Henrietta's House by Elizabeth Goudge (1942)

Henrietta’s House was written in 1942. I’m always amazed that there were so many women writing ‘domestic fiction’ during the war years. I read that the stubborn heroism of the civilian population was a necessary "military weapon" to stand against the demoralisation and capitulation of the British people, especially during the Blitz. 

Henrietta’s House is a children’s novel and wouldn't be classed as domestic fiction, but it was written in desperate times and so could be thought of as a stand against hopelessness and despair. Why write a children's novel if you succumbed to the idea that the world as you knew it wouldn't be around much longer? It feels like a fairy tale to a certain extent but in Goudge’s hands it becomes a decidedly moral tale - in the best sense. ❤️

Henrietta, with her brother, Hugh Anthony, aunt & uncle, grandparents & their elderly friends, as well as a couple of dogs, head off in horse-drawn vehicles and a new car for a picnic to celebrate Hugh’s birthday. Along the way the car breaks down & gets abandoned, and the whole company is swept into strange adventures in which some refining of character occurs. ❤️

There’s also humour throughout Henrietta’s House. One of the guests on the picnic was Mrs Jameson. She was a neighbour & the rich widow of a missionary ‘who had had the misfortune to be eaten by cannibals, had become a little peculiar in her ways after her sorrow and was rather an anxiety to take out.’ Grandfather had told Henrietta that ‘one must be very kind to people in this unfortunate condition.’

Kindness, respect for old age & deliverance from pride are themes throughout the story. 

‘Canon and Mrs Roderick in spite of having had many children of their own still adored the species.’

‘They hardly spoke, they were so busy absorbing the beauty into their very souls.’

‘When a man loses his pride he often finds his heart.’

A lovely story for the young and anyone else who appreciates good children’s literature. 

From My Commonplace Book - Elizabeth Goudge

 

📚 Elizabeth Goudge’s book, ‘The Child From the Sea,’ first published in 1970, is set around the time of the English Civil War. Lucy Walters, the main character, is devastated when her mother leaves her father. Lucy and her brothers are torn between their loyalty to them both…the tangled threads. This passage where her grandmother on her mother’s side is speaking to Dr. Cosin, a Royalist and high churchman, explains why Lucy decides to go with her father:

“…inborn loyalty has a fearsome strength and can cloud our thinking more than any other emotion.”

“Why do you say a fearful strength?” asked Mrs. Gwinne. “Is loyalty not admirable?”

“Certainly. Do we not suspect turncoats? and rightly. They are not usually good men. But very occasionally they may be. The threads of the web are tangled, madam. That is the tragedy of a world riddled by sin.”

“And you?” asked Mrs. Gwinne.

A smile softened Dr. Cosin’s rugged face. “Madam, I have thought deeply about these things, but I am a hot-tempered man and like all such men deeply committed. I love the King, whose chaplain I am, and the Church of England is my firstborn. That last sentence, madam, is one that could be written on my tombstone.”

It had been a dialogue between the two of them, for Mrs. Gwinnes thoughts had wandered to the book beside his plate, and Lucy could not understand all they said. But she knew about the tangled threads for she had discovered them at home in Wales, and she understood what loyalty was. There was disagreement in her home, forcing her to decision, and day by day for months past her heart had been like a ball tossed backwards and forwards between father and mother. Now, looking at Dr. Cosin’s sternly resolved face, it seemed that her heart was at rest as she thought of her father. “He is my firstborn,” she said to herself. 

Later on in the book... 

'...the dilatory reluctance of the law had as yet brought no settlement between William and Elizabeth, only increasing bitterness that shamed their children, but Lucy was learning to live both with the longing and the shame, to love her father as her firstborn and her mother as much as she could, and to pay no attention to what they said about each other. She was like a mother with two quarrelling children confined in different rooms, and went from one to the other with tolerant tenderness.'

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (1949) #20 Books of Summer

Gentian Hill is a book that is based partly on history and partly on legend. Anthony, a fifteen year old orphan, became a midshipman in the British Navy after the unexpected death of his grandmother who had brought him up after both his parents died.

The British were fighting Napoleon and Anthony, only two months in service, had not yet seen any action. In fact he shrank from it with dread. All his life he’d been afraid and suddenly it seemed to him that it was impossible for him to continue in the navy. When his ship entered the bay at Torbay on the English Channel, the temptation to desert the ship came and he yielded to it.

After spending some time in hiding and in a state of semi-starvation, he found a miller willing to give him work but the man’s son, Sam, who had brawn but no brains, took an instant dislike to the well-educated young man and made life miserable for him. 

The miller was famed as a wrestler and Sam was obviously following in his footsteps and pummeled Anthony at every opportunity. Anthony was left with two choices - to leave the work at the mill, just as he had left the Navy, or stay and learn how to wrestle.

A wrestling match was coming up in a month and Anthony proposed that Sam leaves off his poundings and that he and his father teach him how to wrestle. When the match was held they would fight together and if Sam won, Anthony would leave the mill. 

The match day arrived and as expected Anthony was the loser, although he put up a good fight. One of the spectators was a doctor and when Sam threw Anthony to the ground he intervened and took the young man home to care for him. As he was carrying Anthony to his carriage another man went to help him and so another thread was added to Anthony’s story that would reveal itself at a later stage.

Anthony’s inner demon had always been fear and he had to learn not to be ruled by it. The doctor was instrumental in Anthony’s growth in this area of his life. He helped Anthony to see that right decisions are not always followed by feelings of relief.

‘You’ve done the right thing...though as far as you can see its not done you any good. Not much glory about it, as far as you can see. You feel damnable. That’s of no consequence - feelings don’t matter. It’s action that matters, and from fine action some sort of glory always breaks in the end…’

The doctor gave this advice to Anthony on dealing with fear:

‘To begin with, don’t fight it, accept it without shame, just as you would accept any other limitation you happen to be born with…Willing acceptance is half the battle…Be willing to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of your fear. As a doctor I can tell you that every man has within him a store of strength, both physical and spiritual, of which he is utterly unaware until the moment of crisis.’

There are many other characters in this story that I haven’t alluded to as well as ‘Providential’ threads, a romance of sorts, and a bit of history and legend thrown in.

As is usual with Elizabeth Goudge, she interspersed this story with philosophical rambles and the inner workings of the minds of her various characters which really flesh out the narrative.

‘You’re not befouled by another man’s obscenities and brutalities, but only by your own.’

Gentian Hill is a satisfying story of second chances, friendship and sacrificial love and of course, Goudge’s trademark descriptions of the beautiful English countryside.

'Fear is a lonely thing. Even those who love us best cannot get close to us when we are afraid.'

The Castle on the Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (1941)

 

Many of Elizabeth Goudge’s books have historical settings. The White Witch takes place during the English Civil War, Green Dolphin Country and The Dean’s Watch are set in the 19th Century. I expected The Castle on the Hill to be set at some remote period of time and was surprised when I started reading it that it was written at the beginning of WWII when England was being hammered by the Germans during the Blitz.

The outlook was grim and many people were feeling quite hopeless. It is into this insecure and desolate setting that Elizabeth Goudge weaves her story of loss and despair, love and hope, duty and sacrifice. There’s a good deal of sadness, as you would expect. No one quite gets what they were hoping for and have to settle for circumstances that weren’t their first choice. But, in typical Elizabeth Goudge fashion, sacrifice and duty are redemptive decisions that grow people’s souls. As one of her characters decided after surviving a bomb blast that crippled him, 

‘The other way would have been too easy a death for a man who had too easy a life. Now he would have time to make his soul.’ 

One of this book’s most likeable characters is Miss Brown, a nondescript woman of forty-two years who had nothing about her that stood out, ‘nothing to catch hold of.’ She had a gift for protective covering and managed to blend into the background wherever she was. She was a woman who loved more than she was loved. 

She had had to give up her home for military use and had just learnt that it was obliterated in a bombing raid and the news caused her to lose hope.

‘Her loss of everything she had hitherto known was making her feel as solitary as though she were the only human creature alive in the world. And what a world! It was June nineteen forty. Yesterday was gone, burnt up in the blazing inferno of its suffering. There was today, a tiny patch of foothold, but there was no to-morrow...Memory of the past and hope for the future are companionable things.’

Sitting outside the Free Library in London, feeling herself to be on the edge of a great abyss, a small thing lightened her despair. A violin played by a street musician began to reach her,

‘And she knew it was the truth she was listening to. She heard no words, she saw no vision, but she was slowly made aware that she was one of a multitude that went upon pilgrimage to something or other. She had no idea what the something was, or how they were to get there, all she knew was that the way was stony and painful, dreadful, terrifying; yet worth daring all the same.’

The music was Delius’ Song of Summer and hearing it played helped her transcend her circumstances. When one of Dostoevsky’s characters said that 'beauty will save the world,’ I think he was referring to this ability of beauty to reflect truth, inspire us with a sense of awe, and point to something beyond ourselves. 

Some favourite passages:

'Orderliness of life and thought must be maintained as far as possible. When these chaotic days were passed what was left of it would form the scaffolding upon which the new order could be built. “Order.” A good word. How passionately sane men longed for it, and how incapable they seemed of achieving it with any permanence. How passionately the insane hated it and how easily they could destroy it. Hitler’s contemptuous sneer at “the bourgeois virtues of peace and order” was typical of all the anarchists through the ages.'

'England, from the days of Ethelred the Unready onwards had never been ready for anything, and never would be, had not been ready with proper shelters when the Blitz came.'

'I wish I could live that afternoon over again and do it better...one ought to be given the chance to live certain scenes in ones life over and over again until one gets it perfect.'

As with every book I've read by this author, I found her characters very well described. Her writing progresses slowly because she spends so much time exploring personality and setting, which I enjoy. Her work is perceptive and reflects a deep understanding of human nature, much of it shown through the conversations and reflections of the characters in her books. 

She was living in Devon when World War II broke out and you get the sense that her own personal experience of vulnerability permeates the book.

Linking to Reading Europe: United Kingdom and British Isles Friday

The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge (1958)

Elizabeth Goudge is an author whose stories linger with you long afterwards. Somehow she manages to explore character, spirituality, and heavy themes with grace and perspective. She is never black and white, which is a quality I didn’t understand when I was younger. Life is so much easier if you can separate people and ideas into these two categories. Grey requires understanding, wisdom, and the hard knocks of life. Not that I believe there is no right or wrong, but when it comes to people, it’s not over until life is over. Growth and change are always possible and Goudge consistently weaves this theme into her writing.

The background of The White Witch is the English Civil War and its aftermath. The book’s chapters tend to focus either on the war and those fighting in it or alternatively, those left behind in Oxfordshire who are not actively involved. 

Goudge allows her readers to understand and empathise with her characters. There are a couple of unlikeable personalities in this book but for the most part she redeems them in some way. I’ve always appreciated this aspect of her writing.

The White Witch of the title refers to Froniga, a healer and part gypsy; a woman who has her feet in two camps but belongs to neither. Goudge spends some time describing gypsy belief and superstitions and does so in a refreshingly realistic and unsentimental way. Froniga’s synergistic approach to faith is likewise handled objectively and without censure. At first I was put off by some aspects of magic that were described, Froniga’s use of Tarot cards, for example. However, later on there is an encounter between Froniga and a ‘black witch’ where Froniga realises that there is a line that she must not cross. In another situation, a desperate one that involved a person she loved, Froniga accepts her inability to change the situation through her attempts at magic. Magical power is a controlling force that she ultimately rejects.

To my surprise, I actually enjoyed the war accounts very much. The descriptions of King Charles I, his wife, Henrietta Maria, the Royalist leaders and Oliver Cromwell before he took power, gave me a better sense of their personalities than any historical title ever had. The grey areas of conflicting beliefs between family members and residents of the town were sensitively probed, and as in real life, no easy path was found around them. 

'He had hoped that all the religious fanatics were on the other side, for extremists set his teeth on edge. Well, one's friends could not be cut to one's private and personal pattern...'

This unusual historical novel is replete with splendid descriptions of the setting (Oxford mostly) and the natural world. And Elizabeth Goudge's characters are not easily forgotten.

'Books were living things to those who truly loved them.'

Back to the Classics 2020 Challenge: Final Wrap Up

Well, this is the earliest I've ever posted my final wrap-up for the Back to the Classics Challenge! I've managed to fit in a lot of books so far this year, thanks mostly to Covid! I'm very happy to have finally read The Lord of the Rings...and to have enjoyed them so much. They were just the right books to read as we went into lockdown here. I also watched the movies, which I'd put off viewing until I'd read the books.

A pleasant surprise for me out of this list was Martin Chuzzlewit. I've read just about all of Dickens' novels, and wasn't busting to read any of his others but by chance I found this book, had no idea of its storyline, and had never seen it reviewed. I decided to read a chapter and if I found it too rambling I'd give it a miss, but I fell into it headlong and continued. A great read!

A book that made me cry (which doesn't happen very often) was The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A perfect (short) book to pick up for a first introduction to a Russian writer.

Saplings was very different to anything else I'd read by Noel Streatfeild - definitely not for children like many of her other books; a tragic tale of the impact of WW2 on a family.

Sadly, Miss Pym Disposes is the last of of Josephine Tey's crime/detective noels I had left to read. I've thoroughly enjoyed her books.

The only book I didn't really like was The Island of Doctor Moreau. There was a reason it was my abandoned classic!

19th century Classic: Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (1843-5)

20th Century Classic: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957-8)

Classic by a Woman: The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1901)

Classic in Translation: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (1886)

Classic by a Person of Colour: To Sir With Love by E.R. Braithwaite (1959)

Genre Classic: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (1930)

Classic With a Name in the Title: Miss Pym Disposes by Joesphine Tey (1946)

Classic With a Place in the Title: Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge (1948)

Classic With Nature in the Title: The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge (1963)

Classic About a Family: Saplings by Noel Streatfeild (1945)

An Abandoned Classic: The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (1896)

Adapted Classic: The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien (1949)

Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge (1948)

Pilgrim’s Inn (also published as The Herb of Grace) is the second book in the Eliot Family Trilogy. Its best to read it after The Bird in the Tree as most of the characters are introduced in the first book and the central theme continues into the second book. I read both books one after the other.

The Bird in the Tree introduces the Eliot family and the history of Lucilla, the matriarch of the family, who purchases the house at Damerosehay, which she intends to establish as an inheritance and a place of refuge and beauty for her grandchildren.
Lucilla had very noble intentions but when her beloved and favourite grandson, David, entered into a relationship that was the antithesis of all she had planned and hoped for, she took some matters into her own hands.
The Bird in the Tree has the rumblings of WWII in the background and ends with on a shaky note regarding this relationship. Pilgrim’s Inn picks up the pieces at the end of the war and continues to work through the ramifications of the various individual decisions.

What I liked about this book:

• The setting (the coastal area of eastern England) and the descriptions of the countryside
• The theme - a moral dilemma; the choice between feelings/emotions and duty
•       Goudge doesn't offer quick fixes. Her characters feel pain and hopelessness but there is always a redemptive pathway
• The sensitivity shown by the author to the effects of marital breakdown on children
• Goudge’s lovely reflective writing:

‘Hers was the unconscious tyranny of inexorable great expectations.’

‘She knew how worrying, even how agonising sometimes, the questions of grownups can be to children whose capacity for experience so far outstrips their capacity for talking about it. And in afterlife it it’s the other way round...adult and educated folks seemed to experience so little of any consequence and yet to say such a vast and wearisome amount about it.’

Some Characters:

Lucilla, a grandmother who was quite manipulative at times. Yes, she loved her family, but her actions were often quite selfish towards some of them, especially her unmarried daughter, Margaret. I cringed a few times to read how she advanced her own (noble as they were) plans. She was a praying woman but perhaps felt the Lord needed some help from her!

Hilary, the eldest of Lucilla’s five children - a bachelor and a parish priest - on the other hand, was not in any way manipulative. Placid, patient, wise, utterly unselfconscious, utterly happy, much loved and popular within his parish. He did know when to speak out and did so when the time came.

Annie-Laurie, a gifted young lady with a dark past and a secret she dare not disclose.

Nadine, a beautiful woman who made a decision to put duty before passion but is now faced with working this out in daily life.

‘In even the smallest of selfless decisions there is a liberation from self...’

David, a young, sensitive man devastated by loss and only capable of ‘tattered loving.’

'Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then not lift my head where thou mayest prove me.'
- William Shakespeare

Pilgrim’s Inn is a slow, worthwhile read; descriptive and thoughtful with a satisfying outcome. I haven’t yet read the last book in the trilogy but this one didn’t leave me with a sense of unfinished business so unless the book falls into my hands I probably won’t read it.
Or should I? Have you read the last book in this trilogy? I’d be interested to know whether it really adds anything more to the story.



Linking to 2020 Back to the Classics: Classic with a Place in the Title

The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge (1963)

‘At least there is hope for a tree:
    If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
    and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
    and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
    and put forth shoots like a plant.’

The Book of Job

About 20 years after the end of World War II, Mary Lindsay, a single middle-aged woman living and working in London, received word that her older cousin, whom she had only met once, had died and Mary had inherited her home in the country.
Making a sudden decision to leave her prestigious job, her friends, and her future plans, Mary went to live in her new home. She had read Jane Austen’s books and decided that she would like to look at the few last fragments of Austen’s England before they disappeared forever - at least, that is the explanation she gave for her for her resolution, but deep down she knew there were other reasons.
Mary had led an interesting life and worked in the Admiralty during the war. It was there that she met her fiancée but he had been killed a week before they were to be married. With her trademark resilience, she poured herself into work with the Red Cross in Germany after the war.
Now, twenty years later she has made a life-changing decision that will help her to understand the past and gain insight into the lives of others that have touched her life in some way.

The Scent of Water is quite a lovely story with an unusual protagonist. Elizabeth Goudge really excelled in her characterisations and this book is peopled with some interesting and loveable characters. It’s so good to read a book and connect with the people in it. Her characters are always flawed people but she never leaves them without hope and one of the attractions of her writing is her gift of bringing these persons to a better place than they were at the beginning.

“People talk a lot of ballyhoo about suffering improving you. I should say that what it does is to underline what you were before...No, I can’t blame what I am on the war.”

“I deceived you and deception is stealing because it takes away the truth...”

The library catalogue of this book classifies it under ‘Domestic Fiction,' amongst other categories  (e.g. ‘Retired teachers,’ ‘Country Life’ and ‘Self-actualisation’ ), a description I haven't seen before but I like it. It could be interpreted as dull or prosaic, but in Goudge’s hands it is charming and filled with wisdom and insight.
The author weaves a domestic story that introduces the reader to a whole village and its doings. She delves beneath the surface and gets to the heart of things, revealing heartbreak, disappointments and difficulties but always with the purpose of redemption.

‘If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but age had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root.’

Mary’s cousin kept diaries over the years and in them she reveals her struggle with mental illness but also her belief that she was meant to ‘build something up for somebody, make something to put into the hands of another’ when she died. That ‘other’ was her young cousin, Mary, whose father had brought her with him to visit her many years earlier.

The quote at the beginning of this post is from the Book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible. It highlights a theme that runs through the story and involves the various characters.
I did think that the story felt a little unfinished. There were some loose ends and I would have liked to have seen some of the situations more fully resolved but it was very endearing, nevertheless.



Linking to 2020 Back to the Classics: Classic with Nature in the Title

Bookish Catch-up

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (1860)

The Mill on the Floss is the story of the imaginative, temperamental Maggie Tulliver and her practical and unsympathetic brother, Tom. Their father muddles through life, honest but also ignorant and belligerent. His poor judgement leads to destitution and great emotional pain for his wife and children.

‘Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total absence of hooks.’

‘Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person - never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously.’

I really appreciated Eliot’s evocative descriptions of the joys and pains of childhood, her detailed descriptions, and the deep Christian themes she wove into this story. Considering that the author rejected Christianity as a young woman, her writing suggests that some of the seeds that were sown when she was younger still clung to the hooks and she never quite got rid of them.
A tragic story with a tragic end.

The Dean’s Watch by Elizabeth Goudge (1960)

The Dean’s Watch is beautifully written and incorporates themes of service, sacrificial love and redemption in an interesting and poignant story.
The Dean is a misunderstood man. He is thought to be proud and unapproachable but in reality he is extremely shy. He is married to a beautiful woman who is selfish and distant. He loves her dearly but his love is not reciprocated.
When he encounters Isaac the watchmaker, a crusty old fellow, the two strike up an unusual friendship which changes both of them. There are various other characters in this multilayered book. One of my favourites was the elderly Miss Montague.
At one point she was reflecting on her adolescence and thought back to the moment when she realised she’d been living in a dream world. Crippled by an accident as a youngster and neglected emotionally by her parents who were vaguely ashamed at having produced so unattractive a child, she knew back then that she would never marry and being a gentlewoman, a career was not open to her. What should she do?

'She never knew what put it into her head that she, unloved, should love. Religion for her parents, and therefore for their children, was not much more than a formality and it had not occurred to her to pray about her problem, and yet from somewhere this idea came as though in answer to her question...Could mere living be a life’s work? Could it be a career like marriage or nursing the sick or going on the stage?...So she took a vow to love.'

This is a lovely book and my 14 year old daughter really enjoyed it too.

No Highway by Nevil Shute (1948)

Mr Honey, an overlooked but brilliant scientist, is working on fatigue in aircraft structures. The story is narrated by Dr Scott, Honey’s new boss. Scott initially judges the man by his ugly, dishevelled appearance, eccentric behaviour and bizarre interests, but finds that there’s much more to him than meets the eye.
Honey has a theory that the tail of the plane he’s been testing will crack from fatigue after a certain number of flying hours but he hasn’t proved anything yet. However, on a work flight over the Atlantic he discovers that the plane he is on is the same Reindeer model that he is performing his tests on. He is interested but not alarmed until he discovers that somehow the plane has been allowed to fly hours over his estimate where fatigue would be likely to occur.
He raises an alarm with the crew but they basically think he’s crazy so when the flight makes a short stopover he uses the opportunity to put a spanner in the works, so to speak.

As usual, Nevil Shute takes an unlikely person, fills in all their little details, and makes them the centre of the story. Shute is probably the only writer I know who is able to incorporate technical detail (he was an engineer) and not lose the non-technical reader who prefers a character-driven plot  (e.g. moi) in the process. His characterisations are so well done and people such as the unlikeable Honey become characters we sympathise and identify with in Shute’s hands. Unlike many of his other books, this one has a rather happy ending!

A little quote I liked was when Dr Scott was asked what he thought of Mr Honey after he threw the spanner in the works (metaphorically speaking). Scott’s reply was:

“I think exactly as I did...I think that there’s a very fair chance that he’s right about the Reindeer tail. I think he has a very logical mind. The fact that his interests spread very wide doesn’t mean he’s mad. It means that he’s sane.”

Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James (1971)

The title of this book is a clever little play on words. James has set this story in a teaching hospital and I think she captures the atmosphere of the hospital system really well, even if it differs in detail  from a more modern setting.
The plot is cleverly convoluted with twists and turns; multiple murders occur and suspicion changes from one person to another.
As I’ve said numerous times before, P.D. James has a wonderful literary style. Her life experience obviously contributed to her knowledge of human nature but I often get the sense that the only person she has genuine regard for is her Chief Inspector Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh. Everyone else in her novels degenerate into nasty specimens of humanity and the reader doesn’t get into sympathy with any of them, although there were one or two characters in this book who had some redeeming qualities.
There's a good amount of tension with some dramatic events and the ending was completely unexpected. A good read, especially for anyone who has worked in a hospital setting.

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers (1937)

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are married at last and set off to a quiet country house for their honeymoon.
The story starts off with extracts from the diary of the Dowager Duchess of Denver (aka Lord Peter Wimsey’s mother) and they are just delightful. She goes over some of the details of the development of the relationship between the two lovers and puts in her own funny little interjections.
It continues with snippets of gossip about the wedding from a variety of sources such as a letter written by Lord Peter’s nasty sister-in-law, Helen, who in writing to her friend observed:

‘Peter was as white as a sheet; I thought he was going to be sick. Probably he was realising what he had let himself in for. Nobody can say that I did not do my best to open his eyes. They were married in the old, coarse Prayer-book form, and the bride said ‘Obey’ - I take this to be their idea of humour, for she looks as obstinate as a mule.’

Unsurprisingly, Lord Peter and Harriet’s married life is inaugurated with a murder. The cosy cottage that Peter bought for Harriet and where they went to spend their honeymoon turns out to be not so cosy after all when the body of the previous owner is found in the cellar.
Busman’s Honeymoon is a combination of a detective novel and a romance and is an enjoyable conclusion to the long-running and tumultuous relationship between the two protagonists.

Harriet said: ‘I have married England.’

Wimsey said: ‘We’ve got to laugh or break our hearts in this damnable world.’

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers (1934)

This was a re-read for me but I’d read it so long ago that I’d forgotten many of the details.
Sayers wrote this novel after Strong Poison (where she introduces Harriet Vane) and Have His Carcase (where they work on solving a crime together) and it comes just before Gaudy Night which also features Vane. However, The Nine Tailors has no mention of Wimsey’s relationship with her.
I’ve really enjoyed the Wimsey & Vane novels and thought I might be disappointed going back to Wimsey on his own but I have to say, I found it quite refreshing. It gave Sayers the opportunity to delve into the personalities of the very engaging characters in this story and to concentrate her efforts on an intricate and baffling murder mystery.

The Nine Tailors is set in the remote fen country of East Anglia. It is an original and very clever detective story centred around a church, its practice of the ancient craft of bell-ringing and a twenty-year old unsolved crime. ‘Nine Tailors' refers to the nine strokes which start the toll to announce to the villagers that a man has died.

‘The art of change ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations.’


All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot (1973 & 1974)

This is the second volume of memoirs written by James Herriot and contains Let Sleeping Vets Lie and Vet in Harness.
James is now married to Helen, a farmer’s daughter, and they live in the little Yorkshire village of Darrowby. Its the 1930’s, Britain is on the verge of World War 2, and veterinary science is still in the dark ages in many respects.
I’ve loved these memoirs which started with All Creatures Great and Small where Herriot begins his practice in Yorkshire after his training in Glasgow. By the end of the first memoir, James and Helen were married and spent an unorthodox honeymoon carrying out tuberculin-testing. In this second memoir, they have settled into life as a married couple and James is in partnership with his former boss, Siegfried Farnon, in the veterinary practice in Darrowby.
The author is so good at combining humour and pathos in his writing. I’d be laughing at something hilarious in one chapter and in the next I’d be close to tears.
These memoirs are a window into a way of life that has passed and are great books to read aloud.

'There's another lamb in here,' I said. 'It's laid wrong or it would have been born with its mate this afternoon.'
Even as I spoke my fingers had righted the presentation and I drew the little creature gently out and deposited him on the grass. I hadn't expected him to be alive after his delayed entry but as he made contact with the cold ground his limbs gave a convulsive twitch and almost immediately I felt his ribs heaving under my hand.
For a moment I forgot the knife-like wind in the thrill which I always found in new life, the thrill that was always fresh, always warm.

The Yorkshire Dales, 2019

Green Dolphin Country by Elizabeth Goudge (1944)

Earlier this year I was introduced to Elizabeth Goudge through her book The Rosemary Tree and after reading that I knew that I’d read more by her. I ordered Green Dolphin Country because a good friend recommended it but I was surprised when it arrived that it contained 743 pages. I don’t usually commit to a book of that length unless it’s a Russian classic or a Norwegian saga because I don’t think there are many authors who have the skill to weave a story over that many pages without losing the plot and the reader.

However, once I’d bought the book I decided to read it and ended up enjoying it very much. Goudge certainly doesn’t write like a Russian novelist or a Norwegian saga writer but she is an expert delineator of character.

Green Dolphin Country is a work of fiction but it was based on an actual event. The story begins on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel where we meet the three main characters. It continues in New Zealand with details of the lives of two of those characters, alternating with scenes from the life of the one left behind. It ends with the meeting of all three again back in Guernsey in their latter years.
The personalities who populate this story are rendered in such a way that they become real. We see how the three main characters develop and change over the course of their lives. Goudge's insights into humanity with its weaknesses and strengths, fears and hopes, is skilful and infused with humour.
To me, this story was in essence a tale of love and disappointment; of choosing to love and acting on that choice when there was no corresponding feeling of love; of kindness and humility, of finding a way to make things work when there seems to be no way.

Some highlights

On the one who always wanted to be in control:

It was no good waiting on fortune. Her favour was inscrutable and uncertain. What one wanted one must get for oneself. A man could use his will like a sword but a woman had mostly to use hers like a shuttle.

...for the first time in her life she had taken her hand off the tiller and was waiting patiently for something beyond herself to take her in charge.

The worst thing about sin was that its punishment could not be borne by the sinner alone. Why did one not realise that before it was too late?

Goudge has a knack of illuminating ordinary things and highlighting hope. One of my favourite passages is this one about the unseen aspects of prayer:

There were days when the impossibility of seeing the result of one’s prayer was disheartening almost to the point of faithlessness. One prayed for those in peril, but though one might seem to hear the beating of wings in the wind the eyes of the body could not see the angel who took the prayer from one’s outstretched hands, held it as a shield between some human creature and the death that it was not yet the will of God should come upon them. One prayed for courage for those who had turned back upon the path, that they might turn again, but one’s own body did not experience the shock of realisation, the reversal, the gathering of strength. One prayed for the faithless but it was not granted to one’s ears to hear the crumbling of the walls and the shouting of the trumpet and the ‘I believe...’

There might be utter humiliation but that’s not the end of the story.

The sort of love he had given her, deliberately created, not drawn irresistibly forth by the loveliness of the beloved, implies no merit in the object of it and was not worth having. No, she had nothing - nothing.

She was too humiliated just at present to dare think that the virtue of humility might one day be her own.

How desperately hard it must have been for him. What a price he must have paid for her salvation! That was what love was - a paying of the price.

This is a very redemptive type of story and I love it for that fact alone.


Linking to Back to the Classics 2018: Classic with a Color in the Title

Back to the Classics: Linnets & Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge (1964)

I had a mixed reaction to Linnets & Valerians, a children’s book by Elizabeth Goudge which was published in 1964. On the one hand, most of the characters in this book are attractive, well portrayed, and interesting. The storyline is involved and has plenty of appeal also but I was uncomfortable with how Goudge handled the magical side of the story as the book progressed. I think Goudge's writing is very endearing so I am genuinely sorry I can't recommend this book without reservation.

The Story

Four children, Nan, Robert, Timothy, Betsy, and their dog, Absolom, are left in the care of their grandmother when their father went off exploring in Egypt. The children were a bit too much for Grandma to handle, so she decided that Absolom must go and that Robert and Nan should be sent to boarding school while her companion, Miss Bolt (christened 'Thunderbolt' by the children) would teach Timothy and Betsy at home. The children did not want to be either educated nor separated from each other, and were determined to keep their dog. So they did what any child would want to do in that situation:

'Escape. People always escaped from prison if they could. The question was, could they? Robert was ten years old, stocky and strong, and he had a penknife, green eyes and red hair, and when a question like this presented itself to his mind he did not ask it twice.'

By coincidence, they ended up at the house of their eccentric bachelor uncle, their father’s elder brother. Although Uncle Ambrose was adamant that he did not like children, underneath he was a decent fellow. He had firm views about children and did not hold with boarding school for girls:

‘Home’s the place for girls, though they should have a classical education there. I have always maintained that women would not be the feather-headed fools they are, were they given a classical education from earliest infancy.’

He agreed to let the children stay with him subject to certain conditions:

‘I intend to impose conditions upon your sojourn with me. You will keep them or go to your Uncle Edgar, who lives in Birmingham and will dislike you even more than I do myself...
I must tell you that I have a devouring passion, not for children themselves, for I abominate children, but for educating them...’

And so began their education in Greek, Latin, and Literature, with a good amount of free time thrown in if they completed their work.
The children’s mother had died five years previously and the children were close and trusted each other. Nan, responsible, steady, and sensitive, and twelve years of age. Being the eldest, she was of a domesticated turn of mind. She 'did not have many ideas of her own because it was she who had to deal with what happened after Robert had had his.'
She also believed that ideas should be chewed on for twenty-four hours, whereas Robert was impulsive and full of ideas - especially about how to make money; Timothy and Betsy, both feisty and headstrong were aged eight and six respectively.
Although their uncle was a stern disciplinarian, he was a wonderful teacher and did genuinely love his charges. He recognised that Nan had a reflective temperament like himself so he gave her her own little parlour where she could go for privacy:

‘A parlour of her own! She had never even had a bedroom of her own, let alone a parlour...
Something inside her seemed to expand lie a flower opening and she sighed with relief. She had not know before that she liked to be alone. She sat still for ten minutes, making friends with her room, and then she got up and moved slowly around it, making friends with all it held.’

Goudge showed her knowledge of children and their needs in a sensitive, charming, and humorous manner throughout this book, but as I mentioned previously, I was uncomfortable with how she handled the magical aspects of the story. I don’t have an issue with magic per se, and our children have read Tolkien, Lewis, and other authors, some modern, whose books contain this element, not to mention fairy tales. In a fairy tale, there are consequences for evil doers, but in Linnets & Valerians there were characters with dark motives and actions who didn’t have to face the consequences of their deeds. I think this is confusing to a child.
One particular instance that bothered me was when Nan discovered a book of spells in a cupboard in her parlour. They had been written by Emma Cobley, a woman who was jealous because the man she loved married Lady Alicia. Emma used her spells to inflict Lady Alicia’s son so that he became deaf and dumb, while her husband, Squire Valerian, was afflicted with a loss of  memory. Both of them were estranged from Lady Alicia for many years and she believe them to be dead. The children, with the help of old Ezra who lived with Uncle Ambrose, were able to reverse the spells and reunite Lady Alicia with her loved ones.
When Emma discovered her book of spells had been burned and her deeds revealed, she replaced the old sign of the falcon on the inn that had been removed when Squire Valerian disappeared and just went back to life as usual as though nothing had happened. No consequences.

In Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian, a book that explores the power of story in awakening a child’s moral imagination, he writes:

‘Children are vitally concerned with distinguishing truth from falsehood. This need to make moral distinctions is a gift, a grace, that human beings are given at the start of their lives.’

Magical realism and fantasy stories can project fantastic 'other' worlds while still paying attention to truth and without clouding real moral laws.

Guroian continues:

'Becoming a responsible human being is a path filled with potholes and visited constantly by temptations. Children need guidance and moral road maps and they benefit immensely with the example of adults who speak truthfully and act from moral strength...
some well-meaning educators and parents seem to want to drive the passion for moral clarity out of children rather than use it to the advantage of shaping their character. We want our children to be tolerant, and we sometimes seem to think that  too sure sense of right and wrong only produces fanatics.'

I would have been more satisfied if Elizabeth Goudge hadn’t made Emma’s actions seem trivial.

‘She won’t do no more ‘arm,’ said Ezra. ‘’Er spells be burnt an’ she won’t do no more ‘arm. ‘Angin’ up that falcon was ‘er sign to us that she knows she’s beaten. She won’t do no more ‘arm. Glory glory alleluja!’

However, Ezra was never quite sure of the inwardness of Emma’s virtue...

Apart from this episode in dealing with Emma, the story ended well and everyone lived happily ever after.



Linking to Back to the Classics 2018: Children's Classic

Back to the Classics: The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1956)

The Rosemary Tree is the first book I’ve read by Elizabeth Goudge, although she’s been on my radar for many years, but I doubt it will be my last as I found her writing to be descriptive and multi-layered; her characters warm and interesting.
The Rosemary Tree not only has an engaging plot, it also displays a skill in revealing character and from what I’ve read about the author, this seems to be her trademark.
There are, of course, many authors who have this skill, but Goudge doesn’t leave her characters unveiled and without hope. As they acknowledge and confront their weaknesses, mistakes, and outright transgressions, those same defects become catalysts for redemption. I loved this aspect of her writing and how it reflects her Christian values.
I won’t divulge the plot as there are a couple of surprises but here are some selections from the book to whet your appetite.

Goudge’s phrase ‘Interior Riches’ and the idea of ‘furnishing ones’ own private world' stood out to me so much that I wrote about it here.

'...out of chance phrases and flashes of beauty (Michael) had always in old days been able to build for himself his country of escape. “Rest and ease, a convenient place, pleasant fields and groves, murmuring springs, and a sweet repose of mind.” Cervantes had known the same country, and had doubtless retained the power to create it even in the midst of misery, so great were his own interior riches.
But Michael’s imagination had always been dependent upon exterior bounty, and cut off from that he had been cut off from his country too.'

‘...sarcasm doesn’t grow on the same stalk as humility.’

Goudge expressed the idea that hospitality could be sacramental. I’ve been pondering this and thinking back on some experiences we’ve had where hospitality did serve as a tangible extension of grace.

Some character sketches:

Bob, the gruff old gardener:

'He did occasionally let fall tokens of respect, and always when Michael was feeling most disintegrated by a sense of his worthlessness. They seemed to be bestowed to join him together again, for Bob seemed always moved by that strong creative impulse which only the best men have. In most men, Michael thought, even decent men, the destructive impulse is strongest in the presence of weakness.'

John, the compassionate, self-deprecatory, muddling vicar; a Don Quixote type of character:

'(Miss Giles’) amused liking for the amiable muddier was infused with sudden respect; which was not lost when he stopped the car with such a jerk that her head nearly went through the windscreen. He was out of the car in a moment, apologising and helping her out in a manner that could not have been more courteous had she been a duchess. Four shallow steps led up to the front door...and such is the power of suggestion that she walked up them as though she were a duchess, and led the way to the drawing-room with an air of elegance and grace that smote John’s heart with compassion. Another man might have thought it merely laughable...but to John it was as though he saw a fragile delicate flower struggling for life in some airless slum.'

Mrs Belling - on the surface a very sweet, charming woman who ran Oaklands, a school for small girls. Underneath, a completely self-absorbed woman who exercised a compelling power.

'Oaklands aquired an enviable reputation...and after forty-five years, even though it was declining now both in numbers and prosperity, it still retained it, as the scent of a rose still clings to it after the petals have begun to fall...
But the scent of a dying rose becomes at last tinged with the smell of decay and so had the atmosphere of Oaklands, emanating Asia did from the extraordinarily strong personality of Mrs. Belling...it was not easy to realise that strength could exist enclosed in such fatness and flabbiness, such laziness and self-indulgence, and hardly anyone did realise it; apart from a few of the children, and their unconscious knowledge showed itself only as a curious shrinking from Mrs. Billing’s sweetness.'

For some reason I had in my mind that this author would be a little saccharine and light but a few of my reading friends spoke highly of her writing so I knew I should at least try one of her books.
I did find the last couple of chapters of The Rosemary Tree to be a little contrived or forced (I was thinking mostly of one or two conversations where Harriet was involved) but Goudge’s revelations concerning Mrs. Belling’s true character made up for any other deficiencies.





Linking to 2018 Back to the Classics Challenge: A Classic by an Author That's New to You.
And to The Official 2018 TBR Pile Challenge

And to Carole's Books You Loved: April