3.5
The Revolt of the Angels
ByPublisher Description
First published in 1914, “The Revolt of the Angels” is one of the final works by celebrated French author and Nobel Prize winner Anatole France. Considered by many critics to be his most profound and significant work, it is the story of the angel Arcade who has grown tired of watching over a sinless Bishop. With nothing else to do, Arcade begins to read the books in the Bishop’s library and soon rejects God and decides to live as a man instead. The former angel moves to Paris, falls in love with a mortal woman, loses his wings, and conspires with Satan to overthrow God. Arcade realizes however that replacing God with another powerful being will accomplish nothing and instead he, and mankind as well, must change themselves and destroy the idea of God that they all carry within. Deeply ironic and thoughtful, “The Revolt of the Angels”, was met with controversy when it was first published and was placed on the list of banned books by the Catholic Church. It was a critical and commercial success however for challenging long-held ideas of religion and morality and continues to be widely read a century later for its thoughtful and perceptive examination of mankind’s ideas of divinity. This edition follows the translation on Wilfrid Jackson and includes a biographical afterword.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Revolt of the Angels Reviews
3.5
“Take this man's Nobel prize away. Give him, I dunno, the Monarch prize or something. Cause this was damnably good.
Seriously. In a complete and unprecedented shock, I think this just overtook Crime & Punishment as the best book I've read this year. I rarely annotate fiction, but in almost every chapter I've made notes. It's just that good.
Somehow, the angels in France are more human than the people who I encounter on the daily. Full of idealistic hopes and predisposition to sin, they reflect the humans around them almost perfectly, and the whole narrative comes together to form this absolutely stunning whirlwind in which you sympathise with almost every character, but are not exactly rooting for any of them. Except maybe for Satan.
Yes, there is a bit of misogyny here - the book is >100 years old, I feel like it should be cut some slack, and it's clearly not done in a malicious way. The women are often just portrayed as willing to give into a different kind of sin than the men, and that particular one is not so much considered a sin for the men. Obviously problematic, but in keeping with the attitudes of the time. Otherwise, it's remarkably progressive.
I also assumed, based on what I'd heard about the novel, that it'd be very anarcho-communist in its tendencies. And it is. But it shows great maturity in showing the fact that the quest to reach these ideals will be greatly damaging, to both the revolutionaries and their targets, and especially those 'innocents' (in so far as a human can be one) on the sidelines. As well as many of the downsides of almost every philosophy. All that thought does is lead to more confusion.
This truly is a remarkable book. Miltonian, Dostoyevskian, beautifully prosaic and full of that sense of wonder that only god and art seem to provide a to humanity.”
About Anatole France
Other books by Anatole France
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
