Band of Angels

This is a novel about identity. The book opens in 1852 and is narrated by Amantha Starr, 10 years old, whose father owns a planation. Amantha, or Manty as she is called, is her father’s darling, but when the father dies it emerges that Manty’s deceased mother was a slave, and so Manty is sold into slavery as part of the liquidation of the estate. What follows is a long story about Amantha’s encounters with various men/benefactors, chief amongst them being Hamish Bond, a rich plantation owner who buys Amantha for $2000 and keeps her as his wife through the first half of the book.

History plays an important part in this novel. One of the set pieces in “Band of Angels” is a long description of the New Orleans massacre of 1866, in show more which freedmen were set upon and murdered by disgruntled whites. Ostensibly narrated by Amantha, the description is actually pure history, not so much a first person account at all. In fact, the intricacy of the historical detail, and the assumption that the reader would be familiar with the events described led to nothing but confusion, forcing me to do some historical research to determine what was actually happening.

A strange feature of this book is the fact that the female narrator, Amantha Starr, never really comes to life. Her narration seems external to itself. Yes, her passions and her tribulations are on full display, but at no point does the reader really get fully into her head. Much of Warren’s theme here is that of discovering one’s true identity, so the author may be forgiven for some ambiguity and shrouding, but more likely the problem lies in Warren attempting to speak like and imagine the inner life of a woman, which is a difficult voice to sustain consistently.

On the other hand, Hamish Bond (who is himself not who he pretends to be) comes fully to life in his dialogue and his long description of the horrors of the slave trade in Africa, which comes out on the night of the riots in New Orleans. Indeed, Warren does not hesitate to include scenes of precise and horrid violence, shockingly described, here and elsewhere in the book.

Other men enter Amantha’s life, amongst them Seth Parton, the intensely religious boy she met at Oberlin College, who turns up later in the book (not what he seems). Seth’s best friend, the high-minded Tobias Sears, ends up marrying Amantha. At some point Amantha suspects that Tobias sees her as his “project”, and she resents this, which is about as close as we get to an overarching theme: the difference between high ideals and actual love. A third man, Rau-Ru, a black man who was Hamish Bond’s *k’la* or slave master, features prominently in the later half of the book as Amatha’s sardonic benefactor, having fled his master’s house years earlier after defending Amantha’s honor against yet another man, a neighboring plantation owner and Lothario, Charles de Marigny Prieur-Denis. It is fair to say that there are no heroes in the book. Al the characters are flawed, one way or another. Tobias quotes Emerson’s essay about the mingling of beauty and filth, about the imperfectability of man, and this seems to be Warren’s point too: everything is messy, especially when it comes to treating people like people.

Parts of the book are rather pedestrian, moving us forward in time, getting us to the next events in a perfunctory manner. Still, all in all, this is a book worth reading. As mentioned above, “Band of Angels” is laced with historical research which crops up unobtrusively in the plot, mostly, but sometimes reads like history for the sake of history, unattached to a narrator. This is unfortunate because one does not read literature for historical “lessons” but for emotional truths. Nonetheless, it is clear that Warren knows his subject well, and he largely succeeds in conveying his complicated message. show less

This story, at times tragic, tells about the life of a pampered daughter of a slave owner who, upon his death learns that she is the daughter of a slave and is herself sold into slavery. What follows is her journey of self- acceptance. Her life coincides with the tumultuous history of our country.
Some of the book is gripping and easy to stay with. Other parts are overly extended. I was also frustrated by the last 100 pages of the book. The main characters seem to be drifting apart in their marriage, but the author is never clear why. The book is redeemed by a fabulous ending.

Robert Penn Warren was masterful at capturing the emotion and psychology of a wide variety of characters in different states of life. Band of Angels offers insight into the world of slavery just before and during the Civil War, as well as a view of the politics of Reconstruction in Louisiana. The book reveals the cultural assumptions that kept slavery going, as well as the cultural elements that challenged it. I gained a richer perspective for the time period. The internal journey of the main character offers valuable lessons for people in any time.