The Angelic Avengers

With a title that sounds like a modern day adventure comic, The Angelic Avengers is a Victorian tale of adventure with a feminist edge. Written in World War II Denmark by Karen Blixen (the Isak Dinesen of Out Of Africa), it is the story of two young ladies who have lost their possessions and families. One is the forward-thinking daughter of a scientist, and the other a pampered child of the aristocracy. They bond together to protect themselves against the evils of a society corrupted by men. Yet they find themselves in the clutches of the most evil man they can imagine. I feel that Blixen wrote this book as an amusement to carry her through the horror of world war. Yet the book has a substance greater than its title and plot suggest.According to one web site:"During WW II, when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, Karen Blixen started to write her only full-length novel, the introspective GENGÆLDELSENS VEJE (The Angelic Avengers), which was published in 1944 under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel. The horrors experienced by the young heroines in the novel were interpreted as an allegory of falling Nazism."The novel is divided into three parts. In "Rose-Strewn Roads And Thorny Paths," we see the golden cage of the well-bred life and the perils faced by women without means. Part Two is called "The Canary Birds." Here the young women find themselves in a position where they are like birds in a cage, fed and cared for, but helpless to control their fate. The last section of the novel is called "The Buried Treasure." In the end, the young women confront their avenging natures and find their true treasure is their angelic ability to oppose evil with goodness and compassion. The happy ending reveals the book as a parable with a clear message as to how humanity should act when faced with evil: feelings of vengeance must be overcome and replaced with compassionate love. Righteous anger will destroy not only evil in the other, but the goodness within. Another theme is how the aristocracy and the middle class differ in facing adversity. The two young women's strengths compliment each other through the book suggesting that the two classes must work together to build a just society. It is a well-written and tightly scripted adventure that will keep you involved and enthralled. I highly recommend it.