Home Books Angels & Saints: With a Guide to the Illustration…

Angels & Saints: With a Guide to the Illustrations by Mary Wellesley

Angels & Saints: With a Guide to the Illustrations by Mary Wellesley

by Eliot Weinberger; Mary Wellesley

New Directions ·2020 ·160 pages
Near the Top
Near the Top
I Index
70/99
Top of the Pile

79/99

Critics' Rating Index

Near the Top

62/99

Readers' Rating Index

n/a

Scholars' Citation Index

34/99

Volume of Reviews

10/99

Volume of Reader Ratings

Sign in to add to your shelf, rate, or review this book.


About This Book

Angels have soared through Western culture and consciousness from Biblical to contemporary times. But what do we really know about these celestial beings? Where do they come from, what are they made of, how do they communicate and perceive? The celebrated essayist Eliot Weinberger has mined and deconstructed, resurrected and distilled centuries of theology into an awe-inspiring exploration of the heavenly host. From a litany of angelic voices, Weinberger's lyrical meditation then turns to the earthly counterparts, the saints, their lives retold in a series of vibrant and playful capsule biographies, followed by a glimpse of the afterlife. Threaded throughout Angels & Saints are the glorious illuminated grid poems by the eighteenth-century Benedictine monk Hrabanus Maurus. These astonishingly complex, proto-"concrete" poems are untangled in a lucid afterword by the medieval scholar and historian Mary Wellesley.


Reviews

"Weinberger wears his erudition with an understated elegance, and anyone who has read his political essays (which use the same wry method of collage) should find in these further-off horrors and follies a source of light relief."

Lidija Haas· Harpers Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"For all the stylish whimsy of this bizarre catalogue, its compiler can't help but be seduced."

Marina Warner· London Review of Books Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"There is no order or apparent overarching purpose, and readers will wonder why the author chose the stories of the saints that he did."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Academic and lay readers interested in Christian thought will enjoy Weinberger's eclectic homage to angels and saints."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

Preview


Reader Reviews

0 reviews

Sign in to write a review.

No reader reviews yet. Be the first!