The Choir Invisible

by James Lane Allen

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

About the author

James Lane Allen was an American novelist and short story writer whose work often depicted the culture and dialects of his native Kentucky. His work is characteristic of the late-19th century local color era, when writers sought to capture the vernacular in their fiction. Allen has been described as "Kentucky's first important novelist."

Reviews

[Bob Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book at 26 during my first year of teaching in a small town in northern Wisconsin. It seemed fitting to reread it during my first year of retirement. I believe I saw somewhere that this book was one of the most popular back in the 1890s when it first went into print. It stuck with me all these years but the story line had become clouded in my mind. It was wonderful to delve back into it to see what had captured my imagination all those years ago.
A philosophical book about life's dreams from a young teacher's perspective and then later his thoughts as his life has run much of its course.
From a social justice lens it is flawed as it praises land ripped away from Native Americans and includes instances of slavery.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hated this book for the first 300 pages, too slow, too corny, too much a bore. Then the speed took off with the last 50 pages being great. they deserve 5 stars. I plan to look for more books from Mr. Allen.

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book that was a best seller over a hundred years ago - nothing earth-shattering, but still enjoyable.

[Emily Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: All of these ratings are based on a 1-10 scale, 10 being the best.

Writing Quality: 6
This piece of writing displays two extremes: either the sentences are boring/confusing, or they are magically poetic. When in the middle, they veer toward the poetic, and so I chose a six to balance it all out.

Pace: 5
This was, for the most part, linear, but that made the occasional time jumps and backwards jumps all the more confusing. Yet it didn't really linger - after an encounter with Amy, BAM John is attacked by a cougar. . I appreciated that.

Plot Development: 6
Not a complicated plot, which made it easy to follow. However, in discussing things so outright, I thought there was more to the sneaky plot - the implications, etc. For example: I thought two characters were dead, but then I encountered them ten pages later with great confusion.

Characters: 5
Not bad here as far as main characters go. John and Amy's motivation were both quite clear, and Jessica was quite an interesting character. But I felt I knew nothing about the minor characters, and in fact I would mix them up on occasion. So no more than a five for this one.

Enjoyability: 4
I didn't like this book. But I appreciated the morality it contained, and, I will admit, I liked the poetic philosophical passages. It's the kind of book that's better in hindsight, but is none too pleasant to read.

Insightfulness: 5
Meh. Be cautious, be chaste, just be good in general is the message. That's nothing new to me. But the history lesson about Kentucky, and those awkward years between warring Indians and thriving civilization were new to me. I liked that.

Ease of Reading: 2
I often had to reread passages to understand what was going on. And, as I mentioned earlier, I often interpreted events that were not supposed to be interpreted. This book leaves a little too much wiggle room, making it difficult to read.


All this averages to a 4.71/10, making it a 2.4/5, making it a two-star book.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't remember how I acquired this book, whether it was from a used book store or from E-Bay, but my copy is from 1897. I picked it up mostly because it was cheap and it was in the original publication year and written by one of Kentucky's first authors. Apparently this book was very popular in 1897, as it was published at least 8 times in that year alone. However, I don't feel that the story is particularly enduring. The plot line is very predictable and at times ridiculously dramatic. The book reads like an episode of a popular soap opera (panther attacks, brawls, unrequited love). It revolves around the schoolmaster, John Gray, who falls in love with a shallow tease (Amy). He wants to marry Amy but she marries someone else and he falls into a deep depression and ends up getting close to Amy's aunt, Jessica. Jessica is married so it becomes a forbidden love and John moves to VA to make a new life. Suddenly, Jessica's husband dies and she writes to John but he has already married and started a family of his own. He never tells her until the end of the book (in a letter, no less) that he loves her. I wanted to chuck this book out of the window when I finished it. Also, the book was set in Lexington, KY in 1795 but the descriptions of pioneer life and Indian attacks seemed very unrealistic to me. I really don't think that James Lane Allen used anything more than his imagination of what life would have been like 100 years before him. There were a few good laughs, though:

"He looked with eyes more full of pity than usual at bleary-eyed, delicate little Jennie, as to whom he could never tell whether it was the multiplication-table that made her deathly sick, or sickness that kept her from multiplying."

"...she ended by saying that the worst thing that could ever befall a woman was to marry an unmanly man."

[VeeDawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the same author who wrote Kentucky Cardinal--one of my all time favorites. He has a distinctive "old-fashioned" way about him. This book was published in 1897 and was evidently quite popular in its time. It is the story of the early Kentucky settlers who made all we have today possible. (I guess these great men and women are the "choir invisible" looking down on us today.) I've never been to Kentucky, but Allen's descriptions show his great love for the state and its people. This is a romance from an earlier time when honor and integrity we more important than having everything you want. I rather liked its old-fashioned air.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book to date. Open it to any page and it will grab you.