The Correct Elizabeth Goudge Novel
Jan. 11th, 2013 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksRight, I have like seventeen things I am wanting to write and fifty-three things I really ought to do, but I am also sick and exhausted, and as a result it has started actively bothering me again that one of the best books in the world is not in print, so I thought I would rant about it.
Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984) wrote a great many books, divided roughly equally into the categories of novels for adults, novels for children, and apologia. I refuse to read any of the apologetics because I suspect they are nauseatingly twee and I cannot locate any anyhow. Of the adult novels, Green Dolphin Street is generally highest-regarded and I couldn't get through it; The White Witch attracted me with its title and then was so screamingly bad at romance that I had to run away again.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay has mentioned that one of the other books contains her ancestor Theobald Taaffe, which is good, but that it dramatically misrepresents the romantic position he and Lucy Walter and Charles II were in as being a love triangle rather than, as their letters suggest, friendly polyamory. Consequently I have not read said other book.
Of the children's books three are worthwhile. Two of those are more or less known, in print, and generally well-liked. The third is immortally brilliant and has had, as far as I can tell, one printing ever.
The two you can get hold of are The Little White Horse and Linnets and Valerians.
Linnets and Valerians is easily describable: it is Better E. Nesbit, very highly reminiscent of all those E. Nesbits in which a group of children, mostly related to one another, get themselves tangled up with magic. In this particular instance, a number of plot elements are more well worked out than you generally see in Nesbit except at her very, very best, the prose is more musical, and there are bits which are more frightening and more numinous than Nesbit also generally reaches. Also, and this is viscerally satisfying to me as a long-time reader of children's books, this is a book which starts with the children running away and they stay run-away and never go back to the place they were running from, because it was a horrible idea for them to be living there. It is by no means a perfect book-- lack of plot direction, shifts in tone which sometimes feel as though there are two or three novels fighting one another in there, Goudge should never be allowed near even the hint of trying to write about romantic love, and if you want to write about the genuinely creepy or numinous I don't know why you would start with a template of E. Nesbit as it imposes upon you certain limitations-- but really it can be summed up as Better E. Nesbit, and if you like that idea you will absolutely like it.
The Little White Horse is a far more medieval sort of story, and is one of the few decent novels to contain a unicorn, and probably the only such novel I have read which does not have any portions intended satirically. A unicorn in the old sense, too, straight off a tapestry, and for that matter with the counterpart of a lion. The young woman at the heart of the book is a slightly more modern, end-of-the-nineteenth-century young lady who is brought home to a feudal demesne to unify a family feud and heal a family wound. Again, the magic is very magical indeed and gloriously written, and portions of the language sing. Again, I wish Goudge had not been allowed to go near romance-- I have a suspicion that this is the book C.S. Lewis was talking about when he said that the appearance of romance between children was one of the most nauseating things an author can do in a book, which is a great pity because it means he probably stopped reading Goudge. Also, the danger is not very danger-y. But it is a lovable book, though I do not love it as much as I might have if I had met it as a child.
Then there is Valley of Song, which is, as I have remarked, out of print, out of print, out of print. Valley of Song is also very easily describable. It is Better George MacDonald. Some of you now no longer care. To the rest of you, I say, yes, it is better than my favorite George MacDonald. Or your favorite George MacDonald. Or in fact anything George MacDonald ever wrote. Speaking here as a person who very much loves George MacDonald.
The premise of Valley of Song is that Tabitha, who is about eight, lives in a quiet shipbuilding village somewhere in probably-circa-Restoration England. The village has just gotten an order for a large and beautiful ship; Tabitha's father is the blacksmith, and she looks forward eagerly to seeing all the building and making. She also knows of a gate to the Valley of Song.
Again I have to reference C.S. Lewis here. What Lewis was trying to do, with the Narnia books, he said, was fuse mythology older than Christianity with his own Christianity in a way which showed his deep respect for both. Whether he succeeded at this is debatable. He does sometimes for me, and sometimes not. Goudge is trying the same thing, but achieves the correct distance, I think, the precise blend which makes the trick work: the Valley of Song is theologically located on the outskirts of Heaven, but is metaphysically in the land of Faerie. Each person who goes into it sees it differently, but each sees it in terms of the mythologies which a) mean the most to them and b) influence them the most, which two are not always the same thing. And the book's plot does not center around retelling any of the Christian stories.
The plot is about the ship's owner losing all his money, and being unable to continue his commissioning of her, which will be an economic catastrophe for the entire village, and has been a personal catastrophe for the owner, a man well aware of his responsibilities. Tabitha leads various people into the Valley of Song to try to find a solution for this problem, and it is through the confluence of the different aspects of the Valley, the different ways each person sees it, that the problem is solved.
On an imagery level, it is one of the loveliest books I know. It has people repeatedly riding on personified signs of the Zodiac; it has dawn breaking over the Greek islands, and a character going into the dawn by going into the sea and learning to breathe water; it has the timbre of the air at the top of the tallest mountain in the world, at which there is a doorway made of ice, through which nothing human may do more than listen at the keyhole.
On a character level, it is surprisingly dark. Many of the characters are at first glance types, and the general outlines of their arcs are usually fairly clear from the beginning, but all of them are fleshed out in ways which are simply more complex and unexpected than one has any right to expect from this sort of novel. The reason the book can sustain its heart-wrenching beauty is that not everything is going to be all right. There is death, there is pain, there is hunger, there is grief, and there are miracles but they are specifically that, miraculous, not to be expected on any sort of regular basis, in point of fact not to be expected. I realize that not all books work emotionally on all people the same way, but I do in fact reliably cry every time I read this, and I know exactly where I am going to cry, and I still do. Comedic characters may have the least comedic motives possible.
No book is perfect. There are 2.5 scenes in this one which I consider to maybe, if I am in the wrong mood, tip over the line into twee. That is all.
There are also lovely and appropriate line-drawing illustrations, rather nicer than the kind one usually gets, which I appreciate.
I first read this because the library system near me had it, andsovay told me to. Then the years turned, and I moved away for a while, and when I came back somebody had noticed that this book sitting in the children's section of this library cannot usually be gotten in the U.S. for less than one hundred fifty dollars if you are buying in-continent-- I bought it for sovay for marginally less, but I had to have it shipped from Australia-- and this noticing person stole it. I do not know who that person was, but I quite literally curse their name, because denying the public access to that book is not a thing which should have happened. I am mostly lenient with library thieves, many of whom are motivated by strange passions and the love of books. Not this one. A book-loving person ought to know better.
It is my fervent hope, therefore, that somebody will bring Valley of Song back into print. Maybe the New York Review of Books's Children's Classics imprint, or something? I mean the other two are still put out by Penguin! This should not be impossible! And Goudge, having died in, as I mentioned, 1984, is still in copyright even in Australia, and cannot be gotten via Project Gutenberg no matter which country you are from, whether for the weekend or more generally. Nor is there a legal ebook.
So you cannot find this. But if you see it at a yard sale, or pester a large company to bring it out again effectually, or discover a copy moldering at the back of a children's library, read it and treasure it, because no other book I have ever read has achieved the things which Valley of Song does, and many have tried.
Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984) wrote a great many books, divided roughly equally into the categories of novels for adults, novels for children, and apologia. I refuse to read any of the apologetics because I suspect they are nauseatingly twee and I cannot locate any anyhow. Of the adult novels, Green Dolphin Street is generally highest-regarded and I couldn't get through it; The White Witch attracted me with its title and then was so screamingly bad at romance that I had to run away again.
sovay has mentioned that one of the other books contains her ancestor Theobald Taaffe, which is good, but that it dramatically misrepresents the romantic position he and Lucy Walter and Charles II were in as being a love triangle rather than, as their letters suggest, friendly polyamory. Consequently I have not read said other book.Of the children's books three are worthwhile. Two of those are more or less known, in print, and generally well-liked. The third is immortally brilliant and has had, as far as I can tell, one printing ever.
The two you can get hold of are The Little White Horse and Linnets and Valerians.
Linnets and Valerians is easily describable: it is Better E. Nesbit, very highly reminiscent of all those E. Nesbits in which a group of children, mostly related to one another, get themselves tangled up with magic. In this particular instance, a number of plot elements are more well worked out than you generally see in Nesbit except at her very, very best, the prose is more musical, and there are bits which are more frightening and more numinous than Nesbit also generally reaches. Also, and this is viscerally satisfying to me as a long-time reader of children's books, this is a book which starts with the children running away and they stay run-away and never go back to the place they were running from, because it was a horrible idea for them to be living there. It is by no means a perfect book-- lack of plot direction, shifts in tone which sometimes feel as though there are two or three novels fighting one another in there, Goudge should never be allowed near even the hint of trying to write about romantic love, and if you want to write about the genuinely creepy or numinous I don't know why you would start with a template of E. Nesbit as it imposes upon you certain limitations-- but really it can be summed up as Better E. Nesbit, and if you like that idea you will absolutely like it.
The Little White Horse is a far more medieval sort of story, and is one of the few decent novels to contain a unicorn, and probably the only such novel I have read which does not have any portions intended satirically. A unicorn in the old sense, too, straight off a tapestry, and for that matter with the counterpart of a lion. The young woman at the heart of the book is a slightly more modern, end-of-the-nineteenth-century young lady who is brought home to a feudal demesne to unify a family feud and heal a family wound. Again, the magic is very magical indeed and gloriously written, and portions of the language sing. Again, I wish Goudge had not been allowed to go near romance-- I have a suspicion that this is the book C.S. Lewis was talking about when he said that the appearance of romance between children was one of the most nauseating things an author can do in a book, which is a great pity because it means he probably stopped reading Goudge. Also, the danger is not very danger-y. But it is a lovable book, though I do not love it as much as I might have if I had met it as a child.
Then there is Valley of Song, which is, as I have remarked, out of print, out of print, out of print. Valley of Song is also very easily describable. It is Better George MacDonald. Some of you now no longer care. To the rest of you, I say, yes, it is better than my favorite George MacDonald. Or your favorite George MacDonald. Or in fact anything George MacDonald ever wrote. Speaking here as a person who very much loves George MacDonald.
The premise of Valley of Song is that Tabitha, who is about eight, lives in a quiet shipbuilding village somewhere in probably-circa-Restoration England. The village has just gotten an order for a large and beautiful ship; Tabitha's father is the blacksmith, and she looks forward eagerly to seeing all the building and making. She also knows of a gate to the Valley of Song.
Again I have to reference C.S. Lewis here. What Lewis was trying to do, with the Narnia books, he said, was fuse mythology older than Christianity with his own Christianity in a way which showed his deep respect for both. Whether he succeeded at this is debatable. He does sometimes for me, and sometimes not. Goudge is trying the same thing, but achieves the correct distance, I think, the precise blend which makes the trick work: the Valley of Song is theologically located on the outskirts of Heaven, but is metaphysically in the land of Faerie. Each person who goes into it sees it differently, but each sees it in terms of the mythologies which a) mean the most to them and b) influence them the most, which two are not always the same thing. And the book's plot does not center around retelling any of the Christian stories.
The plot is about the ship's owner losing all his money, and being unable to continue his commissioning of her, which will be an economic catastrophe for the entire village, and has been a personal catastrophe for the owner, a man well aware of his responsibilities. Tabitha leads various people into the Valley of Song to try to find a solution for this problem, and it is through the confluence of the different aspects of the Valley, the different ways each person sees it, that the problem is solved.
On an imagery level, it is one of the loveliest books I know. It has people repeatedly riding on personified signs of the Zodiac; it has dawn breaking over the Greek islands, and a character going into the dawn by going into the sea and learning to breathe water; it has the timbre of the air at the top of the tallest mountain in the world, at which there is a doorway made of ice, through which nothing human may do more than listen at the keyhole.
On a character level, it is surprisingly dark. Many of the characters are at first glance types, and the general outlines of their arcs are usually fairly clear from the beginning, but all of them are fleshed out in ways which are simply more complex and unexpected than one has any right to expect from this sort of novel. The reason the book can sustain its heart-wrenching beauty is that not everything is going to be all right. There is death, there is pain, there is hunger, there is grief, and there are miracles but they are specifically that, miraculous, not to be expected on any sort of regular basis, in point of fact not to be expected. I realize that not all books work emotionally on all people the same way, but I do in fact reliably cry every time I read this, and I know exactly where I am going to cry, and I still do. Comedic characters may have the least comedic motives possible.
No book is perfect. There are 2.5 scenes in this one which I consider to maybe, if I am in the wrong mood, tip over the line into twee. That is all.
There are also lovely and appropriate line-drawing illustrations, rather nicer than the kind one usually gets, which I appreciate.
I first read this because the library system near me had it, and
sovay told me to. Then the years turned, and I moved away for a while, and when I came back somebody had noticed that this book sitting in the children's section of this library cannot usually be gotten in the U.S. for less than one hundred fifty dollars if you are buying in-continent-- I bought it for sovay for marginally less, but I had to have it shipped from Australia-- and this noticing person stole it. I do not know who that person was, but I quite literally curse their name, because denying the public access to that book is not a thing which should have happened. I am mostly lenient with library thieves, many of whom are motivated by strange passions and the love of books. Not this one. A book-loving person ought to know better.It is my fervent hope, therefore, that somebody will bring Valley of Song back into print. Maybe the New York Review of Books's Children's Classics imprint, or something? I mean the other two are still put out by Penguin! This should not be impossible! And Goudge, having died in, as I mentioned, 1984, is still in copyright even in Australia, and cannot be gotten via Project Gutenberg no matter which country you are from, whether for the weekend or more generally. Nor is there a legal ebook.
So you cannot find this. But if you see it at a yard sale, or pester a large company to bring it out again effectually, or discover a copy moldering at the back of a children's library, read it and treasure it, because no other book I have ever read has achieved the things which Valley of Song does, and many have tried.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Thank you.
Date: 2013-01-11 01:08 pm (UTC)Re: Thank you.
Date: 2013-01-12 09:52 pm (UTC)I hope you enjoy the Goudge as it comes in.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 03:19 pm (UTC)But never until now have met anyone who knew/read her stuff.
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Date: 2013-01-12 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 03:57 pm (UTC)I agree about Goudge and romance. Her most romantic books (that I've read) are the worst ones. (Like The Middle Window. It's about reincarnation. It's pretty damn terrible.) But she is so, so, so good at writing in the borderland of reality and the supernatural and the holy. I hope I'll be able to find Valley of Song...
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Date: 2013-01-12 09:55 pm (UTC)I also hope you can find Valley of Song. It is so lovely.
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Date: 2013-01-11 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-15 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 09:37 am (UTC)Nine
no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 10:13 am (UTC)(How did Moonrise Kingdom get round the twee?)
Before that, it was Pilgrim's Inn, which has wonderful house-in-its landscape magic, but appalling triangular romances, and a monstrous saintly grandmother. But oh! that house.
And before that, it was The Little White Horse. That I read a child. It was never the unicorn for me--always the house in the landscape: the tiny kingdom of Moonacre, like a snowglobe of Englishness. And Maria's tower room, her kingodm within a kingdom.
Nine
no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 09:59 pm (UTC)I have not read The Dean's Watch or Pilgrim's Inn but those sound like Goudge's usual strengths and usual issues.
Maria's room is so perfect! And all of Moonacre.
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Date: 2013-01-13 12:34 am (UTC)Nine
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Date: 2013-01-11 12:22 pm (UTC)Okay. Now it is my mission to find and read this book.
Theologically on the outskirts of Heaven, but metaphysically in the land of Faerie. Yes.
(And does not center around retelling of any Christian stories. Phew. That gets rid of unnecessary complications.)
I'm going to look in CW Mars and see if any of the regional libraries around here have it, but I'm guessing the answer will be no. And what about digitally? I guess you've checked? But I'll check that, too.
ETA: The Massachusetts Virtual Catalogue claims there is a copy in the Old Colony Library Network, in NOBLE (whatever that is; another network, I guess), and ... oh, no: that last is the one that you mention that got stolen. They mark it in the catalogue, and then when you click on it, it says "withdrawn" (nice euphemism, folks).
Apparently I can't reserve things directly from the virtual catalogue, but I can ask my library if they can get me a copy.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 04:35 pm (UTC)You should; it is a book you particularly would like.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:00 pm (UTC)Best of luck, as you personally would I think love this book a very great deal.
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Date: 2013-01-12 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 12:59 pm (UTC)In French, Paris 1952, trans Yvonne Girault.
And we have another copy in the collection nationale, which you can only read there and you have to wash your hands first, so somebody loves it. However, they do not think it's a children's book, either copy, it's shelved as a novel.
You can't know that the person who stole it stole it for monetary reward, they may have been nine and stolen it because they loved it and couldn't find a copy to own. Less plausibly but more meritoriously they may have had an elderly relative on their deathbed whose favourite book it had been as a child and whose last wish was to read it once again, and who died at the end of the last chapter, smiling, but regrettably hemorrhaging all over the book. (I think if it had been plague it could have been treated with modern methods and put back on the shelves. Greer would know.)
During the time in which my friends would not shut up about the Peter Jackson travesty films and Britain and the US began to wage a war of aggression and torture I found that my body started to take it out on me if I was furious all the time, and I decided to try to think the best of people's motives whenever it was possible. I hear hammering through the wall and instead of thinking "Why won't those bastards let me sleep, they're always doing that!" I try to think "They work weird shifts and they need to make a new bookshelf." It makes no difference to them but it's better for me.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:13 pm (UTC)I have been trying to think the best of the book-stealer, because I do know what you mean. It's hard in this instance because I don't usually steal books, but I was very tempted about this one myself, and held off because I knew that the author and the basic morality of the book would disapprove incredibly and I do not want to disappoint them. I only hope that whoever took it did actually honestly need the book greatly.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 01:02 pm (UTC)I deeply love Linnets and Valerians. I often forget about Nan when I list the favorite female characters of my childhood (the others are Goth of Karres, Dido Twite, Petrova Fossil, and Marian the Girl with the Dogs), but she is very dear, and I identify with her a lot. The description of the little parlor that her uncle tells her is now hers, and her reactions to that, are instantly comforting.
From your description it sounds like I need to get this other book, Valley of Song. But it's going to take some gamesmanship and haunting of the secondhand book sites to get one for a price I can stomach. The one I just saw on Amazon has illustrations by Richard Floethe, who illustrated the edition I have of Streatfield's Dancing Shoes (a/k/a Wintle's Wonders). Is that the one you liked?
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Date: 2013-01-12 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-13 12:39 am (UTC)http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3050985588&searchurl=an%3Delizabeth%2Bgoudge%26bsi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26tn%3Dvalley%2Bof%2Bsong
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/steven-spurrier-1981
http://www.makers.org.uk/illustration/CowanArtists
Nine
no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 02:30 pm (UTC)Weirdly, you can get the french translation for about ten bucks on abebooks (http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=5984971524&searchurl=an%3Delizabeth%2Bgoudge%26bsi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26tn%3Dvalley%2Bof%2Bsong).
(I'm hitting up interlibrary loan and seriously considering transcribing it and releasing it into the wilds of scribd - within copyright or not, Goudge is dead, and does not care due to being dead, and also out of print. {also, there does not appear to be an illegal ebook, either; looking for one was my first action after reading your post.})
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Date: 2013-01-12 10:16 pm (UTC)... typing up the entire book from my girlfriend's copy is probably more work than I ought to take on, but you are tempting me now. Do let me know if you wind up transcribing it.
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Date: 2013-01-14 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 07:47 pm (UTC)This book is worth going to Oregon for. I never thought I'd own a copy. The last one I'd seen, I'd had to interlibrary from somewhere in the Midwest and I half think it worked only because I was still in Yale's system at the time.
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Date: 2013-01-12 10:16 pm (UTC)From here.
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Date: 2013-01-11 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-11 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:49 pm (UTC)Nine
no subject
Date: 2013-01-13 12:22 am (UTC)Nine
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Date: 2013-01-12 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-12 10:18 pm (UTC)Haven't read Towers in the Mist, but it does sound perfectly Goudgian.
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Date: 2013-01-13 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-27 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-09 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-13 02:21 pm (UTC)Each person who goes into it sees it differently, but each sees it in terms of the mythologies which a) mean the most to them and b) influence them the most, which two are not always the same thing. --I sense in my bones that this is exactly how encounters with the divine really do work.
there are miracles but they are specifically that, miraculous, not to be expected on any sort of regular basis, in point of fact not to be expected. --Excellent capturing of what it means for a thing to be miraculous. Not to be expected, much less relied upon.
What you say about knowing at what point you will cry--I have scenes like that in books. I really wish I could read this one.
(This nine-years-late comment brought to you courtesy of the fact that
ETA: And it looks like someone has reissued it!