The Service of Clouds

by Delia Falconer

Book Overview

In 1907, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Eureka Jones, a young pharmacist's assistant with "historical eyes", falls in love with Harry Phillips, a man from elsewhere who photographs clouds... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: 0330360272
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.9" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Into the mystery....

A staggering, wildly romantic, wildly poetic novel written by a woman with a profound gift. Achingly beautiful, achingly sad, slow, dreamy, with sentances which are sometimes wrought like grandiose set-pieces which seem to have lived a long time for a chance to escape the authour and other times strike with a quicksilver precision that leaves you breathless. Falconer is a remarkable, gifted, sensitive and unique writer. "The Service of Clouds" is probably the best book I have read in the last 10 years. And it's only by accident I came to read it - I was looking for a book to make up a "Buy 3, pay for 2" offer and I picked it up at random. I think a kind spirit guided my hand that day!

incommunicable emotions

To all of those intoxicated by the machine, frenzied by the rhythms of urban life and driven by the spur of modernity, Falconer proposes a cure of overwhelming literary beauty. The imaginative poetic style of this outstanding first novel evokes the opulence of Garcia Marquez while weaving a rare tapestry of human tenderness, fragility and flaw. Falconer's eloquent tale of obsession, beauty and madness is a tribute to the beauty of metaphor and entices the reader to savour to the author's own passion for images. Her novel approaches a certain reign of the imagination and the age-old literary quest to portray essentially incommunicable emotions. The Service Of Clouds evokes magnificently the mystical beauty of the Blue Mountains and charts the obsessivve tenacity of a women who grasps for love and is ultimately smothered by it. A magnificent novel of haunting and persistent beauty.

There cannot be many better first novels than this one.

Delia Falconer has written a brilliant first novel here in The Service of Clouds. I do not think this book has received the attention it deserves. There is no great storyline but the writing and the prose are heavenly.Living in Australia I well know the Blue Mountains, which are to the west of Sydney, and they are a place of inspiring beauty. This is reflected in Delia's writing which is wonderfully descriptive.Delia's observations of life, human nature and love are illuminating and magically alluring. This is a novel which may appeal to men as much as, if not more than, women. When I first read the blurbs I thought this might not be the book for me. I took the chance and it was. I reread The Service of Clouds recently and was even more impressed.If you like Donna Tartt's writing you will love this novel. Delia is right up there in her ability to make you feel you are living with the characters in their hearts and lives. Such is the power of the time stopping qualities of her exquisitely distilled prose.

There cannot be many better first novels than this one.

Delia Falconer has written a brilliant first novel( or any, for that matter )here in The Service of the Clouds. I do not think this book has received the attention it deserves. There is no great storyline but the writing and the prose are heavenly.Living in Australia I well know the Blue Mountains, to the west of Sydney, and it is a place of inspiring beauty. This is more than reflected in Delia's writing. Indeed, her powers of description are more than spot on.Delia's observation of life, human nature and love are illuminating and magically alluring. This is a book which I think appeals to men as much, if not more, than women. When I first read the blurbs I thought this might not do it for me. I took the chance and it did and having reread The Service of the Clouds recently I was even more impressed.If you like Donna Tartt you will love Delia's novel. She is right up there in her ability to make you feel you are living with the characters in their hearts and homes. Such is the power of the time stopping qualities of her exquisitely distilled prose.

Magical historical novel

Falconner recreates a time of leisure and hardship with a blend of romance and mystery that are gripping. Too good a book to be read at one sitting it lends itself to short or long bursts. However I read it slowly so as not to get to the end too quickly and loose the magic so well woven into this work.I have not read anything remotely as good for several years at least! (Historically accurate onto the bargain!)