a superb book.
August 6, 2020
4* for the writing but the novel was so sad, dealing with loss , false hopes and shattered dreams. Apparently the author was not in a good place when she wrote this. It takes place between India and Oxford and the heat and exotic lifestyle is contrasted with conventional (to me) England. Some excellent descriptions of nature.
April 3, 2021
I listened to this as I was sewing, and the reader was ok, but not brilliant. I did like the plot notion of a 55 year old man becoming totally infatuated, or loving, a 15 year old girl but being so innocent, despite his education and position in society. I'm probably not expressing this well - this is not a Lolita or My Dark Vanessa, so it does have a certain charm.
November 12, 2024
An academic whose life has been settled in his career, sees a young girl and forms a sudden obsession. Is there any chance that this will not end in disaster? Set back in an earlier era, a sensitively-told tale worth reading.
July 14, 2017
Well written but it did not engage me. It seriously overdid some themes (rain and cats) without adding much substance.
November 10, 2019
Absolutely loved this book. The writing is like a beautiful poem...
I have read other reviews saying there was no reason for her to fall for her like he did...
but I feel he was a man who discovered a cup of water in his desert.. beautiful book.
Read it guys! x
I have read other reviews saying there was no reason for her to fall for her like he did...
but I feel he was a man who discovered a cup of water in his desert.. beautiful book.
Read it guys! x
June 16, 2020
It was so boring ngl, 276 pages of I hate it here
December 29, 2021
Couldn’t even finish this book . Didn’t get my attention at all and very disjointed . Totally boring
July 19, 2022
Susan Hill is such a superb writer and never disappoints but I did find it confronting
November 3, 2024
I feel it is weak both as a plot driven novel and as a charactor driven one. Story shifts from charactor to charactor so often, none of them are explored deep enough.
November 12, 2024
Gentle love story but not one of my favourites of Susan Hill.
April 21, 2025
3 stars
July 23, 2023
I loved reading Susan Hill's beautiful, poetic, evocative writing. Having read only one other of her books - "In the Springtime of the Year" - I can only suppose that most of her writing is sorrowful and bitter-sweet; and deals with deeply felt emotions.
It was not until India was introduced into the story that I realised that the book was set in the early part of the 20th Century. I enjoyed how t she swung back and forth between India and England.
I will seize the opportunity to read more by Susan Hill.
It was not until India was introduced into the story that I realised that the book was set in the early part of the 20th Century. I enjoyed how t she swung back and forth between India and England.
I will seize the opportunity to read more by Susan Hill.
December 22, 2024
I have really enjoyed this. The story is what many might call slow but it's carefully paced with gorgeous unfussy description and careful characterisation. There is time to savour the atmosphere and who these people are trying to be.
December 8, 2017
FIVE GREAT BIG MASSIVE GOLD STARS.
There, I've said it, there's my review.
Like most bibliophiles, I came across Susan Hill when I read, The Woman in Black, (which is in my top ten books of all time by the way), and then, I read, Mrs De Winter, Susan Hill's sequence to Daphne Du Maurier's, Rebecca, and it was good, not as good as, The Woman in Black, but good all the same. Then, out of nowhere - well, out of a bag of books my brother no longer wanted - I found this, Air and Angels.
WOW!
This book is about as close to poetry as any novel I have read. The words just run across the page like smooth flowing water, drip from the tongue like silk; simply put, I have never read a book so exquisite.
In Cambridge, (famous University city), we have the collage Dean, Thomas Cavendish, his sister, Georgiana, her friend, Florence, (who quite fancies the Dean), and in India, we have Kitty, Florence's cousin, her parents, Lewis and Eleanor, their friends, one of which travels back to England with Kitty in tow, and many more besides.
Simple descriptions provide the reader with all he or she needs to feel, hot in India, cold in Cambridge and isolated in the broads of Norfolk.
I felt so passionate about the brilliance of this book, that I started annotating certain passages, (for people who know me, this will be hard to grasp, for I treat the cheapest and least loved of my books with the greatest respect), and before long I was underlining on almost every page.
I've never done this on my blog before, but because I love this book so much, I'm going to share some of it with you:
In corners and cracks, spiders' webs, and the nests of tiny mice. And when she touched a curtain to draw it back, the faded fabric fell apart, soft as a cloud of powder in her hand.
And no one sees her, no one is aware, except perhaps one man, returning late, glimpses a figure, running before the wind, or a nursemaid, up to a restless child, and, glancing between the curtains, down into the night streets.
But the night drew on, and death lingered outside the door . . .
He felt unreal, bodiless. He felt wonder. Astonishment. Pure, vibrant joy. No dread, no fear, no bewilderment now, but acceptance, as of some miraculous gift. And, looking across at Kitty, love.
So there you have it; a little taster for you. I hope you like what I’ve chosen and that it inspires you to get a copy; you will not be disappointed.
There, I've said it, there's my review.
Like most bibliophiles, I came across Susan Hill when I read, The Woman in Black, (which is in my top ten books of all time by the way), and then, I read, Mrs De Winter, Susan Hill's sequence to Daphne Du Maurier's, Rebecca, and it was good, not as good as, The Woman in Black, but good all the same. Then, out of nowhere - well, out of a bag of books my brother no longer wanted - I found this, Air and Angels.
WOW!
This book is about as close to poetry as any novel I have read. The words just run across the page like smooth flowing water, drip from the tongue like silk; simply put, I have never read a book so exquisite.
In Cambridge, (famous University city), we have the collage Dean, Thomas Cavendish, his sister, Georgiana, her friend, Florence, (who quite fancies the Dean), and in India, we have Kitty, Florence's cousin, her parents, Lewis and Eleanor, their friends, one of which travels back to England with Kitty in tow, and many more besides.
Simple descriptions provide the reader with all he or she needs to feel, hot in India, cold in Cambridge and isolated in the broads of Norfolk.
I felt so passionate about the brilliance of this book, that I started annotating certain passages, (for people who know me, this will be hard to grasp, for I treat the cheapest and least loved of my books with the greatest respect), and before long I was underlining on almost every page.
I've never done this on my blog before, but because I love this book so much, I'm going to share some of it with you:
In corners and cracks, spiders' webs, and the nests of tiny mice. And when she touched a curtain to draw it back, the faded fabric fell apart, soft as a cloud of powder in her hand.
And no one sees her, no one is aware, except perhaps one man, returning late, glimpses a figure, running before the wind, or a nursemaid, up to a restless child, and, glancing between the curtains, down into the night streets.
But the night drew on, and death lingered outside the door . . .
He felt unreal, bodiless. He felt wonder. Astonishment. Pure, vibrant joy. No dread, no fear, no bewilderment now, but acceptance, as of some miraculous gift. And, looking across at Kitty, love.
So there you have it; a little taster for you. I hope you like what I’ve chosen and that it inspires you to get a copy; you will not be disappointed.
January 27, 2022
A stylish and suffocating story of an unusual and remarkable love affair that springs up unexpectedly between a Cambridge Don and a girl just arrived from India.
Thomas Cavendish is fifty-four, and celibate. He lives with his devoted sister and is a keen ornithologist. Their lives are comfortable, but dull. Thomas is expected to take over as Master of his college. Florence, the sister's friend, is determined to make Thomas marry her, but he doesn't even like her much.
Kitty is fifteen, and about to leave India for England. Her parents are fretting, but she wants a good education. So they send her to Florence, the cousin in Cambridge.
The novel explores the randomness of love, how it can destroy the peace and calm of an ordinary life, and how it strikes in the most unexpected places. Thomas has never loved, yet love is all around him, unnoticed. His sister adores him, Florence loves him, but it takes a fifteen year old girl to stir his heart.
The peripheral characters are interesting, too. The old missionary that Kitty meets on the boat to England, Miss Lovelady, changes Kitty forever in a way her parents could not. Florence's mother, old and canny, sees exactly what is going on. She and Kitty form a bond of understanding she cannot share with her own daughter.
It is a lovely book, capturing the claustrophobic lives that women were expected to lead in the early part of this Century. Educated women are "bluestockings" and thought odd; as women cyclists begin to emerge on the streets of Cambridge the sight is met with derision from Thomas and his contemporaries. Tea is taken, hats are worn, and love sneaks up and grips Thomas Cavendish and destroys him.
Recommended read.
Thomas Cavendish is fifty-four, and celibate. He lives with his devoted sister and is a keen ornithologist. Their lives are comfortable, but dull. Thomas is expected to take over as Master of his college. Florence, the sister's friend, is determined to make Thomas marry her, but he doesn't even like her much.
Kitty is fifteen, and about to leave India for England. Her parents are fretting, but she wants a good education. So they send her to Florence, the cousin in Cambridge.
The novel explores the randomness of love, how it can destroy the peace and calm of an ordinary life, and how it strikes in the most unexpected places. Thomas has never loved, yet love is all around him, unnoticed. His sister adores him, Florence loves him, but it takes a fifteen year old girl to stir his heart.
The peripheral characters are interesting, too. The old missionary that Kitty meets on the boat to England, Miss Lovelady, changes Kitty forever in a way her parents could not. Florence's mother, old and canny, sees exactly what is going on. She and Kitty form a bond of understanding she cannot share with her own daughter.
It is a lovely book, capturing the claustrophobic lives that women were expected to lead in the early part of this Century. Educated women are "bluestockings" and thought odd; as women cyclists begin to emerge on the streets of Cambridge the sight is met with derision from Thomas and his contemporaries. Tea is taken, hats are worn, and love sneaks up and grips Thomas Cavendish and destroys him.
Recommended read.
January 27, 2013
Que Susan Hill es una buena escritora es algo que está más allá de toda duda; no hay más que ver lo que es capaz de hacer en esta novela en términos de atmósfera narrativa, a tal punto que bien pudiera haber sido escrita en la propia época de los sucesos que en ella se relatan, en lugar de hace veinte (22) años.
Pero, al margen de eso, ésta es una historia, para mi gusto, en exceso intimista y morosa en su ritmo. De hecho, el encuentro que supuestamente constituye su núcleo central no tiene lugar hasta transcurridos casi 2/3 de la narración y, llegados a ese punto, tampoco la acción es que cobre mucha agilidad.
Lo dicho: un buen ejercicio literario en términos formales, pero excesivamente sutil y repleto de digresiones.
Pero, al margen de eso, ésta es una historia, para mi gusto, en exceso intimista y morosa en su ritmo. De hecho, el encuentro que supuestamente constituye su núcleo central no tiene lugar hasta transcurridos casi 2/3 de la narración y, llegados a ese punto, tampoco la acción es que cobre mucha agilidad.
Lo dicho: un buen ejercicio literario en términos formales, pero excesivamente sutil y repleto de digresiones.
July 17, 2016
I have read other Susan Hill books and enjoyed them. I started this and could not get into it and so it was thrown to the wall.
Back Cover Blurb:
Celibate, irreproachable and distinguised, Thomas Cavendish is in his mid-fifties and the obvious man to become Master of his college. But, walking by the river, Thomas sees a young girl standing on the bridge. It is an apocalyptic vision, one that alters Thomas's life irrevocably and tragically, but with the beauty and joy of a love never previously imagined.
Back Cover Blurb:
Celibate, irreproachable and distinguised, Thomas Cavendish is in his mid-fifties and the obvious man to become Master of his college. But, walking by the river, Thomas sees a young girl standing on the bridge. It is an apocalyptic vision, one that alters Thomas's life irrevocably and tragically, but with the beauty and joy of a love never previously imagined.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews