The Vintner's Luck

The Vintner's Luck
by Elizabeth Knox

The Vintner's Luck
List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $2.95
You Save: $12.05 (80%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.85 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Elizabeth Knox
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-08-05
ISBN: 0312264100
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Picador

Book Reviews of The Vintner's Luck

Book Review: Thoughts On Love, Life And Wine Make For a Beautiful Novel
Summary: 5 Stars

Elizabeth Knox really has a gift for writing. She really does. Her writing style is beautiful and poetic, but not pretentious, and lends an otherworldly quality to the story that you are reading. Even in the most inelegant and even disturbing of moments that beautiful writing is there, contrasting with the nastiness it is describing without so much as flinching or trying to hide it.

One big thing about The Vintner's Luck is the recurring use of wine, not just as an item and an important part of the main characters' lives, but also as a means of titling chapters (each year is given a title to do with wine, from various types of the drink to different bits of terminology regarding the making of it), and the taste of it as a means of description. In a lot of ways the evocative writing of The Vintner's Luck reminds me of Perfume by Patrick Süskind - only instead of being able to smell everything, with The Vintner's Luck you can practically taste everything.

The Vintner's Luck is a very thought-provoking novel, especially - as you might imagine - due to its storyline of a man and an angel. The book revolves around Sobran's annual meetings with the angel Xas, giving us glimpses into Sobran's life (his marriage, the birth of his children, and the growth of his wine-making are three examples), while Xas gives us glimpses into Heaven, Hell and other aspects of the divine from his point of view. However there is no preaching, just simple facts and comments, and answers to questions asked by Sobran. And, of course, there is the relationship between the two characters and how it grows over their annual meetings, where they share a bottle of wine and talk about the past year.

Beautiful but sharp, and with parts most definitely worthy of getting a little teary-eyed, The Vintner's Luck is a book I can't stop talking about. I am hoping that the movie (starring Jeremie Renier as Sobran and Gaspard Ulliel as Xas) does the book justice. The same goes for the (much longer) sequel which has just been released in some parts of the world, The Angel's Cut.

Summary of The Vintner's Luck

One summer night in 1808, Sobran Jodeau sets out to drown his love sorrows in his family's vineyard when he stumbles on an angel. Once he gets over his shock, Sobran decides that Xas, the male angel, is his guardian sent to counsel him on everything from marriage to wine production. But Xas turns out to be a far more mysterious character. Compelling and erotic, The Vintner's Luck explores a decidedly unorthodox love story as Sobran eventually comes to love and be loved by both Xas and the young Countess de Valday, his friend and employer at the neighboring chateau.

"A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptize the first real sorrow of his life."

The year is 1808, the place Burgundy, France. Among the lush vines of his family's vineyard, Jodeau, 18 years old and frustrated in love, is about to come face to face with a celestial being. But this is no sentimental "Touched by an Angel" seraph; as imagined by Elizabeth Knox in her wildly evocative and original novel, Xas is equipped with a glorious pair of wings ("pure sinew and bone under a cushion of feathers") and an appetite for earthly pleasures--wine, books, gardening, conversation, and, eventually, carnal love.

The fateful meeting between man and angel occurs on June 27. After an evening during which Sobran spills all his troubles and Xas gently advises him, the angel promises to return on the same night next year to toast Sobran's marriage. Thus begins a friendship that will last for 55 years, spanning marriages, wars, births, deaths, and even the vast distances between heaven, earth, and hell. In addition to the wonderfully flawed Sobran and his mysterious angel, Knox brilliantly limns secondary characters who are deeply sympathetic--from Sobran's unstable wife, Celeste, and his troubled brother, Leon, to his dear friend and confidante, the Baroness Aurora. Love, murder, madness, and a singular theology that would make a believer out of the most hardened atheist all add up, in The Vintner's Luck, to a novel that will break your heart yet leave you wishing for more. --Alix Wilber

Historical Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Historical Books
Pirate Latitudes: A Novel ImagePirate Latitudes: A Novel
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2009-11-24; Roughcut; Book
Best price: $2.49
Price in other shops: $27.99
The Master Butchers Singing Club: A Novel ImageThe Master Butchers Singing Club: A Novel
by Louise Erdrich
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.83
Price in other shops: $13.95
The Last Witchfinder: A Novel ImageThe Last Witchfinder: A Novel
by James Morrow
William Morrow; Published: 2006-03-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: $25.95
Zorro ImageZorro
by Isabel Allende
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-05-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $3.13
Price in other shops: $39.95
The Hot Kid: A Novel ImageThe Hot Kid: A Novel
by Elmore Leonard
William Morrow; Published: 2005-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.89
Price in other shops: $25.95
The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) ImageThe Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1)
Mass Market Paperback; Book
Bones of the Hills (Conqueror, Book 3) ImageBones of the Hills (Conqueror, Book 3)
by Conn Iggulden
Harper Collins Canada; Published: 2008; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.70
March ImageMarch
by Geraldine Brooks
Penguin Books; Published: 2006; Paperback; Book
Emperor (Emperor 1) ImageEmperor (Emperor 1)
by Conn Iggulden
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2003-06-07; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.80
Girl With a Pearl Earring ImageGirl With a Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier
Harper Collins Audio; Published: 2002-06-17; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $86.82
Similar Books and other products
Princess of Montpensier ImagePrincess of Montpensier
MPI; Release date: 2011-10-11; DVD
Best price: $14.39
Price in other shops: $24.98
A Very Long Engagement ImageA Very Long Engagement
by Sebastien Japrisot
TAUTOU,AUDREY; Release date: 2006-02-14; Published: 2005-07-01; DVD
Best price: $6.39
Price in other shops: $19.97
Anansi Boys ImageAnansi Boys
by Neil Gaiman
HarperTorch; Published: 2006-09-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.32
Price in other shops: $7.99
Daylight ImageDaylight
by Elizabeth Knox
Ballantine Books; Published: 2003-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.92
Price in other shops: $23.95
The Persian Boy ImageThe Persian Boy
by Mary Renault
Vintage; Published: 1988-02-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.20
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Last Day ImageThe Last Day
REL; Release date: 2005-12-13; DVD
Best price: $12.44
Price in other shops: $24.99
At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel ImageAt Swim, Two Boys: A Novel
by Jamie O'Neill
Scribner; Published: 2003-02-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops: $16.00
Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (War Memoirs Vol. 1) ImageAdolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (War Memoirs Vol. 1)
by Spike Milligan
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1976-03-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Crush (Yale Series of Younger Poets) ImageCrush (Yale Series of Younger Poets)
by Mr. Richard Siken
Yale University Press; Published: 2005-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.28
Price in other shops: $17.00
The God in Flight ImageThe God in Flight
by Laura Argiri
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1996-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $34.93
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories