Elizabeth Goudge Day: The Valley of Song

By -
The Valley of Song, by Elizabeth Goudge

Lory's Elizabeth Goudge event is now something I look forward to a lot.  This year, I splurged a little bit and bought two (used) books I've never read, but I am still saving those for later; I also got The Valley of Song through ILL.  It's a strange and charming story; a children's fairytale, but a long and complex one that makes me think of....oh, At the Back of the North Wind, maybe.  Goudge mixes her Christian imagery and older mythology with happy abandon, like Lewis does in Narnia, but it's a very different feel, and her story is set maybe 250 years ago, in the late 18th century, I think.

My ILL cover -- charming
Tabitha, age 11, would always rather be outdoors exploring, or visiting her little town's shipyard, than anything else.  She has discovered a magical place she calls the Valley of Song, and when she takes her friend Job to see it, he is transformed from an elderly woodcarver into the boy he once was.  Together, they enter the Workshop, where everything is made before it appears in the world, and where they meet fantastic creatures, including the figures of the zodiac.  Job's special place has trees, but when Tabitha brings other people, they each have their own zodiacal sponsor and special place in the Workshop too.  All of them are needed to build a beautiful ship from an abandoned shell, which will belong to the people of the town.

It's an unusual story, that's for sure, combining a fantasy tour of all creation, a love of one particular English village, and a deep belief in the possibility of redemption for everyone, no matter how lost they feel.   I really liked it, and now I have to give it back tomorrow, but maybe someday I can find a copy to own.  It would be worth having.




Comments

  1. RuthiellaApril 24, 2017 at 9:19 AM

    Great review Jean! My library has most of Goudge’s novels for adults but none of her children’s literature! The Valley of Song sounds very much like it would be perfect for the child who has read all the Narnia books and wants to read something similarly creative.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HelenApril 24, 2017 at 12:05 PM

    I've been enjoying Goudge's adult novels (including Towers in the Mist which I read for this year's Elizabeth Goudge Day) but I haven't tried any of her children's books yet. This one does sound very intriguing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanApril 24, 2017 at 2:05 PM

    Her children's books are wonderful. I wish I'd had them as a kid.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LoryApril 25, 2017 at 9:05 AM

    I'm so glad you enjoyed this - I was longing to read it after finding the review from Charlotte's Library and so excited when I found a copy! Now I'm thinking it's about time to read it to my son (he's ten) and hope it "takes". He shall not be deprived of Goudge's children's books as I was at his age.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jenna @ Falling LettersMay 10, 2017 at 7:26 PM

    I have just read my first Goudge book, also for Lory's reading day. I read The Little White Horse. I think I would enjoy more of her children's fiction. I will definitely keep an eye out for this one.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more