The Romantic Armchair Traveller

England: The Sister Of The Angels by Elizabeth Goudge

 

The Sister Of The Angels was first published in 1939, and the shadow cast by the outbreak of the Second World War is felt in that year’s Coward McCann hardcover back blurb: “Perhaps we are living now in a time when humanity is locked away from happiness [...] we, too, must believe that ‘bad days do pass by’ [...] You cannot read The Sister Of The Angels without being sure that, in spite of everything, the Christmas bells will always ring.” In writing the novel, however, Elizabeth Goudge cast back to a gentler time, earlier in the century, when “pumpkin-shaped horse buses” still plied the streets of her fictional West Country cathedral city. The subject of The Last Judgment does makes an appearance, but since The Sister Of The Angels is a bright and optimistic Christmas tale for both young and old, it is mainly for the purpose of illuminating a hopeful theme: rebirth.

 

Christmas is one month away and eleven-year old Henrietta joyously prepares to welcome home her irresponsible author father, Gabriel Ferranti, for one of his rare visits. But when he arrives, bringing excitement into the household of Henrietta and her adoptive grandparents and cousin Hugh Anthony, he seems to be keeping troubling secrets from her and Grandfather, Canon Fordyce. They seem to have something to do with the heart-brokenly weeping stranger she and Ferranti glimpsed in the Cathedral crypt.

The recently discovered chapel in the crypt is Henrietta’s favourite part of the cathedral. Aglow with mediaeval wallpaintings created by leprous monk Nicolas de Malden, who died before the work was completed, it fires the artistic imagination of Henrietta. Aspiring to become a painter herself she has firm ideas about how Nicolas intended the fourth, unfinished, wall to look. But one day her drawing for the wall disappears. As Christmas Eve approaches, the lives of many will be changed by the secret of the chapel crypt.

 

The simple mystery in The Sister Of The Angels will be transparent to any adult. But the reading delight comes from the fresh, poetic telling of a story that expounds on the comforting belief that “whatever our sins there is good in all” (p. 53). While Goudge spins her plot around the experiences and observations of an eleven-year old girl, she also elevates the narrative through a heart-warming brand of kindly compassion and humorous perceptiveness. Some books have the power to charm persons of every age, revealing new layers as the reader matures. To me, The Sister Of The Angels is one of these treasures.

Before I proceed to a few of the particulars that made the novel so enjoyable for me, here are a few thoughts about how the book deals with its religious content. One of the more tiresome conventions of faith-based narratives is the didacticism and ignorance of versimilitude they frequently resort to in delivering their messages. It is one thing to be content to apply one’s missionary zeal to preaching to the choir, another to fail to recognise the story appeal spiritual themes can have outside their obvious audience. Although Christian faith gently suffuses The Sister Of The Angels like sunlight the nave of Torminster Cathedral, Goudge does not attempt to evangelise. For example, a discussion about integrity arises from an examination of what it means to be an artist, not what it means to be a Christian. Goudge squarely faces human follies and foibles, and, eschewing bombastic declarations, trusts the actions of her characters to enable readers to decide for themselves what is meaningful to take away. To some, that may be the ways in which the miracle in the manger continues to renew souls; to others, that personal redemption is always within reach for the genuinely contrite.

As I progressed through The Sister Of The Angels I was strongly struck by the impression that this is a novel for and about artists. Henrietta, Nicholas de Malden, and another key character are all painters. Henrietta’s father is a poet. The most important locations are the chapel crypt with its murals, and an artist’s studio. The plot revolves around art and artistic creation, and the book’s art-filled finale is set to music. This theme extends to the book's physical pages, which contain thirteen black and white illustrations by C. Walter Hodges. The obvious parallel between God the Creator and human artistry aside, there is deep respect for the act of creation and art’s ability to transform character and sustain, connect, and comfort souls. In fact, perhaps the most interesting argument the story makes is that an artist who chooses not to be true to his/her art  endangers his/her ability “to distintinguish between good and evil” (p. 88). Nevertheless, even in serious or passionate moments the touch of wit that keeps the omniscient narrator’s voice light is never absent for long. “The painter, as he mixed his water colors and began his portrait, had upon his face that set, almost locked look that she had seen upon her father’s face when he was writing, upon Grandfather’s when he was praying and Hugh Anthony’s when he was studying cricket scores” (p. 117).

Goudge deftly encapsulates the essence of a character: Henrietta’s father is “unstable as water”, and to the solicitous maid Sarah “affliction of any sort was always a pleasure”. Even name choices can suggest more than is provided by actual description: the elderly sisters who keep a sweetshop and take in a poor lodger are called Mary and Martha. The character who won my heart, however, was Grandfather Fordyce, humble, generous, always seeing the good in everyone and having more than once had his heart broken because of it. As for the precocious, sensible Henrietta, her clear-eyed innocence reminded me slightly of Lucy in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, although the former’s version of The Wardrobe is a cathedral crypt that leads to another world only in the manner it impacts the imagination and soul; instead of meeting actual fauns and talking beavers, Henrietta's animals and angels are strictly the result of artistic endeavours. She is a deal more opinionated than young Lucy, too: “It was selfish [...] not to want to be helped. Selfish and proud” (p. 55). On one or two occasions a distinctly old-fashioned tone that to me translated as syrupiness made descriptions of Henrietta too precious for my taste. Hugh Anthony, a year younger than Henrietta, is portrayed as if it is a given that readers will agree he is charming. On the contrary, I usually found his smugness insufferable and could readily envision him growing into a tyrant!

The different treatment and expectations regarding Hugh Anthony and Henrietta mirror the Edwardian period in which the story is set but, it seems, also reflect Goudge’s own sensibilities and personal experiences. She appears to have mined her life in other ways, too, for The Sister Of The Angels. "Tormister" brings to mind Tor Hill and the book's cover illustration is clearly an adaptation of Penniless Porch (Gate), both places in the Somerset cathedral city of Wells, where she was born and lived until the age of ten or eleven; her father served as a clergyman at the cathedral. Paired with her intimate familiarity with the area, Goudge's poetic style gives the confident descriptions of the snow-blanketed world of Torminster a wondrous, fairytale beauty.

It was only after finishing The Sister Of The Angels that I learned that Elizabeth Goudge set several novels in Torminster, incorporating different mixes of recurring characters. Happily, the pleasure of reading The Sister Of The Angels does not in any measure depend on having read those other works. For those interested, they include A City Of Bells (1936) and Henrietta’s House, also published as The Blue Hills (1942). The only book by Goudge I had previously attempted was The White Witch, a historical novel set during the English Civil War. Unfortunately, I struggled with it, feeling the prose was dense and the story sluggishly paced. This was many years ago, however, and after my lovely experience with The Sister Of The Angels I am going to give The White Witch another chance. I will also look for Goudge's bestselling Green Dolphin Country, which catapulted her to fame when the manuscript won a prize and was filmed as Green Dolphin Street (trailer) with Lana Turner, Donna Reed, and Van Heflin.

As all booklovers know, some books are much bigger than their page count (in this case, fewer than 150 pages). To me, The Sister Of The Angels belongs among these. I do believe I shall institute a tradition of re-reading the novel each Christmas.

 

Excerpt

(Coward McCann, Inc. hardcover, 1939, pages 30-1):

“Outside in the street, carrying the lovely chrystanthemums that Grandmother grew in the greenhouse to the glory of God and because it was cheaper to grow flowers for the floral decorations than to buy them, [Henrietta and Grandfather] felt very happy.

The Cathedral city of Torminster looked very lovely under its mantle of snow. Though it was built in the valley, it seemed suddenly to have become, thought Henrietta, a city in the mountains. The slanting, snow-covered roofs, all of different heights and shapes, belonging to houses that had grown up like flowers one by one through the centuries, looked like tumbled mountain slopes, and the cold keen air was like the rarefied air one breathes high up in the sky. The sun was bright in a dome of blue crystal, and the shadows were violet-tinted like the shadows in mountain crevasses.

But the crowning glory was the Cathedral itself. It rose up like some great enchanted mountain, its three towers soaring up into the sky as though they did not mean to stop until they had pierced the crystal dome and come face to face with the rainbow-encircled throne that was built above it. Every ledge and pinnacle, every carved angel and saint and demon, was outlined with frosted snow, and the Virgin and Child over the west door were so covered with it that it looked as though an armful of Christmas roses had been dropped over them, the blossoms lodging in the folds of the Virgin's robe and the outstretched hands of the Child.

‘I wish we could bring him inside,’ said Henrietta, worried. ‘I'm afraid he'll catch cold out there.’

She had once seen, or thought she had seen, the carved Child laugh and clap his hands, and ever since then she could not get it out of her head that he was real.

‘Look,’ said Grandfather comfortingly, ‘he is inside, too.’”

 

Wales: A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry

If one considers reasonable the expectation that the theme or spirit of the holiday season be present in a book titled A Christmas Beginning, Anne Perry’s low-key historical mystery is bound to fall short. The story could be set during any season without altering the plot in any way. Since, furthermore, the novel’s skeletal composition under-utilises the historical and geographical setting, any enjoyment hinges on the characters and the mystery. I believe those able to derive most satisfaction from A Christmas Beginning are readers familiar with the author’s William Monk series who may be disposed to treat this restrained little drama, centered upon a recurring character, as an enlightening vignette.

 

Circa 1864. Feeling he has made a mistake in spending his lonely Christmas holiday on the bleak Welsh island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn), London police superintendent Runcorn is shocked out of his gloom by the discovery he makes on a morning walk. Sprawled among the gravestones of the Beaumaris church is the body of the vicar’s sister, viciously stabbed to death.

A peaceful community, the  islanders desperately want to believe the crime was committed by some lunatic outsider, resenting the dour Londoner’s suggestion to the contrary. Nevertheless, the local authorities have no experience in murder investigations and reluctantly accept Runcorn’s offer of assistance.

The case has personal significance for Runcorn since the victim strongly reminds him of a woman he knows he can never have. Her presence on the island is both an inspiration to do well and a constant ache. But the one thing his humble roots have never stood in the way of is the truth.

 

The dedication page of A Christmas Beginning reads, “To all those who dream impossible dreams”. The sentiment alludes to the hopeless love that haunts the book’s principal protagonist, Runcorn (if his first name is stated anywhere in the novel, it has eluded me). Although the simple plot is held together by a murder mystery, it primarily functions as a character sketch of an introspective, pragmatic, middle-aged career man who learns to “play second fiddle” and in the process has a moral epiphany which enables him to rediscover what truly matters to him.

Runcorn’s internal dialogue and emotional responses are recorded in minute detail, to the extent that I feel the story is less about the  murder – front and centre though it is in the plot – or its impact on the shocked, grief-struck community (the word ‘grief’ is used with noticeable frequency) than on Runcorn’s development arc. While I know nothing about the William Monk series (the blurb did not state that the book ties in with it) other than what I afterwards found while trying to establish a time frame for the action, Perry provides the details necessary to form a rough idea of Runcorn’s background. Where the matter grew confusing for me was in the disjuncture between the person he appears to be in A Christmas Beginning and the spare facts I was given about his professional life in London. I had trouble making the sensitivity, caring, and discomfiture he shows in A Christmas Beginning fit the attributes implied by what I was told about his career personality: aggressive, unpolished, and tactless. I assume the intention was to flesh out a prominent secondary character by making known a previously unimagined dimension to that character, thus providing illuminating entertainment for readers who may have thought of him only as Monk’s disagreeable supervisor. I came to the book with no preconceptions in this regard and ended up quite fond of his ill-at-ease manner, rough honesty, and tongue-tied passions.

Where I keenly felt the lack of context that comes from being an outsider to a well-established series was in the omission of period detail. So vague and thin is the historical setting that I quite forgot the first page’s mention of hansom cabs and gaslight – which are not exactly the most helpful markers anyway – and for a good part of the story kept visualising characters in 1920s-1930s garb as the mood seemed in line with a vintage story from the golden age of mysteries. This haziness translates to the location, which is outlined in the thinnest of strokes, place names and object names often standing in for description.

Emotions run high in the story but oddly did not engage me. I felt like an observer, politely sympathetic but too wary of the scenes played out before me to actively feel much for the plight of the characters. Partially, I suspect, it is due to the theme of repression and the manner in which Runcorn and others try to stifle their natural reactions. More than the much-touted grief, many scenes bristle with anger that rarely spills out in full force. If the author’s idea was to make the reader feel the effect of living in such an environment, I have to say it worked on me. However, the general mood it establishes is sombre; I came away subdued, but not in a humble, spiritual way. Despite an ending designed to lift hearts, this is not the book I would choose to reread in order to invoke a warm, joyful Christmas spirit.

A brief note on a few other characters. As the well-born woman from whom Runcorn is divided by Victorian class barriers and money, Melisande Ewart is benevolent but nebulous as a protagonist; she comes across as a Victorian man’s idealised vision of womanhood, vaguely angelic. The reason for this impression is that she is more vividly realised in Runcorn’s emotions than in the brief encounters the reader is allowed directly with her. Runcorn’s reactions to her inform and guide his every action in the novel whereas any independent glimpse the reader is given of her personality is severely limited. Sir Alan Faraday, chief constable and Melisande’s putative fiancé, seems far more substantive in his abrasive snobbery, just as John Barclay, the brother of Melisande, is in his unremitting hostility toward Runcorn.

An interesting issue raised by the plot is the restrictive condition of unmarried Victorian gentlewomen. Barred by social codes from making a living and made to understand that remaining at home beyond adulthood would constitute an unacceptable financial drain on the family, they were expected to do their duty by treating marriage as a career. Therefore – as long as the class she belonged to was not shamed – who a woman married was not nearly as important as the imperative that she do marry. The choice not to marry or to marry for love represented a freedom few gentlewomen dared hope for. By contrasting the lives of two characters in this situation, characters who opt for differing paths, A Christmas Beginning examines the difficulties faced by women who attempted to defy the expectations of society and their families. The novel’s treatment of the subject was easily the most absorbing part of the narrative for me, but the space allotted to it precludes true depth, if not feeling. Ironically, this plotline initially perplexed me as I had not consciously grasped that the story was set in Victorian times (and certainly I never suspected, even after stumbling over a second mention of carriages, a period set as far back as the 1860s). I kept thinking, isn’t this a bit too old-fashioned even for a remote corner of Britain in the early twentieth century?...

I am grateful that A Christmas Beginning was not the first novel by Anne Perry that I read. A monochromatic sketch of repressed passions, its bland setting and austere mood resulted in a dreary reading experience for me. To be fair, my annoyance at the extremely tenuous connection with Christmas unquestionably played a part in this. In any case, unlike The Sheen On The Silk, which turned out to be one of my favourite reads this year, its meagre satisfactions would probably not have inspired me to explore the author’s work further. Still, Anne Perry writes too well for A Christmas Beginning to be considered a bad read;  I simply expected more.

 

Germany: The Glass Minstrel by Hayden Thorne

The Glass Minstrel by Hayden Thorne is the first of my Christmas-themed reads this year. While the title is marketed as young-adult historical fiction, the first half of the book has crossover appeal that made me feel I was reading general fiction. In the second half, the plot focus veers from a story that deftly interweaves several captivating character arcs to a narrower study that seems to fumble for narrative balance. Nevertheless, with its atmospheric echo of nineteenth-century romantic writers and melancholy fairytales, the The Glass Minstrel has a sensitive, refined aesthetic that feels unique these days. Its loveliness left me with misty eyes and a wish to see more historical fiction from its author.

 

1850. Two young lovers have died, but instead of supporting the grieving families the small Bavarian town of Zirndorf gossips and points fingers. When the rumours reach fifteen-year-old Jakob Diederich, his reaction is very different, for he carries the burden of a secret that unites him with the couple in ways no one suspects.

During the busiest Christmas season in years, toymaker Abelard Bauer tremulously fashions a minstrel of blown glass, paints it to look like his lost son, then destroys the mould. Across town, Andreas Schiffer struggles to make sense of the brief life of his own, favourite child through a journal that was left behind. It chronicles the growth of a love story that should bond the two fathers but instead divides them in horror and bewilderment.

As a snowy Holy Eve draws near, its message seems lost upon the men who, blinded by pain and regret, seem only to drift farther from those around them. Tormented by feelings that by turns confuse, scare, and elate him, is there any hope for Jakob in a world where even family and friends condemn boys like him and feel shame for the kind of love that Stefan Bauer and Heinrich Schiffer shared?

 

A review of The Glass Minstrel by John at Dear Author inspired my interest in the novel. A slim trade-format book with just under two hundred pages, it explores profound themes with an acuity and delicacy that kept me engaged even when my enchantment waned into “mere” enjoyment.

While the prose is simple, even slightly repetitious at times as it details business in the toyshop or Jakob’s duties at the inn where he works, and while a few awkward paragraph transitions could have been smoothed out with sharper editing, Thorne’s writing style is to the point and beautifully readable. The tone it sets enhances the period mood and gives the setting a mythical quality. The alpine landscape and town details are sketched in with only the lightest of generic touches, furthering the impression of a place that owes less to any real location than to the villages of old, German fables and vintage Christmas cards.

Likewise, the political upheavals taking place during this period in the German states – including the Kingdom of Bavaria, where the story takes place and where King Ludwig I had been forced to abdicate in 1848 – are fleetingly noted in The Glass Minstrel but not incorporated into the plot. There seemed to be fertile potential in these rumbles, but as indicated above, the author elects to keep things universal. (The use of symbolism seems ineffectual in any case, with nothing much developing in terms of depth or meaning from the continual noting of the snowy weather or staring through windows. The description of a particular nightmare is a notable exception.) Although a plot that interacts more firmly with its social and political setting would have enriched the historical aspect – which if not wallpaper-y is still very thin – on a storytelling level it simply means that the novel’s mood stays true to that of a fable. Manners and in particular attitudes are appropriately attuned the era, however, so I never felt I was reading a dress-up contemporary or fantasy.

Nor should the absence of a strongly-defined setting be mistaken for shallowness. I have read countless books double the length of The Glass Minstrel, books targeted for adults, that achieve not half of its emotional realism, sensibility, and insight into grief, longing, pain, and love. The conflicts arise from a social context that is still familiar today, but the historical context raises the stakes further and trenchantly exposes the vulnerabilities of the situation and the gravity of the character dilemmas. These are explored with compassion that has room both for sympathetic understanding of the parents’ grappling with a sense of betrayal and for hope that bridges can be built over even the deepest abysses by love. Since I have emphasised the fairytale qualities of the novel, I would like to make it clear that no magic wand is waved here: while redemption and reconciliation is achieved by some of the characters, scandal, social ostracism, and intolerance remain issues in society at large.

The few problems I had with the book are minor, with one exception. In view of The Glass Minstrel being young-adult fiction, my issue may seem paradoxical. But as the first half evenly meshes the individual lives and relationships of the main protagonists with each other and the townspeople, the late-coming swing to an almost exclusive focus on Jakob did jolt me. For much of the second half I felt I had begun by reading one book and was now reading another. Since I had invested equally in the other protagonists (the fathers) I missed the one who almost entirely disappears from the story until the very end, and kept wishing throughout that the plot would remember to return to him.

Looking at the novel as a Bildungsroman, however, the portrayal of Jakob’s growth and painful maturation from boy to adult is keenly perceptive. The tenderness of innocence and the all-enveloping, all-changing experience of a first crush are shown in all their intensity, as is the offering of one’s heart only to discover cruelty that leads to anguished confusion and fear of persecution. A sensitive, daydreaming youth, Jakob has a practical side that allows him to clearly grasp the dangers and difficulties of his situation but also makes him honest with himself as he quietly refuses to deny or marginalise his feelings. Working at the local inn, he helps support his struggling family without complaint, but events open up his awareness of a larger world and excite him with the possibility of a more ambitious future. I longed for it for him, too, not always for unselfish reasons: for a longish section nothing much happens in the story except what goes on in Jakob’s head. During this time the author has him either daydreaming or interminably scrubbing and sweeping the floors at work. Since I was already missing the other characters, this is the one time I grew restless while reading the novel.

A note on the back cover (Cheyenne Publishing trade paperback, 2010) recommends The Glass Minstrel to readers aged sixteen and up. In keeping with the general tone of the book, in all but one instances any sensuality referred to is confined to excerpts from young Heinrich Schiffer's journal, and there it is sweetly hinted at rather than truly described. For this reason the one scene where Jakob’s fevered imaginings leads to a really very brief but by comparison unexpectedly explicit moment, struck a slightly jarring note for me.

The most complex character in the book is arguably the bereaved father of Heinrich, Andreas Schiffer. A wealthy man, he is the protagonist with the most to lose in terms of social standing and respect. Having groomed Heinrich to follow in his footsteps, Schiffer not only grieves the loss of a talented, favourite child but takes the youth’s homosexuality as a personal injury. This self-pitying agitation gradually fosters a paranoia that poisons his relationship with the rest of the family without him understanding why things are going wrong. His multiple flaws and the direct access the reader is allowed into his feelings and thought processes made him a highly interesting character to me: he was the least predictable of the protagonists. Unfortunately, when he finally has a light-bulb moment, the effect it has on him seemed embarrassingly contrived to me because the build-up simply was not there to shore up his transformation. In fact, as I was nearing the last pages I increasingly worried about how the author was possibly going to have time to wrap everything up. In Herr Schiffer’s case, I feel it was not altogether successfully achieved.

Finally, I perceived a gap of logic that pushed the externals of the story even deeper into the realm of a fairytale. Zirndorf is described as a very small town that is suffering from economic depression, and its isolation from centres such as Nuremberg and Munich is stressed. Yet every day Abelard Bauer’s toyshop is shown to be full of customers and business exceeds his wildest hopes; over and over again he and his assistant grow (happily) exhausted from the hectic pace. I did not really mind, though: with his unselfish grief, warmth, and regrets, the vividly portrayed Abelard Bauer is my favourite character in the novel, and I was glad to see his shelves empty so fast. What did disappoint me a little was that although he is a toymaker and creator of blown glass ornaments he is only shown selling his wares, not manufacturing them. Even the making of the glass minstrel is described with a technical vagueness that gives not the smallest insight into glassblowing and not even a visual introduction to Bauer’s workshop. Nor was any clear mention made of the novelty Christmas ornaments fashioned from glass blown into moulds represented in 1850. From what information I was able to collect, it appears the technique had been invented only three years earlier.

All in all, however, this was a lovely way to begin my holiday-themed reading. The sparkling positives in The Glass Minstrel far outshone any shortcomings for me. The author and genre are new to me, but one of my book-related Christmas wishes will be that a large publishing house quickly snatches up Hayden Thorne. This author’s style has mainstream appeal. While not perfect, The Glass Minstrel is nothing less than exquisite. I hope it gets into many stockings and peeks out from underneath countless trees this Christmas.

 

Excerpts can be found here and in a post on the author’s blog.