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J’étais en train de relire en vue du troisième et dernier tome de la trilogie récemment sorti, La rédemption de Gabriel. J’ai lu un copain avec l’incroyable Wendy (Pensées de Wendy) nous avons passé un merveilleux moment à analyser les personnages, les motifs et les intrigues. Je pense que ce livre serait un excellent ajout à la liste de n’importe quel club de lecture !
Ce livre représente tellement de thèmes dont j’ai tendance à me moquer… Plusieurs des principaux éléments sont surjoués, exagérés, stéréotypés et prévisibles dans le genre romantique moderne :
Le dieu du sexe riche, marqué émotionnellement, mâle alpha et surprotecteur…
Le ringard, rougissant, paria social, vierge à faible estime de soi…
Il ne se croit pas capable d’aimer…
Elle ne croit pas qu’elle est digne de lui…
Le pouvoir de l’amour les sauvera tous les deux…
Alors pourquoi j’adore ce livre ?
C’est vraiment une belle romance.
C’est doux. Presque trop sucré parfois.
J’adore le parallèle Dante/Gabriel.
Il y a de la passion, mais ce n’est pas hypersexuel.
La connexion entre Gabriel et Julia est crédible et charmante.
Il y a une progression claire des personnages pour les deux personnages principaux.
Le livre est rempli d’humour décalé… Je crois que les fans se réfèrent au « Snarky Narrator »
J’ai aussi un lien personnel. J’ai un diplôme en beaux-arts avec une mineure en histoire de l’art. J’ai été éduqué dans les textes et les œuvres d’art qui sont fortement référencés dans ce livre… Franchement, c’est un peu un coup d’ego de faire constamment valider mon éducation à chaque tour de page. Ce n’est pas courant dans ce genre. Cependant, je ne pense pas que le lecteur moyen se sentirait aliéné par les nuances académiques des thèmes prédominants.
Je me retrouve souvent à recommander L’enfer de Gabriel aux lecteurs intéressés par la romance qui sont fatigués de l’érotisme… Ce qui est une demande étrange pour moi, étant donné que je suis un lecteur professionnel d’érotisme… Ce livre est rempli d’amour et de passion, et bien que je transmette généralement Histoires « dépucelantes », je garderai une place dans mon petit coeur romantique pour ce livre.
Certains de mes moments préférés :
(voir spoiler)
She envisioned him having a cow upon the discovery, literally—lying down on the beautiful Persian rug that graced his office and painfully and loudly giving birth to a calf.
How could someone with an angelic name be so cruel? How could a voice so melodic be so harsh?
Julia had been evicted from the realm of the surprised and relocated right into the land of the astonished.
She really was very pretty when she smiled. He would have to see to it that she smiled more often, purely for aesthetic reasons.
Miss Mitchell was a Calamity Jane, a vortex of vexation. She’d had a remarkable string of misadventures, starting with her inability to go to Harvard, and things seemed to fall apart in her wake—including his calm and collected disposition.
…she couldn’t have known this, but Professor Emerson had a thing for women in exquisite high-heeled shoes…
Miss Mitchell had a lovely voice, it was true, but Miss Mitchell speaking Italian was something celestial. Her ruby mouth opening and closing, the delicate way she almost sang the words, her tongue peeking out to wet her lips from time to time…Professor Emerson had to remind himself to close his mouth after it had dropped open.
Meanwhile, Mr. Emerson had been adjusting himself under the table because the sight of Miss Mitchell tasting wine was the most erotic thing he’d ever witnessed.
“You blossom under kindness, don’t you? Like a rose”
He was a rational agent. He wore clothes to cover his nakedness, he drove a car, and he ate with a knife and a fork and a linen napkin. He was gainfully employed in a job that required intellectual ability and acuity. He controlled his sexual urges through various civilized means and would never take a woman against her will.
Nevertheless, as he stared at Miss Mitchell and Paul, he realized that he was an animal. Something primitive. Something feral. And something made him want to go over there and rip Paul’s hands from his body and carry Miss Mitchell off. To kiss her senseless, move his lips to her neck, and claim her.
What the fuck?
He … picked up her knapsack, effortlessly swinging it to his shoulder. “This is too heavy a burden for you.” He said, gazing into her eyes, choosing every word carefully. “Let me carry it for a while.”
“I don’t expect you to understand. You’re only a magnet for mishap, Miss Mitchell, while I am a magnet for sin.”
His kiss was passionate and full of emotion, as if every fiber of his being had melted and spread itself on his lips only to be given to her.
“Do you have to leave?” she whispered back, running her hands hesitantly over his chest, up and down and back and forth.
“Yes, but not tonight.”
“Will you come back?” Her voice was almost a whimper.
Gabriel sighed deeply. “I’m going to be thrown out of Paradise tomorrow, Beatrice. Our only hope is that you find me afterward. Look for me in Hell.”
Gabriel appeared to be the ideal poker player: impassive, unemotional, cold. Oh, so very cold. Not merely cool, like a breeze, or water from a stream in the autumn, but cold. Cold like a rock against your skin in the shade of the setting sun.
“I’m trying to keep the wolves at bay,” he said, his voice low.
A lion in charge of wolves, she thought. How convenient.
When everyone in the whole world believes one thing and you are the only one who believes differently, it’s very tempting to assimilate. All Julia would have to do would be to forget, to deny, to suppress. Then she would be just like everyone else.
“I don’t mean to be all…St. Francis of Assisi or something, but anyone can shout obscenities. Why should I become like her? Why not think that sometimes—just sometimes—you can overcome evil with silence? And let people hear their hatefulness in their own ears, without distraction. Maybe goodness is enough to expose evil for what it really is, sometimes. Rather than trying to stop evil with more evil. Not that I’m good. I don’t think that I’m good.”
She was undoing him slowly, bit by bit, and he did not understand how.
He would wonder if they were close enough, would their hearts beat synchronously… or was that simply a poet’s fancy?
“I’ve always had a terrible weakness for beautiful but sad things”
My Gabriel. He imagined her voice laving across his name the way a lover’s tongue moves across the skin…
“It’s over ten dollars a bottle,” she whispered, not wishing to embarrass Gabriel or herself with loud incredulity.
“But it’s the best. And wouldn’t you rather drink one bottle of this rather than two bottles of Budweiser, which really is like drinking appalling bath water?”
I can only assume that all bath water would be appalling to drink, Professor Emerson, but I’ll take your word for it. Sicko.
Julia caught her breath. He didn’t look drunk now. He looked remarkably lucid, and his eyes were caressing her, touching her, spending longer than was appropriate on the expanse of her chest. He began licking his lips.
Here comes the seductive smile…in five, four, three, two, one…swoon. (It was a good thing that in her current mood she was swoon-proof.)
Julia let go of him instantly and backed up, averting her eyes, for in truth, looking into the radiance of that smile was like staring into the sun.
“Angelfucker.”
She frowned. “Why do you keep calling him that?”
“Because that’s what he is, Miss Mitchell. Or rather, what he hopes he will become. Over my dead body. You tell him that—tell him he fucks with the angel at his peril.”
She’d seen him drunk before, of course, and knew that his drunkenness vacillated between moments of absolute clarity and complete lunacy.
Perhaps it was the fact that in that one question she realized that he no longer viewed her as Beatrice, and all her realized hopes and dreams just fucking died in their infancy.
Sometimes people, when left alone, can hear their own hatefulness for themselves. Sometimes goodness is enough to expose evil for what it really is.
For despite all her defiance, there was a flame in her that recognized its twin in Gabriel. And that flame could not be extinguished, unless Julia was willing to extinguish a part of herself.
“Haven’t you ever been lonely, Miss Mitchell? Haven’t you ever ached for companionship, even if it’s only carnal and temporary? Sometimes it’s all you can get. And so you take it and you’re grateful for it, while recognizing it for what it is, because you have no other choice. Instead of being so high-handed and self-righteous in your assessment of Dante’s lifestyle, you should try having a little compassion”
“They’re not friends—they’re pelvic affiliates.”
Julia shook as soon as she heard the tone of his voice. It was deceptively calm and soft, like silk brushing across bare skin. But the undertone was steel and ice.
“Neither of us has a monopoly on delusions. Our only hope is to take time to discover who we really are and decide if that’s a reality we both can live with. I’ve had enough vexation with you to last a lifetime, and I’m putting an end to it tonight.”
“I have no wish to consume you, but I won’t lie and say that I’m not attracted to your luminosity. If I am the darkness, then you are the stars. In fact, I’m quite taken by la luce della tua umilitate.”
Lazy but curious hands caressed naked skin, exploring gently but chastely. Sighs commingled in the dark as two souls breathed as one. Two heartbeats synchronized when they recognized one another. And two troubled, conflicted minds finally came to rest.
“You were cruel.”
“So were you.”
“You hurt me.”
“And you hurt me. Is revenge everything you dreamed it might be?” Gabriel continued whispering, his warm breath huffing across her cheek. “You’ve transformed from a rabbit into a furious kitten. Well, you scratched me deeply today, my kitten. You drew blood with every word. Are you happy now? Now that you’ve humiliated me in front of my students by reciting all my secret sins? It was a true bonfire of the vanities, with you lighting the flame.”
“I’m not the one with the memory problem. You think I’m happy? You think this is what I want? I’m miserable. To finally see you after all these years and to see you like this? I don’t even recognize you!”
“I tried to stay away…” Julia’s voice was hesitant, “…but I couldn’t.”
“I tried not to lick chocolate off your fingers. But I couldn’t.”
They cared for one another, Julia thought, but their care was cool and small, like a distant star. Gabriel’s love would burn hot like the sun, if he was even capable of loving someone.
“I know that I am deeply, deeply flawed. But I want to know you, just you, as you are. I want you to be yourself, and yes, Julianne, I know you’re more than just a dream. Your reality is far more beautiful and alluring than any dream. I’d choose you over the dream any time.”
“Your body and mine together. You came to me last night, Julianne. You came to my bed. Why did you do that? Why did you tell me you couldn’t stay away? Because we’re soul mates, just like Aristophanes described—one soul in two bodies. You’re my missing half. You’re my bashert.”
“Bashert? Do you even know what that means? Bashert is bashert, Gabriel; destiny is destiny. It can mean anything you want, and it doesn’t have to mean me.”
He smiled at her widely. “Your linguistic knowledge constantly surprises me.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know more about you than you think and the rest I wish to learn. Teach me, Beatrice. I’ll enroll in your university as your student. Teach me how to care for you.”
His voice was so pained and so sincere, her heart almost snapped under the weight of it.
“You need to become accustomed to my lips, Julia, because I intend to kiss you a lot.”
“I’m sorry I disappointed you. I wish I was the knight rather than the dragon. But I’m not.” He pulled back to stare deeply into her eyes. “Everything is up to you. You can rescue me or banish me with a single word.”
Did the Clarks always speak in extended metaphors like metaphysical poets? Julia would have needed a literary criticism class in order to interpret their allusions.
“I have a vivid and detailed imagination when it comes to you.”
This is what comes of years of unbridled lust—now you don’t even have the ability to court her like a gentleman. You want to make love to this girl without lapsing into fucking, but can you? Can you be sexually involved with her without treating her like a pretty toy that has been constructed solely for your carnal satisfaction? Can you love without sin?
“Are you all right?” he whispered against her mouth.
“You’re still here.”
“I won’t leave you again without saying good-bye. Can’t you sleep?”
“I thought this was a dream.”
Gabriel smiled at her in the darkness. “Only for me.”
“You’re gorgeous, Gabriel. You always were, you know.”
“Nature’s cruelty—the fallen angel retains his beauty. But I’m ugly on the inside.”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” she breathed.
“I’d like to make you believe.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“The contours of sinew, muscle and veins, symmetry and balance, idealized proportion, and classical lines would be breathtaking even to the casual observer. But Julia was anything but a casual observer, for she had spent the entire night with this very body in her bed, spooning her close and playing with her hair. And this body was attached to a damn fine mind and a very deep, passionate soul.
“Look at him. A vest and a pocket watch?” muttered Paul, shaking his head. “How old is this guy? I bet he has a personal portrait in his attic that’s aging rather rapidly.”
“But what about the next time the darkness comes? What will you do?”
Gabriel stared at her. “I thought I’d made myself clear. You dispel the darkness, Beatrice.” He cleared his throat. “Julianne.”
“Being without you, Julianne, is like enduring an endless night without stars.”
More! his body ordered him. Closer. Faster. Tighter. More. More. More.
He pressed his lips to her hands, her lips, her throat. She was undoing him little by little, and when she smiled or laughed he thought he would catch fire.
He pressed his lips to hers reverently. “You’re killing me.”
She tossed her hair back and grinned. “But it will be a sweet, sweet death.”
“It was always you, Gabriel.”
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently, as if his soul was begging to be joined to hers. “It was always you, Julianne. Only you.”
He held her and breathed in her comfort. All of a sudden, he could see the future. He had hope. He had faith that maybe, just maybe, when she knew everything, she would look at him with those big, brown eyes and say that she still wanted him.
“I don’t remember everything, but I remember thinking that you were very beautiful. Your hair, your face, your mouth. Sonnets could be written about your mouth, Julianne. I ached to kiss it from the moment I saw you.”
“I want to make love to you because I care about you. I want to worship your naked body with my own and learn all of your secrets. I want to please you, not for minutes, but for hours and even days. I want to see you arch your back in ecstasy and look into your eyes when I make you come.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.
“Maybe we don’t deserve each other, but I can choose who I love. And I choose you.”
“You strip me bare. You see through everything. You are the only one who has ever known everything and still wanted me. Only you, my beloved.”
“Julianne, if one were doing a cost-benefit analysis, I would be a high-cost, high-risk, low-benefit venture.”
“Nonsense. I don’t see you that way at all.”
He gave her a half-smile. “Only because you are the soul of forgiveness and compassion. Although I must admit, my best qualities and talents have heretofore remained hidden.” Now his voice was husky, and the familiar spark of sensuality lit his blue eyes. “But I look forward to placing them entirely at your service again and again and again, ad infinitum, until you are weary of both them and me. And entirely, blissfully sated.”
“Can you tolerate a detour? The Duomo is beautiful by night, and I’I’ve never kissed you in its shadow.”
He smiled and embraced her softly. “I want to explore your senses—sound, taste, sight, touch. I want to take my time arousing and exciting you.” He lowered his voice. “But most of all, I want to teach your body to recognize the man who worships you, just by my touch.”
He was sweetness and wet warmth, hunger and passionate need, love and devotion. And his kiss pressed itself to her very soul, so that even the tips of her toes felt his adoration and desire.
He unzipped her dress slowly, staring deeply into her eyes. Then he gently pushed the green silk off her shoulders. It made a sighing sound as it floated to the floor, as if it too, had been seduced by him.
“When I am an old man and I can remember nothing else, I will remember this moment. The first time my eyes beheld an angel in the flesh.”
“I’m glad I’m your first.”
She smiled widely at his declaration. “I want you to be my last, Gabriel”
“I’ll give you anything. My body, my soul, take them. Take everything.”
(hide spoiler)]
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