My Favorite Elizabeth Goudge Books

Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984) was an English writer of novels and children's fiction. While her books could not be classed as "Christian fiction" (Thank goodness!), her stories are often interwoven with Christian themes, which is what makes them so powerful. 

I read my first Goudge book in 1988 (The Scent of Water), but did not become a devoted fan until I read The Dean's Watch several years later. By that time I'd weaned myself away from romance novels and was ready for love stories with more stubstance to them. In some ways her writings are anti-romance because they take a very serious, "unfluffy" view of love. 

Here are my four favorite stand-alone titles, followed by her most famous trilogy. Sadly, the prices for these at Amazon are quite high (with the exception of Green Dolphin Street); I purchased all of my copies of these books through other online bookstores.

The Dean's Watch - If I could have only one Goudge book, it would be this one. Adam Ayscough is a man who struggles to relate to people and learns that loving others comes at a high cost. (This is the theme of almost every Goudge title!) My 2012 review is here.

The Rosemary Tree - Vicar John Wentworth seems to be failing at everything. But in this novel he grows in his understanding of what it means to live well. (Reviewed here)

Island Magic - This story takes place on the Channel islands and tells the tale of a couple with five children in dire circumstances. Can their love survive all the challenges? (Reviewed here)

Green Dolphin Street - Sisters Marianne and Marguerite compete for the love of young William Ozanne. Neither of them could have predicted the earth-shattering results of the choice he makes. (Reviewed here)

The Eliot Family Trilogy: 

The Bird in the Tree (reviewed here)

Pilgrim's Inn (reviewed here)

The Heart of the Family. I did not review this when I read it in 2019 because it was my least favorite of the three, but I'm eager to re-read it since a book blogger friend once expressed her very high opinion of it. (She wrote: "I have found some readers are not as fond of The Heart of the Family as the other two, but I adore it. I think it particularly speaks to those who are older or who have suffered deeply.")  

If you are looking for light romance, you will be disappointed. But if you are wanting to read books that will train your heart to love more deeply, then Goudge will definitely nudge you in the right direction.

Blessings,

How Aristotle Helped Me Understand Elizabeth Goudge

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm reading through Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics this year, and have found it to be surprisingly accessible. In Book Ten, he addresses the subject of pleasure and asks if pleasure is the "Chief Good." After all, everyone, from the most irrational to the most rational, seeks it. But just because everyone wants it, does that make it the best thing for us? Some are even inclined to call it one of the "least" goods because we can so easily become enslaved to it. So where does Arisotle land on this issue?

Back in Book One, he proposed that the highest good is actually "the working of the soul." And he continues that emphasis in Book Ten with a discussion about what brings true happiness. And (surprise!) it's not a life of unending pleasure. He proposes that the values of our pleasures rise and fall with the activity with which they are joined. Pleasure is therefore a necessary element in the best life, but it is not the principal ingredient.The value of life depends upon the nature and worth of the activity with which our pleasures are connected.

In contrast to hedonism (a relentless pursuit of pleasure), he advocates for eudaimonia (the ability to live well, to flourish), which includes virtuous activity in accordance with reason.

What does all this have to do with Elizabeth Goudge? I've been thinking a lot about her novels and of how often they lack the feel-good, happily-ever-after endings that most readers crave. Many times her characters set aside their personal desires and pleasures to do the hard thing. They shore up their souls to live a deeper, truer life. So the endings are always happy in the Aristotelian sense.

My next post will cover my favorite Goudge titles in case you are wondering where to start.

P.S. I read this book in bite-sized chunks (15 minutes a day, 4 times a week) and it took nine months. I took copious notes so that the ideas would have a better chance of "sticking" in my brain. I'm grateful for my dear husband who patiently listened to my ruminations over many an early morning breakfast. 

Blessings,

The Riches of a New Book - Elizabeth Goudge Quote

One especially poignant and influential character in Elizabeth Goudge's novel The White Witch is Parson Hawthyn. He lives in extreme poverty in a drafty hut beside the church. In one scene, he painfully rises after kneeling a long time in prayer and heads back to his house. 

For a moment he was visited by a sense of depression because autumn was here and winter not far behind and it might be a very long time before he felt really warm again. Then he thrust the thought aside with shame. He had a bed to sleep in, even if he was not always very warm in it. Suddenly he remembered how rich he now was. Upstairs he had a tinderbox, a candle, and a new book. Entirely forgetting his need of pity, entirely forgetting the poor, he dropped his wet cloak on the floor and clambered up the crazy little staircase to his attic bedroom with the greed of a miser scurrying to his gold.

(photo by Tanya Prodaan at Unsplash)

Blessings,

Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge

At the root of all art is giving. You can’t hoard the beauty you’ve drawn into you; you have to pour it out again for the hungry, however feebly, however stupidly. You’ve just got to.

One of the themes of Pilgrim's Inn is true beauty. Several members of the Eliot family are extolled for their physical appearance and artistic talent, but Goudge expertly shows that loving deeply and unselfishly is its own kind of art. By this definition, the plainest of the Eliots  (Margaret and Hilary) are artists of extraordinary talent. Some people express loveliness just by loving. Goudge does not sentimentalize love, but instead shows its high cost. 

The title of the book refers to the old inn that Nadine and George buy as their country home. It used to house devout believers who made their pilgrimages to the nearby abbey. Now it has become a refuge not only for Nadine's family, but for other wanderers. Slowly the residents discover the house's  hidden surprises and its ability to bring them healing. The book was written after WWII and several of the characters have lost their hope in humanity and see no point in bringing children into such a world. Goudge deftly proposes that it is BECAUSE of children that the world can improve. While there were children, men and women would not abandon the struggle to make safe homes to put them in, and while they struggled there was hope.

To Goudge, home-building is world-building. Every family unit is a piece of the armor needed to keep mankind safe and sane. Lucilla, the family matriarch feels this strongly:

She tried to pay attention to what the others were saying. But they were talking about the deplorable state of the world, about that terrible bomb, about famine and inflation and chaos and death, and her mind shied away from their talk like a terrified horse. She couldn’t do anything about it now, at eighty-six, except pray, and in between her prayers, now that the war was over, she wished they would let her forget sometimes that things had not turned out as well as one had hoped, and enjoy the things that were left: the spring sunshine slanting into the quiet room and lighting up the flowers, the lively ripe corn color of Pooh-Bah’s coat, the hot tea, the log fire burning on the hearth, the feel of the dear old dog’s chin resting on her shoe, the sound of the sea coming in the pauses of their talk…Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilization depended on their quality, and it was no good weakening oneself for the brick-making by thinking too much about the flood.

A lovely installment to the trilogy!

Blessings, 

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

There are two kinds of romantic love. One is the passionate emotion that leads you to say, "I do." The other is the unemotional choice that enables you to keep your promise even when the feelings come and go. In The Bird in the Tree, Elizabeth Goudge explores both types.

Nadine and David are deeply in love. Their passion for each other is the "truest" thing they know. But Lucilla, the matriarch of the family, isn't so sure that their marriage is a good idea. And she does her best to persuade then that there might be something truer.

As part of my resolution to read more deeply, I'm reading only physical books for the first few months of 2019. I've already seen a difference in my attention span! And also an increase in my overall enjoyment. The Bird in the Tree was splendid in every way: good writing, non-simplistic answers to life's problems, and believable characters (even the dogs are wonderfully "real").

Some delectable quotes:

In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried. The meeting with remembered and well-loved passages is like the continual greetings of old friends; nothing is so warming and companionable. (p. 266)

It was that declaration of Nadine's, that she wanted "to live her own life," that had exasperated Lucilla beyond anything else in the whole wretched business. It was a remark frequently on the lips of the modern generation, and it annoyed her. For whose lives, in the name of heaven, could they live except their own? Everyone must look after something in this world and why were they living their own lives if they looked after antique furniture, petrol pumps or parrots, and not when they looked after husbands, children or aged parents? (p. 83)

If you are familiar with Goudge, I don't need to extol her gifts, but if you aren't yet familiar with her novels, I suggest this trilogy (Bird in the Tree is Book One) or the stand-alone The Dean's Watch.

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in February

I continue to stick to my New Year's resolution: NO FICTION on my Kindle until I finish 20 physical books. I miss my e-reader because that is where most of my light reading is stored. On the other hand, I am less distracted with my present reading style, so I'm pleased with that.

I finished Pilgrim's Inn and The Heart of the Family, the last two books in Elizabeth Goudge's Eliot Family trilogy. I also finished up The Little House series, wishing I had skipped the last book, The First Four Years, because it is dissonant in tone from the other books. The Long Winter and These Happy Golden Years were my favorites of the set.

I listened to The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher and although I didn't agree with everything, I greatly appreciated his deep thinking on several hard subjects. I also listened to 18 Holes with Bing, a biography by Nathaniel Crosby. I read Tozer's God's Pursuit of Man and Wiersbe's Be Wise (commentary on 1 Corinthians) on my Kindle.

I watched two old movies on YouTube, neither of which were uh-mazing. But I enjoyed the acting in the British melodrama Turn the Key Softly (1953). And I love Jean Arthur in anything, so I gladly put up with the silliness of Too Many Husbands (1940). (Though I prefer the 1963 remake with Doris Day and James Garner called Move Over Darling.)

What about you? Did you read or watch anything in February that you'd recommend?

Blessings,

The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

I have always been an Elizabeth Goudge fan, but even more so now that I've read The Rosemary Tree. Her books have biblical themes (sacrificial love and growth through suffering), but, thank goodness, she's never preachy.

The beginning of the story is dismal. John Wentworth, the bumbling but good-hearted vicar, thinks he is a miserable failure. His wife (who married him on the rebound of a hurtful relationship) has never been happy. His children are in an awful school. But when an ex-convict wanders into their village, people start to take a hard look at themselves and begin to extend grace to one another.


Knighthood is a constant theme in this novel. John even has a car named after Don Quixote's horse, Rozinante. In the eyes of his unhappy wife, John is anything but knightly, but as she comes to a clearer understanding of her own hollowness, she finds that he is (and always has been ) chivalrous. Goudge constantly contrasts valiant knights with humble men of faith:

[Harriet] liked these gray days. They had their own beauty. When the sun was out the world was a young knight riding out with armor flashing and pennon flying, but on a day like this it was an old beadsman turned to his prayers, wrapped in a dun cloak of stillness and silence. (p. 10)

Other memorable quotes:

Michael had never been in the presence of a man who possessed such a depth of innocence. One could almost bathe oneself in it, as one bathed oneself in the soft air of the west country. And why not? The worth of one man was surely as much at the service of another as the warmth of the sun, if that other had a sufficient realization of his need for it. (p. 236)

When one of the children is reprimanded for having filthy feet, she replies, Living is dirty work, but I like it, which pretty much sums up the theme of the book. Loving your neighbor is messy business, but worth the effort. Even the weak. . . . in kindness is made strong. (p. 313)

A very worthwhile read.

A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge

I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Goudge. Imagine my disappointment when I visited England recently and couldn't find her books anywhere. But I had City of Bells in my luggage, so all was not lost.

It's the story of Jocelyn Irvin who has returned from the Boer War (1899-1902) with a lame leg. Reluctant to face a lot of people, he travels to Torminster, a quiet town where his grandfather lives. He begins to rebuild his life by opening a book shop and making new friends.

Although City of Bells left me bewildered at times, I enjoyed the characters and their passion for books. They playfully referred to Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights as "Jane" and "Emily."

On page 105 Grandfather says this about books: In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greeedy for life, you know, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience life vicariously. 

My enthusiasm for the book was dampened by the mystical thread about "thought transference," in which several characters send thoughts to each other across the miles. It seemed sort of silly in an otherwise serious story.

My favorite Goudge title is The Dean's Watch, but I've enjoyed the Damerosehay trilogy (The Bird in the Tree, Pilgrim's Inn, and The Heart of the Family), I Saw Three Ships, and Island Magic. I did not like Middle Window, so not all of her books are created equal. But she's one of the best writers of light novels with deep themes.

I'm delighted that more of her books are becoming available for Kindle, although they are expensive (in the ten dollar range).

Island Magic by Elizabeth Goudge

Once in a while a book comes along that’s just too scrumptious to put down, one that makes you abandon your regular habit of taking notes while reading so you can get lost in the story. Island Magic is that kind of book.

Rachell and André are the proud parents of five high-spirited children. Their lives, though, are not peaches and cream. The year is 1888 and they live on a run-down farm in the town of St. Pierre, on one of the Channel Islands (between England and the coast of Normandy).  Their sixteen year marriage has been tried by fire as they’ve buried three babies and used up all of Rachell’s inheritance to keep the farm going.  

The name of the farm is “Bon Repos” and when André tells Rachell that they’ll have to abandon it and take their losses, she refuses to believe that the place that they’ve created as a refuge for themselves can be let go so easily.

When a shipwrecked man is brought to the island, Rachell immediately takes him in, sensing that somehow he’ll be the solution to their problems. The man, Ranulph, has spent his whole life refusing to be tied down to anyone or any place yet he finds the du Frocq family hard to resist.  As the story unfolds he finds healing for some of his past hurts and contributes to the welfare of the family in various ways. Goudge throws in a few twists and surprises for good measure.

As always, she succeeds in writing a beautiful story while weaving in themes of mortality, committed love, and the freedom of “tying oneself down” to duty and to family.

In the end, the island magic is not the superstitions of the people (which are highlighted throughout the book), but the way it forces people in such a small space to be a community. “You can’t be an individualist on our Island, she said. . . . With the sea flung round us and holding us so tightly we are thrown into each other’s arms - souls and seasons and birds and flowers, and running water. People understand unity who live on an island. And peace.” (p. 262)

This was Goudge's first novel, published in 1934. A lovely book!

Reminiscing about Books

I was adding a few titles to my reading journal and decided to take a peak at what I was reading ten years ago. It turned out to be a Jane Austen knockoff called The Third Sister by Julia Barrett.  (I have since given up all books that try to sound like Austen, but which invariably fail.)

Peeking back a little further, I saw that twenty years ago this month I was reading poetry and books about homeschooling.  And 25 years ago I was devouring all of Michael Phillips re-workings of George MacDonald's romances. I was also reading my first Elizabeth Goudge book, The Scent of Water.

It's fun to think that I've read hundreds of books since then and have discovered many wonderful new authors.

Anybody else keep a reading log? What were you reading a decade ago?

Elizabeth Goudge Back in Print!

Lyn over at I Prefer Reading shared some exciting news. Several Elizabeth Goudge titles are back in print thanks to Hendrickson Publishers.  If you've been hesitant to buy used (tattered) copies, this may be the solution you've been waiting for.  Sigh. I'll try to be content with the "previously owned" copies I bought last year.

Books that Made the Cut

I had set a goal of 20 books in my limited luggage space.  Since 1) I think I'll be able to find books in the Brasília American School library, and 2) since I have many books on my Kindle, and 3) since we'll be returning to the U.S. periodically to visit our adult children, I didn't have as much angst as I expected about having to decide which books to take along.  One suitcase is already full of teaching materials (including books about theology and the Bible) so this stack is more for leisure reading.

The chosen books ended up being only a dozen: My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, 52 Sermons by John Wesley, Portuguese Bible, To Kill a Mockingbird, Return of the King by Tolkien, Life Together by Bonhoeffer, Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, Gold by Moonlight by Amy Carmichael, Cotillion by Georgette Heyer, and Elizabeth Goudge's Damerosehay trilogy.  

The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge

Adam Ayscough’s miserable childhood led him to seek God.  Isaac Peabody’s wretched childhood made him reject Him.  The Dean's Watch recounts their slow and painful journey toward friendship and healing. 

Adam is the dean of a great cathedral in an unnamed English city.  His ugly appearance and natural shyness cause people to avoid him.  Yet he is a man with a capacity to love deeply.  He lavishes that love on his unresponsive wife and on the city (as he crusades for reforms).

One of his only friends is the lonely spinster, Miss Montague.  She challenges the Dean to “take a little joy” by risking to show his love to people. The contemplation of sunsets and vegetable matter has its serene pleasure, and involves no personal exertion, but I think that is not what you want in your old age. (220)  As he takes her advice, he finds that Life had taken on a strange richness. . . .  Until now life for him had meant the aridity of earthly duty. . . .  Now he was aware of something else, a world that was neither earth nor heaven, a heartbreaking, fabulous, lovely world. (p. 193)

His new world is heartbreaking because in it he becomes acquainted with other people’s pain.  He himself pays a heavy price to alleviate their suffering. The recurring theme in the book is the transforming power of sacrificial love.

Goudge’s writing is top-notch.  Here she describes the atheist clock maker:

It was there in the window, finished five days ago, the best clock that Isaac had ever made.  He had thought that he would not be able to put it in the window, so much did it seem to be a part of himself, yet suddenly he had put it there, in the center, the other clocks grouped about it like lesser stars about the moon.  He had put it there because it was Christmas.  To him it was only a fairy tale that love had leaped from heaven on fire for the manger and the cross, but tales are potent things and this one was in his blood, and so he had to do it; he had to give his best to the city. (247)

You start the book thinking the title is about a timepiece, but end it knowing it is about a man’s vigilant love for his city. Definitely one of my top ten favorite books of all time.

Elizabeth Goudge Books

One of my goals for the New Year was to read more Elizabeth Goudge.  A quick look at Amazon showed that most of the ones I wanted were more than $20 so I zipped over to AbeBooks and found that I could get four titles for the same amount: The Child from the Sea, Pilgrim's Inn, The Heart of the Family, and The Dean's Watch.  What a treasure trove!

Child From the Sea is the only book in the stack that I haven't read before.  I am very happily entrenched in The Dean's Watch and will be writing a review soon.

I Saw Three Ships by Elizabeth Goudge

I ordered I Saw Three Ships for the holidays, but the interlibrary loan service was a bit sluggish and it didn't arrive until January.

Nevertheless I dove into the story because as a fan of both children’s lit and of Elizabeth Goudge, I had little doubt that I would like it. But I wasn’t prepared for how intensely I would like it. I am in wonder as to how Goudge created such a richly peopled tale around a traditional Christmas carol and made it work.

The story takes place in the late 1700’s in a coastal village in England. Polly’s parents have died in an accident and she has been living with her two maiden aunts for ten months. This is going to be her first Christmas with them and they are shocked with her announcement that the Wise Men will visit their cottage on Christmas Eve. Reading how the skeptical aunts soften and how Polly's dream comes true was a special treat.

A sample of Goudge’s lovely writing:

Dorcas gathered her old brown cloak firmly about her, as though the balmy southwest wind were a savage northeaster, and peered out from the recesses of her brown beaver bonnet like an owl from the shelter of a hollow tree. Nevertheless there was the hint of a smile upon her usually grim mouth. For though she did not admit it, she was enjoying this expedition in search of the erring Polly. The sharp tang of the seaweed lying in shining coils on the sand below her was delightful. The sparkle of the sea in the sunshine raised her spirits. Turning to look at the little town, she found she had forgotten how pretty it was with its steep cobbled streets climbing the hill, its old red roofs all higgledy-piggledy and the plumes of smoke from the chimneys azure in the clear air. (p. 28)

The Joy of Snow by Elizabeth Goudge

Please do not read The Joy of the Snow unless you are already a huge fan of Elizabeth Goudge. If you do, you may be tempted to dismiss her as "strange" and never open one of her marvelous books. There isn't much I can say about this book that hasn't already been said by Janet at Across the Page. I, too, struggled to like this book because Goudge is honest about her beliefs and eccentricities to a fault. When fans wrote her and asked if she put herself in her books, she replied that quite the opposite was true. "After writing for years I noticed the regular appearance of a tall, graceful woman, well-balanced, intelligent, calm, capable and tactful. She is never flustered, forgetful, frightened, irritable or nervous... She is all I long to be and never will be. She is in complete reverse a portrait of myself."(p. 34) Goudge is this self-deprecating throughout her entire autobiography.

My least favorite Goudge book is Middle Window. But after reading Joy of Snow, I at least understand what compelled her to write it: her strong belief that love is stronger than death. This theme is too sentimental for a common sense girl like me, but time and life experience may change my opinion.

Though I had to come to grips with the fact that Goudge and I don’t share the same theological views, I still believe she’s one of the best fiction writers out there. Her characters grapple with real issues and don’t always come up with neat and tidy solutions. YET, they often recognize their need to make tough decisions based on their growing understanding of who God is. Interestingly, Goudge insists that she always set out to write a good story rather than a religious one and that faith-related themes came into the books quite unconsciously.

A sampling of some of the lovely quotes:

God draws us to Himself with tenderness and then says the most uncomfortable things to us. (p. 245)

I believe that death interrupts nothing of importance if the goal is Christ. (p. 247)

Truly great men and women are never terrifying. Their humility puts you at your ease. If a very important person frightens you he is not great; he only thinks he is. (p. 212)