In 1912, rational Fred Fairly, one of Cambridge's best and brightest, crashes his bike and wakes up in bed with a stranger - fellow casualty Daisy ...
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Jan 07, 2009
Jude
rated it: 
Within the last year i've developed the nasty habit of doing two things in bed i never had before: eating and watching television. i know. Disgusting to read, debilitating to experience - as these can only be called habits by the kindest or least caring minds and are in fact addictions of the first order. They do only harm and as the compulsion becomes and less manageable, so the satisfactions become more and more illusory.
If i were a dog or some other trainable entity, the idea would be More...
If i were a dog or some other trainable entity, the idea would be More...
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Sep 17, 2011
Lisa
rated it: 
Penelope Fitzgerald wrote such rare small gems,and there just are not enough of them, so I spread them out. This time I chose The Gate of Angels, a novel set in turn of the century Cambridge. The plot is slender,a simple love story,but it is the comic backdrop of a pre-war Cambridge with its silly clubs, long worn out traditions and eccentric personalities that makes this book something to cherish. Fred Fairly's college is having a remarkably difficult time crossing the bridge from the 19th to t
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Jan 06, 2011
Supriya
rated it:
The more you read Fitzgerald the more her habits become apparent: class anxieties, differences between the interplay of intelligence and education - although I've never yet read a character of hers for whom either is mutually exclusive - a stylistic brevity that like Daisy Saunders, this novel's heroine, comes down to the fact that quarrelling is a luxury reserved for those who can afford the time. The construction of the novel as short story, with the big final OH SNAP moment coming in three li
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Apr 12, 2010
Adam
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Though they are never referenced (that I remember) there is a trace of Dante and John Donne about this novel, set in the Cambridge of 1912. Fred Fairly, a rector’s son, has recently renounced religious faith in favor of the natural sciences and a career at St. Angelicus College. One day he is involved in a serious road accident with another cyclist and a horse-drawn farm cart. While recovering from the accident he meets the other cyclist, Daisy Saunders, for a mere half hour and falls hopeles
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Dec 29, 2009
Rose
rated it:
The title gave me pause.
But there were no supernatural chicks, so it was okay. This was my favorite of my Fitzgerald binge. Really good. Funny. Forster-ish.
Here's a quote:
"When the whole of the men's ward had been persuaded to face the morning, the patients washed, wounds dressed, the windows facing the world open an inch and a half, those away from the wind open six inches, all of them two inches less than in the night, when the gas jets were burning, th More...
But there were no supernatural chicks, so it was okay. This was my favorite of my Fitzgerald binge. Really good. Funny. Forster-ish.
Here's a quote:
"When the whole of the men's ward had been persuaded to face the morning, the patients washed, wounds dressed, the windows facing the world open an inch and a half, those away from the wind open six inches, all of them two inches less than in the night, when the gas jets were burning, th More...
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Sep 10, 2009
Gail
rated it: 
I didn't get this book at all. I even had to have the ending explained to me because it seemed like the book I had was a misprint and I thought the book got cut off before the story was finished!
Fred Fairly and Daisy Saunders are the main characters in this love affair/novel....Fred is a Cambridge student questioning faith and in search of science and "truths". Daisy is a nurse who seems to have lots of bad luck but is apparently very attractive because men are always fal More...
Fred Fairly and Daisy Saunders are the main characters in this love affair/novel....Fred is a Cambridge student questioning faith and in search of science and "truths". Daisy is a nurse who seems to have lots of bad luck but is apparently very attractive because men are always fal More...
Dec 09, 2008
Michael
rated it:
Loaned to me by my friend, Serena Sinclair Lesley, former fashion editor of the Daily Telegraph, "The Gate of Angels" is a mere 167 pages. It is a gem. Tells two stories: Fred Fairly, a junior fellow at the staid, all-male Cambridge college of St. Angelicus ("Angels")and Daisy Saunders, a trainee nurse with undeniable chutzpah. It takes place at the turn of the 20th century. Fred is a scientist and has thrown over the religion of his father, a vicar. Daisy is a no-nonsense wo
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Mar 17, 2011
Tim
rated it:
A simple and elegant book, with attractive characters and real ideas. In 1912 Cambridge, Fred Fairly coasts along as a college junior fellow, following science and believing in reason. A bicycle accident propels Daisy, a failed nurse of the working class and passing wonder and faith, into his life. Fitzgerald focuses on the lives of each, her chapters short vignettes. Fred is handled with gentle humor, almost in the manner of academic farce, while Daisy's life follows more tragic paths. But
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Jun 18, 2011
I was going to say that this was a love story, but then I remembered that only one of the protagonists is in love with the other. This is, I find, the more usual state of affairs. However this is a short, witty story with a happy ending set in Cambridge and London at the beginning of the 20th century.
Cambridge and London are not to be understood as high falutin'. This is an archaic Cambridge with male only colleges with celibate staff at the birth of modern physics and a London, well More...
Cambridge and London are not to be understood as high falutin'. This is an archaic Cambridge with male only colleges with celibate staff at the birth of modern physics and a London, well More...
Feb 11, 2012
Cheyenne
rated it: 
I don't get this. I really just don't "get" it. I've read the words and they've flown over my head. To be fair, it's my by-the-bed book, and I've been too tired to read much in bed lately, so when I do, I'm not really taking it in. On the surface, it should be a book I love: it was a Booker nomination in 1990, it's well written, it has surreal elements, and there's a physicist who realized he's an atheist. I finished it, but I still can't tell you what it was really about.
The More...
The More...
Apr 20, 2008
Marissa
rated it:
The Gate of Angels follows the lives of Fred Fairly, Junior Fellow at a fictional Cambridge college, and Daisy Saunders, by turns nurse probationer, house maid, and ward maid. Predictably the lives of Fred and Daisy intersect by accident during a bike accident on a country road. The novel centers around the cause and effect of the accident.
Although one of the more skeptical members of my Women Fiction Writers class likened it to a Harlequin doctor-nurse romance (and she's right,in a More...
Although one of the more skeptical members of my Women Fiction Writers class likened it to a Harlequin doctor-nurse romance (and she's right,in a More...
Sep 02, 2010
Julie
rated it:
I've read a review that says nothing happens in this novella, but I strongly disagree. It packs a punch taking on the moribund Edwardian society as epitomised by a Cambridge college and a London hospital. The feminist polemic doesn't appear explicitly but it's all the more powerful for that. I love the understated comedy. Daisy is a breath of fresh air wherever she goes. I also loved the open ending.
Sep 22, 2011
Alyssa
rated it:
Hmm, quite interesting. The ending wasn't really an ending and I wasn't totally a fan of that sort of abrupt end of the book just when a plot was actually starting to develop. Part I was such a bore, but part II mostly made up for that. Overall average, worth reading once through.
Dec 01, 2009
Bonnie
rated it:
A great story. A window into the world of the early 1900's. Love, love her wit... Mrs Wrayburn wished to marry a husband who was not home for luncheon. Yes, yes I understand that.
Poor Fred is questioning everything at the same time he meets Daisy.
Poor Fred is questioning everything at the same time he meets Daisy.
Oct 25, 2011
Paul
rated it:
This is my second Penelope Fitzgerald book (the first was Human Voices), and while it wasn't quite as engaging as Human Voices, she has a wonderful light touch and a quiet intelligence that makes me want to read more of her stuff.
Dec 22, 2011
Taylor
rated it:
It felt, and still feels, like a dream. An effect of her sharp, yet drifting details, and of the 6 months I spent in England as a child, causing me to illustrate her scenes with my too-misty memories.
Dec 10, 2011
Saturday afternoon
Judging from remarks by reviewers that I trust, this doesn't seem to be for me at this moment.
Mar 16, 2008
Ali
rated it:
I really enjoyed this gentle touching novel. Beautifully written, this is a story about the realtionship which starts to develop between two seemingly very different people. Fred Fairly is a young man with a scientific way at looking at everything, but when after a bizarre bicycle accident he wakes up in someone else's apre room alongside a young woman he has never met before, his reaction to her is pretty instant, but again he does tend to over think everything. Both Fred and Daisy are engaing
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Jul 01, 2011
Carolyn (in SC) C234D
rated it:
I've loved Penelope Fitzgerald's novels in the past. This is not my favorite, but I liked it. The author creates wonderful atmosphere and engaging characters.
Jul 29, 2010
Fitzgerald has a talent for intimating a lot--full-fleshed characters, an atmosphere, a world--through a sparing use of words.
Nov 24, 2010
Laura
rated it:
Not so good as I expected. From the scientific point of view, a disaster, Dame Fitzgerald didn't find the right point in my humble opinion.
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Mar 24, 2011
Jim
rated it:
Not much to say here. I guess I just don't find any humor in the descriptions of British gentleman hanging out in social clubs and waxing poetic. I enjoyed quite a bit more the story of Daisy.
A simple love tale in an old English style.
A simple love tale in an old English style.
Sep 23, 2011
Teresa
rated it:
Amazing writer, gloriously funny and inspiring. (this edition is the 2004 paperback)
Mar 31, 2010
reed
rated it:
I never felt that I was really grasping what went on in this book. Didn't get very far.
