Titles: The Scent of Water, The Rosemary Tree, Gentian Hill, The Dean's Watch (this is one of a trilogy), Green Dolphin Street, Island Magic, The Bird in the Tree (this is one of a trilogy)
Author: Elizabeth Goudge
File Under: Novels, Healing fiction
Age Group: Young adult on up
The comments in my {bits & pieces} post of Saturday reminded me to tell you about one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Goudge.
I threw a new category to “file under” in her honor: Healing fiction. I'd put fairy tales in this category as well. They are good stories first and foremost, but reading them can bring healing to the wounded soul, because something goes on beneath the surface, the effect of which is only felt after you put the book down. I can't describe exactly what this effect is, just that you feel more whole and more grounded after you've experienced on of her books.
I first encountered Goudge about 15 years ago when my friend Amy offered me her worn copy of Island Magic in my response to a plea for a good comfy novel. I read about a third of it and then I called her.
“Is this book really good? I mean, the title… [and the cover, I may or may not have added, which in that version featured a style of art I'd describe as faintly Bodice-Ripper]… and so far… well, I mean… what's going to happen?” I cut to the chase: “Is she going to commit adultery?!”
I just didn't want to go there, you know? I wanted a good read but nothing devastating, and at this point, I had no idea how things would resolve themselves.
“Just keep reading,” Amy told me. “Don't worry. You'll see.”
And she was right. This is the unique quality of Elizabeth Goudge. Her characters are unhappy. They seem to be in the wrong marriage or contemplating the wrong marriage at all times. They seem to be in love with the wrong person. She doesn't sugar-coat their lives.
Yet, the novels are romantic, deeply so, but in this way: The romance they feature is the hidden kind, where the protagonist loves despite not knowing how to love — or is made to love almost against her expectations — and where the endings are happy, but without the traditional or conventional or expected correlations with beauty, youth, and starry eyes.
So this is the healing aspect, and perhaps makes Goudge's books, for the most part, more suited to women who are past the Cinderella stage of life and more into Beauty and the Beast territory. The prince's charm is well hidden, and that fact may or may not have to do with Beauty's loss of her own inner compass.
Green Dolphin Street is substantially different from the other books I've listed, and I think an older teenage girl would like it. It's an epic tale based on an unlikely but true case of mistaken identity. It's much more detailed and significantly more developed and textured than the others. It's more of a commitment, but just as rewarding in how it points to a life beyond the mistake-ridden one we are living out here on earth. (The movie is terrible. Avoid.)
Goudge is not an A-list author. We're not talking Austen or Undset. When I go back to read her novels that I've loved, I realize that they are filled to the brim with endless descriptions of sunsets and sunlight and clouds and other meteorological phenomena that render many another book unreadable. Often her dialogue causes cringing. Sometimes my impatience with her style gets the better of me.
And then she surprises: I think my friends and I agree that we can't get enough of the kitchen at the beginning of Gentian Hill — it's maybe our favorite room in fiction! Or somehow you are drawn into afternoon tea with the family and find you are comfortable there.
Thus, this recommendation must come with certain caveats. I love her so, and I put her in the same category of author as Rumer Godden. She's a similar sort of early-20th century female writer — so appealing in her outlook. She's romantic without being superficial; a storyteller without letting go of her morals.
Unlike Godden, her craft is not carefully honed, so that's one caveat. Some of her books, like Child of the Sea and The White Witch I find just not worth the time.
What's most valuable about reading Goudge, though, is that when I finish one of the books I've listed here, I'm again left with a strong sense of peace, of rightness, and of healing. Her world is one where love means more than what our world attributes to it. Love is holiness, and she doesn't let her characters forget it.
Another point is that like Godden, her work sometimes veers into the odd or strange as far as what really matters, which is her world view and philosophy. Usually Goudge is so high-church Anglican as to be almost indistinguishable from Roman Catholic, especially because fiction often allows the artist to blur theological lines. But sometimes (in her later works?) she's just flaky, and I want you to know that.
I don't necessarily recommend every single thing she's written for both these reasons. But I highly recommend the ones listed if you are looking for that kind of comforting book that will have a good effect on you.
Do you love Elizabeth Goudge? Have I left out any good ones?
Jen says
Wow. I was so excited about this post, but disappointed by the end! A first for a LMLD blog! I only say disappointed because Goudge is my favorite author of all-time, and Green Dolphin Street changes my life every time I read it! (Have read at least five times)
Anyway, I hope your readers will pick up her books despite all of your caveats!
Leila says
Jen, sorry to disappoint, but you know, I have to keep my street cred. If there are some books by the author that are not that great, I’ve got to tell you! And Goudge lacks the unity of a top-notch author — she’s no Tolstoy.
That said, she has a special place in my heart as well, which is why I recommend her. I too love Green Dolphin Street.
Elizabeth says
I just re-read the White Witch, really it’s lovely. I am sorry you did not like it; so many truths and beauty in it; it’s my friend’s favourite novel, made her more interesting in the healing side of herbs.
My personal favourite, which indeed was to me what Phantastes was to CS Lewis, as in you finish the book and realize you are in a totally different space, a space of spiritual reality and beauty, is her book _The Scent of Water_…. I finished that book when I was in a dorm room at age 19, so nearly 20 years ago, and while I was in a building with no beauty (grey slab cement), the berries outside my window, were brighter, the colours of everything deeper; it’s a book that transformed.
That said, I am so glad you are pointing readers to her. I would advise readers to read all her books, as they will be for different people and different times a lifesaver for them. And as you write, sometimes perhaps the lines are not ‘perfect’ but really, look past them and listen to what they are saying, and suddenly you are in a meadow of beauty and light and are so glad to be there…
I was feeling quite inwardly depleted recently and knew the fast way to getting better was to spend sometime with this author, reading her books. It worked and the world that she paints is so worth spending time in, and as you say, is healing – restoring – giving beauty and life.
Jill Farris says
I love you. Anyone who is a fan of E. Goudge is a friend of mine. Please, please, please talk about her chidren’s books! They are wonderful. I wish there were more of them.
The Dean’s Watch is my favorite.
Timothy Underwood says
Ah, the last line- stupendous!
Revely says
I LOVE EG. She’s easily in my top 5 authors in terms of sheer enjoyment. I’d take The Scent of Water with me to a desert island, and I love the Damerosehay trilogy too, though I’m more partial to the first two than the last. I like books where people love the wrong person but manage not to indulge themselves endlessly, which I find in her novels. I first knew EG as a children’s book writer–I read Linnets and Valerians and The Little White Horse to absolute bits–and I found Henrietta’s House in a shop in Cambridge last year.
Emmie says
I am in disbelief as I wrote a post about My new discovery of Elizabeth Goudge only today! I also compared her writing to Rumer Godden’s! You are right, it is so very healing.
Annemarie says
The Dean’s Watch was an accidental find in the library. I loved it. It made me feel like goodness and faith will keep on keeping on despite our best efforts to destroy them. I tried Child of the Sea. It just got too goofy for me. I was so sad because I had hoped that all her other books would be as good as The Dean’s Watch. I agree that she is Rumer Godden-esque, which is probably why I like her as an author. I think the teenage girls would definitely enjoy her, and would give them the romance they like accompanied by fine Christian values.
Joy says
I so, so love Elizabeth Goudge. I have a few of her books, but many are still out of print and out of my price range (I’ve been trying to find an affordable copy of Towers in the Mist for years).
I love The Scent of Water, The Dean’s Watch, The City of Bells (the best description of a bookshop ever!), and Pilgrim’s Inn. My favorite books are her Christmas book (Christmas excerpts from several of her books plus a couple of wonderful short stories) and God So Loved the World, a retelling of the life of Christ, which has some of those over the top descriptions you mentioned, but is just throbbing with love for the Lord and makes me want Him more every time I read it.
Her books are very special, even the zany ones, and while I won’t take my theology from her, she talks of true things so beautifully that it helps me have a picture of what living a life of beauty and truth can look like.
I haven’t read Gentian Hill, but I must find it now and read abut that kitchen. 🙂
Joy
Betty says
As a teenager I absolutely loved her Francis of Assisi book, but I haven’t read it in many years. Try it out 🙂
Becky says
Try using bookfinder.com . They search tons of used and new booksellers, and the prices listed INcLUDE shipping. I buy all my books there, because I never mind used and I have always managed to find extremely inexpensive books In pretty good shape. I just checked for you and they have Towers In The Mist as low as $3.49…not a bad deal!
sibyl says
Oh, Auntie Leila, you are truly my long-lost aunt! I came to read to read Goudge as an adult, but had for many years read Godden. Goudge’s The Bird in the Tree was truly a revelation to me. I do love her blend of the transcendent and the naturalistic. Also I do agree with you that she is a B-list author. Sometimes I feel that the happy endings are almost trite. But these books present a vision for moral struggle set in a beautiful, flawed world. Green Dolphin Street was also excellent. Finally, I would recommend her book for young people, The LIttle White Horse. It is magical, with wonderful characters.
We women need this type of healing fiction, I think. Thank you for putting it out there!
Natalie says
I also love Elizabeth Goudge — especially The Scent of Water and the Dean’s Watch! I really like that you classified her with Godden. They definitely deal with a lot of similar themes, or at least similar movements of soul. Godden is absolutely the deeper, more accomplished writer, but I love Goudge too! My biggest problem is finding her books — a lot of them were out of print last time I looked, and my local library had only a few.
sue mcmillen says
Oh, how I love Elizabeth Goudge! My favorites are the Rosemary Tree and The Scent of Water. All the others that I have read have been just fabulous also. This post makes me realize that it is time to go to the library and read her all over again!
Blessings!
Libby Jane says
I love Goudge, and every time I do, I wonder, is this really good? There is a reason she has not received wider critical acclaim. At the same time, yes, yes! There is great goodness within!
She is in the small and select society of authors who can write the good better than the bad. Her villians are often shallow stock charaters, whereas her real triumphs are masterfully multi faceted. I love the way in the Damerosehay trilogy she circles around a character, or even a conversation or an incident, and you see them from within, without, and from five different sets of eyes. This has been transformative for me in How I look at and relate to my children, husband, sister, mother, in-laws. With each vantage you find more sources of tenderness, understanding, censure, anger. It’s beautifully three dinensional.
I am reminded of Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress, or, similarly, Phantates. I do not think these works are their best writing, but are beacons for ideas, that for the right reader, connect with a forgotten something insde ourselves, which was thirsty and we didn’t realize it.
At the top of my list of healing stories: macDonald’s the Wise Woman, some of Flannery o’Connor’s short stories, Smith of Wooton Major, by Tolkien. Oscar wilde’s fairy tales. Sir Gibbie (unabridged, please!) by George Macdonald.
I thought Goudge was Catholic! She is certainly also an animist. She really beleived in ghosts and benign spirits, not limited to angels and demons. Alas, I cannot go everywhere with her. i like to think of her as a true Romantic, in the Transcendental sense, where Nature itself has a voice, and reflects the fates and phases of men.
I particularly love the kitchen and bedrooms in The Little White Horse.
Lisa G. says
Don’t Catholics believe in ghosts? I saw one once.
Libby Jane says
Ooh, do tell!
I’m thinking of when Samuel was called back from the dead, and he basically says, what are you doing? You’re not supposed to talk to me! Or in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man is told he cannot go back to warn his family.
It’s not that they don’t exist. Goudge treats them like the friendly old servants who hang around the house, just helping the kids out when they are lonely. Playfellows.
Lisa G. says
Oh, right. No, that’s not how it is, is it? 🙂
Ana Braga-Henebry says
Thought she was Catholic too! Reading the Bird in the Tree trilogy to discuss with friends. Refreshing!
Lisa G. says
A City of Bells!!!!!!! Many years ago, when I was into the bodice ripper and romance novel phase, I was at the paperback book store. There it was in a bin of ten cent ones with no covers. I picked it up, having no idea of what was inside. It was magical. I read it many times over the years, but aside from the two which come after it, (and Green Dolphin Street) I have resisted the urge to read any more of hers. The reason? Not because I don’t want to, but it was almost too beautiful to me – I didn’t want to be too much drawn into this beautiful fairyland that I might resent having to come out of. Well, I suppose I’ll have to try another; I’m much older now, so I should see how I react to her. But God bless her for the beauty in that book. I’m glad the cover wasn’t on it – it was probably like the one you described.
Chere Mama says
I have always seen Goudge’s books, but have never tried one. One of my top favorite authors is Rumer Godden, however. She leaves me with that peace you talk about every time I read one of her novels over again. An Episode of Sparrows, The Kitchen Madonna, and of course In This House of Brede really do transport me somewhere else that is healing. She sees the extraordinary in ordinary circumstances. If E. Goudge is anything like that, I think I shall get out my library card and check some out.
Moira says
I have heard through the grapevine – my source of the Collective Memory, that her Damrosehay trilogy was required reading at one point in England for any couple considering divorce. I find this so fascinating – her descriptions of the characters are truly poignant and I’ve never seen in literature a finer description of the process required for loving with the will– Which goes beyond the feelings of the moment – the process through which a decision is made, action taken, and then feelings follow.
I’m honestly surprised that she didn’t make the A list. I think perhaps because of her beauty with words, there is a depth and mystery that flavors her writing. Also, she is the one of the few authors that, each time I read her , I gain something new from her writing, a new understanding of what it means to be human, new appreciation for those who love and live around me.
No mention of Elizabeth Goudge is complete without speaking of The Little White Horse. It’s ability to draw a child into the world of fairie is exquisite. That book was my favorite growing up!
Leila says
Moira, so interesting — of course I am heartily in favor of the idea of prescribing novels for life crises! I will have to re-read that series with divorce in mind. I can see it though, in general. She’s just anti- “fulfill yourself” and pro “love those you are stuck with.” If I may put it so!
CarlynB says
Of the Elizabeth Goudge books I have read, my favorite is Scent of Water and my least favorite is The Middle Window. The Middle Window is about reincarnation, which is not to my taste. I have read The Dean’s Watch twice, once on my own and then aloud to my husband. We both loved that book. I also have her autobiography, Joy of the Snow. My husband and I have had quite a discussion about how to pronounce her name. I was saying “Gow-dge” but he said it should be pronounced “Goo-dge.” So, which way is correct?
Lisa G. says
I work in a library, and years ago I saw an older woman in the “G’s”, looking at her books. Assuming she was looking for something new to read, I excitedly urged her to read Elizabeth Gowdge. She already was familiar with the lady, and corrected my pronunciation – “Gooj” is how she said it.
RCG says
I found this on Pegasusbookexchange.com:
Elizabeth Goudge (last name rhymes with “rouge”)
National Library Service
Kimberlee says
I too love Goudge! When I saw the Herb of Grace comment I was wondering if she’d be up next in the Library Project. 🙂 Gentian Hill was the first of her titles that I read and it remains one of my favorites. A City of Bells is so lovely (with a bookstore!) and Towers in the Mist is a beautiful peek at England in the time of St. Edmund Campion. I recently read The Bird in the Tree and was tempted at first to have the worried reaction you describe reading Island Magic, but I know enough of her not to worry and to wait and see. And such a marvelous perspective to see. As Moira said, should be required reading for anyone considering divorce. How often is duty even mentioned in modern discourse about marriage? I do agree with your adding a caveat to her works. I read The Middle Window with a bit of disbelief as in Did she really write this stuff? I felt better reading that she may have regretted writing it and having it published. Her other books make up for much.
TeresB says
I love Elizabeth Gouge too…You should try Isabelle C. Clarke one day…she wrote a hundred years ago in England on Catholic life and love…very good and helped my grandmother convert
TeresB says
Complicated twisting stories..sometimes frustrating but beautiful to see how catholic life weaves through it all
TeresB says
Gouge also wrote The Little White Horse-an amazing all time favourite book in my house esp for young girls 9-13….my 14 year still loves it and I’m going to read it outloud to my kids next year for school.The boys will enjoy it too for there is adventure in it and the second main character is a boy.
Libby Jane says
Do you think Little White Horse is just for girls? I thought my kids would love it (three boys) and they showed no onterest at all. Anyone with boys who liked it? We didn’t finish it, because usually they just love what we read, but i don’t know if i’ll try it again.
TeresB says
More for girls but not impossible for a boy to like-girls love it…it was and is one of my favourite childhood stories.
I’ll see if my boy sits through it next year!!I will read it out loud for everyone.I read a variety of stories out loud.Not all boys will have patience with it though -not to worry !
Libby Jane says
Thanks!
Lisa says
I love every EG book that I’ve read, but my all-time favorite is Linnets & Valerians. I am not much of a re-reader, but I have read Linnets & Valerians multiple times. I wish that I had found this particular book as a child, but I still love it as an adult.
lisa says
I’m so happy to see someone else who likes Elizabeth Goudge! A dear friend recommended “Green Dolphin Street” about a year ago, and it was so good that I’ve been trying to get all my friends to read it since. I even got a local librarian that our family has befriended to read it, and she loved it as much as I did: we spent over an hour over coffee one rainy afternoon just talking about the complexity of the characters and their situations! Then I read “Gentian Hill” and liked it too (though not as much!) and now I’m halfway through “The Little White Horse”. I tried “Linnets and Valerians” but couldn’t love it like I loved the others.
I agree with your opinions entirely: she’s different as an author, but someone worth working through just for fun!
Emily says
I looooved The Little White Horse when I was around middle-school age. I’ve never read anything else of hers and now I don’t know why! I didn’t realize she’d written so many books!
Stephanie says
Apparently The Little White Horse was J K Rowling’s favourite book when she was growing up. I loved Green Dolphin Street. It’s a book that gives one courage to do the right thing, and peace in the doing.
Lindsey G says
Pilgrim’s Inn was the first one I picked up (not knowing it was 2/3 in a series either), and I loved it. It was one of those books that came “at just the right time” for me. Almost as soon as I finished it I began reading it again! I went on to read 1 and 3 in the series and thoroughly enjoyed them. I loved how the wood affected each person differently. I recently borrowed Towers in the Mist from our library, but haven’t been able to get into the historical fiction mode at the moment. It’s been a bit slow to start and I think I just haven’t had the time to get far enough in to keep going! Hmm, maybe I’ll pick it up again before bed tonight and see how far I can get. . .
Margo, Thrift at Home says
I recently was pleasantly surprised to enjoy Gentian Hill. I had previously read some Goudge that I disliked – can’t remember the titles, but I thought the writing was shoddy and the characters thin. So I found this post really fascinating and all the comments useful.
I love the idea of “healing fiction.” I think this puts a finger on the kind of book I like the most. It cannot be scary or titillating or bizarre. There must be dimensional characters, realistic plots, and truly excellent writing. These are not really easy books to find because most modern authors are into sensation and many old authors veer too easily into schmaltz. I blogged about Stella Gibbons recently, trying to describe this.
Melissa D says
Have you read The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton? It’s one of the few books that had me weeping (for joy) at the end. SO good.
Jamie says
Elizabeth Goudge is magical. Green Dolphin Street I read in my late teens. How could that ever happen I thought! Aaaaaargh! However, Walter choked it down and gave it a go and never said anything. A gentleman. One sister was very forgiving and the other learned to love. A magical book.
Pilgim’s Inn is my favorite.
Anthony Adverse, How Green was My Valley and Green Dolphin Street are my all time favorites.
Thank you for the Goudge shout out.
Annie Dill says
I plan to read Elizabeth Goudge now after your description. I do LOVE Rumee Godden, particularly her children’s book The Story of Holly and Ivy, which I reread in one sitting every Christmas and have loved since I bought it for a few dimes from Scholastic Book Club in early grade school.
Annie Dill says
Oh! I realize I have read a children’s book by Elizabeth, The Little White Horse. Parts were charming. I recall that the heroine kept being described as doing everything “with a beating heart”, which of course is the state of all our hearts until they stop beating and we die:)
Maria Key says
I love Eliz. Goudge! If you are in England it’s a fun quest to find her books in used bookstores. They were quite popular for a time. And I think it’s pronounced with a long o. Any Brits out there know for sure?
Emily says
I just finished an intense year of reading and decided I needed an Elizabeth Goudge book. I found Rosemary Tree and it was just as you said, healing. I hadn’t put that word to her books but you’re exactly right. And, yes, she’s not the highest literature but she is restorative. Just what I needed. Maybe more of her books will be back in print..,
Mrs. Pickles says
Don’t forget The Little White Horse! We just discovered this children’s book recently and my girls and I LOVE it. It is a very sweet story about courage and self-mastery and friendship and forgiveness. Also made into a movie, which wasn’t as good as the book, even though Ioan Gruffudd was in it. 🙂
TeresB says
Yes,I was excited when I saw it was in a movie,but I too was disappointed (although really it’s always what happens)it really changed the story and the magic and needs to be redone !!!
Hannah says
I am normally a “silent” LMLD reader, but I had to chime in to say how grateful I am for Elizabeth Goudge. I work as a proofreader and I first learned about her novels when the publisher I work for decided to reprint The Dean’s Watch. I found myself moved to tears while I was trying to proof the manuscript!
I’ve just finished going through our reprint of Green Dolphin Street, too, and I have a newfound respect for her insight into the life a person who is closed off from “the inner country” by pride. And then of course there’s her somewhat pedantic but utterly ravishing Eliot Trilogy, which ends with a reflection on Hopkins’ Terrible Sonnets and the possibility of suffering for others (a distinctively Catholic notion, I think).
I love that she chooses the elderly and children as her protagonists; I love that the focus of her novels is the beauty (or not) of her characters’ inner life. She is always a joy to read (even when I’m supposed to be proofing!).
Kate says
I love EG and I’m glad I didn’t discover her until I was middle-aged. All those books to look forward to reading! When I was younger I would have been impatient with the “endless descriptions of sunsets and sunlight and clouds and other meteorological phenomena” but I enjoy them now. They really make me slow down and appreciate the lyrical writing whereas when I was younger I would have blipped over it to get to the action and dialogue. My favorite is the Damrosehay series; every few years I re-read the trilogy. I know some don’t like the last book as much as the first two, but as I get older I really appreciate the themes of suffering and death. The Middle Window was my least favorite – well written, but the psuedo-reincarnation aspect was a tad bizarre and the seeming lack of choice in destiny was unsatisfying.
Emily says
How timely. Just this week, I recommended Goudge to a friend in search of new reading material. So many of my favorites have been mentioned here, but I had to add my praise to The Scent of Water. One of the most beautiful aspects of that particular novel, in my mind, is how the life of a single woman can bless those around her. There’s also such a poignant picture of committed love in a marriage where the spouse is not “deserving” or even “pleasant”–as my sister-in-law pointed out, you’re almost tempted to wish sometimes that the cheating, lousy spouse in her novels would just conveniently die so the more winsome spouse can marry his/her soulmate (a la Jane Eyre). But I think there’s a deeper beauty in a story where marriage vows mean something, for worse, in sickness, for poorer, not just when it’s an easy happily ever after.
Emily says
You don’t mention her book of short stories, The Reward of Faith. My husband and I both enjoyed it.
Also, I do enjoy Rumer Godden, but I wouldn’t call her work “healing”….Peacock Spring, for example? Ugh.
Leila says
Emily, there are a few of Godden’s books that I do find give the same sense of “rightness” that I find in the best of Goudge. But then others… I did not like A Breath of Air.
My comparison, though, isn’t in the “healing” category so much as just in the category of a certain kind of woman novelist of the early 20th century. More in terms of tone and subject matter.
For sheer insight into healing love, I prefer Goudge.
Wendy May Jacobs says
I am Irish (though living in the UK) and I too have loved Elizabeth Goudge for years. I go to her books when I am feeling raw and frightened and broken and they give me courage and they somehow help to hold me still before God.
My favourite of all is ‘The White Witch’. I think it distinguishes most wonderfully between witchcraft and the things of God, but in a way which honours those people who practice ‘magic’ in good faith. The relationship between the ‘white witch’ and the old priest is beautifully and painfully drawn. ‘The Scent of Water’ is also very special. She looks at deep suffering head on, and somehow finds something redemptive about it. I think this is why she is often mistaken for a Roman Catholic.
She is also so good on marriage, suffering, faithfulness, mental illness, goodness v evil. I have also re-read her memoir ‘Joy of the Snow’ numerous times. It is such a humble, thankful, interesting book, and I particularly value the chapter ‘Pain and the God of love’.
The covers of her books often look so utterly trashy! she is a well-kept secret. Thank you for drawing attention to her…. she surely deserves not to be forgotten.
Wendy May
Wendy May Jacobs says
ps Just to say…. ‘The Middle Window’ is absolute rubbish, from almost every point of view! Just leave that one out, it isn’t worthy of her at all. All her other books vary in quality but they all have something special about them.
WM
Jennifer says
I love Elizabeth Goudge too! Have you ever read any of D E Stevenson’s books? I kind of think of her as a secular Goudge–the religious aspect is missing, but still they’re very moral, and, I think, often healing. Now, she was very prolific, so some of it is rubbish, but others are very good. “Shoulder the Hills” is one of my favorites of hers.
Sandi Frances says
My friend put me onto this post with its comments. Thanks so much to everyone for pointing out some obscure titles and even some other “healing” authors. My daughters have read more of Goudge and Godden than I have (what’s wrong with this picture? 🙂 and we have loved them. (Excepting the clinkers noted of Godden, e.g. Peacock Spring, one of her later ones. And in the end, In This House of Brede spoke in that cant-y way of Vatican II’s opening the windows of the church to let the fresh air in; perhaps she just let a little too much of the wrong kind of air into her head, may she rest in peace :-). I have a friend who was converted through that book. I also know of someone who became Catholic through it, but “went on” to Judaism. So you never know.
When my eldest daughter got to the dorm her freshman year at a “small Catholic liberal arts college” (sic), she found an Elizabeth Goudge on the desk of her previously arrived roommate. A great introduction!
Here’s my two cents on Middle Window. Ordinarily I would be the one complaining about the fake supernatural business (indeed I flinched to think of Rowling claiming inspiration from Goudge). For some reason I was able to suspend disbelief and look at that aspect of the story as a device, and though it was contrived, I enjoyed it and overall found the book inspiring. (No spells or incantations–just time travel, and confusion of time and identity. I guess you could argue that there was a little of that suggested by Christ’s calling John the Baptist Elijah…. But of course that was reality not fiction, and yet even in that case He seems to have used it as an analogy for teaching purposes; no question of reincarnation there! And yet, sharing a spirit?)
There is a wonderful paragraph early on in the book which we who are raising families can be encouraged by, about the fellow cultivating a culture by shoring up his little valley or whatever it was. He was responding to a criticism of it being utopian and irrelevant to try to kindle a little flame (bonfire?) hidden from the world where people could flourish in an older way. He noted that while it couldn’t warm the whole world, it warmed the inhabitants, and that the glow from the blaze would mark the spot and attract and lead others to it. (It was long ago I read it and no doubt that is completely off but perhaps you can get the point.) If the sound of the book doesn’t grab you, fine, but I wanted you to know that someone out there liked it in case you do, too!
Now we have to track down a copy (I’m SURE it’s in the attic somewhere….) of Gentian Hill which daughter number five had to leave halfway through at her hosts’ house in Canada a month ago; another daughter just sobbed through the end of Castle on the Hill, though not uncritically. So I guess I better get off the internet and start reading to catch up!
Thanks again for this wonderful conversation!
Sandi
P.s. Oh, to complete this I should mention Little White Horse :-).
logan says
This is late but related so I thought I’d share. A few months ago, I was organizing old books in the dusty, nearly forgotten library at our boarding school in Cameroon. I had just read this post so when I came across a worn out hardcover copy of “Island Magic” I put it aside. If I hadn’t read your post I probably would never have stopped since I’d never heard of Goudge. I think it’s so funny coming across this book for the first time in deepest, darkest, Africa. Well, I finally got around to reading it and I think “healing fiction” is a great title. I laughed just now re-reading your description and I think it’s spot on. Overly descriptive, not brilliant, but delightful still, and yes, healing.
Leila says
logan, amazing to find Goudge in deepest, darkest Africa! I will share my “find” — I was reading The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer*, recently published. A French priest, convert from Protestantism, theologian, participant in Vatican II and keen critic of many of his confreres, professor at an American university… and… a man who became best friends with Elizabeth Goudge! He writes about her in his book. Astonishing.
*http://amzn.to/1m2zhSV
Sandi Frances says
Great find!
Happily Fr. Bouyer’s memoir just jumped into my hand earlier today from the frost heaves, perhaps deeper down than darkest Africa.
Now I’ll be sure to crack it sooner rather than later. Thanks for the tip and thank God for all the nice convergences!
Sandi
P.s. How lovely, Logan, and indeed amazing, to have encountered Goudge in Cameroon! I think the Anglican church has been strong in Africa; she must have had a following among Englishwomen in other countries as well as her own. (Well, my husband enjoys her plenty, but you know what I mean.)