Linnets and Valerians
Registered by hommedeplume of Longmont, Colorado USA on 6/17/2003
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I have had a very difficult time finding books to capture my interest, lately. I have also had a difficult time saving entires in OD, which is one of the reasons you haven't heard about them here. What a pleasant surprise, then, to have found a book that completely delighted and charmed me. I liked it more than I expected.
Elizabeth Goudge is the author of a number of books some intended for children, some for adults. She wrote primarily between 1940-1960, a period of literature I have become extremely interested in lately. She has been out of print for a number of years, but has recently been brought back to press because she is J.K. Rowling's favorite author.
For that reason, I read another one of her books, recently back in print, last year.
The Little White Horse is a story about a little girl who is orphaned and goes to live with her uncle in the ancestral home, where she becomes deeply attached to the landscape and through the course of magical adventures, comes to heal a deep rift that has threatened the valley and divided her family. I didn't realize it at the time, but as simple as the story seems, there are layers of symbols, that make the story allegorical. The use of the Lion & Unicorn motif, a symbol long held to be the symbol of Britain, points to an allegory about the struggles for a unified Britain in that part of the world. The hope for the landscape, the family, indeed the world, rests on the innocence of a child.
Linnets and Valerians has a similar theme. This time instead of one orphaned girl, four children are sent to live with their grandmother, while their father, a military man, is posted to Egypt. They run away from the household's strict old-fashioned disciplinarian rules and straight into the arms of an eccentric uncle it sets about to educate them properly. The children again interact with the landscape. The lion returns as a symbol, though this book expands its menagerie, just as it has a larger cast of characters. Another magical mystery is to be solved, and with the help of a friendly gardener, a magical swarm of bees, and their uncle's persistant sets of boundaries, they are able to heal the ailments of the small village in which they dwell.
Linnets & Valerians, written twentysome years after The Little White Horse, is a more mature work, and has a lighter touch in its use of symbols and mysticism. Encounters with the mysterious are much more integrated with their daily adventures, though there is a particular poignancy in the stories setting (1916) and the use of the greek god Pan within the structure of the story. Linnets & Valerians is a story about the children's innocence, just as it is a story about Britain's last moment of innocence prior to WWI. There was a Victorian obsession with the split between outdoors/indoors and with the god Pan as god of nature and destruction. As I recall there are several famous paintings and poems involving the god Pan piping his children off to war. (Very creepy stuff. I will cite it here if I can track it down.)
The book seems to integrate well with the body of children's literature involving fantastical adventures befalling children in mundane settings. Other examples of which inclued
Children at Greene Knowe and the work of John Masefield, especially his Box of Delights. The books description of magical spells, rituals, intent, and protective objects is so good it seems like it should merit inclusion into the list of magically instructful texts Diana Wynne Jones included in her Fire and Hemlock.
I recommend this book to lovers of gentle, magical, adventures, and think it's description of the everyday magic of growing things makes it particularly appropriate for Spring.
Happy Reading!
Elizabeth Goudge is the author of a number of books some intended for children, some for adults. She wrote primarily between 1940-1960, a period of literature I have become extremely interested in lately. She has been out of print for a number of years, but has recently been brought back to press because she is J.K. Rowling's favorite author.
For that reason, I read another one of her books, recently back in print, last year.
The Little White Horse is a story about a little girl who is orphaned and goes to live with her uncle in the ancestral home, where she becomes deeply attached to the landscape and through the course of magical adventures, comes to heal a deep rift that has threatened the valley and divided her family. I didn't realize it at the time, but as simple as the story seems, there are layers of symbols, that make the story allegorical. The use of the Lion & Unicorn motif, a symbol long held to be the symbol of Britain, points to an allegory about the struggles for a unified Britain in that part of the world. The hope for the landscape, the family, indeed the world, rests on the innocence of a child.
Linnets and Valerians has a similar theme. This time instead of one orphaned girl, four children are sent to live with their grandmother, while their father, a military man, is posted to Egypt. They run away from the household's strict old-fashioned disciplinarian rules and straight into the arms of an eccentric uncle it sets about to educate them properly. The children again interact with the landscape. The lion returns as a symbol, though this book expands its menagerie, just as it has a larger cast of characters. Another magical mystery is to be solved, and with the help of a friendly gardener, a magical swarm of bees, and their uncle's persistant sets of boundaries, they are able to heal the ailments of the small village in which they dwell.
Linnets & Valerians, written twentysome years after The Little White Horse, is a more mature work, and has a lighter touch in its use of symbols and mysticism. Encounters with the mysterious are much more integrated with their daily adventures, though there is a particular poignancy in the stories setting (1916) and the use of the greek god Pan within the structure of the story. Linnets & Valerians is a story about the children's innocence, just as it is a story about Britain's last moment of innocence prior to WWI. There was a Victorian obsession with the split between outdoors/indoors and with the god Pan as god of nature and destruction. As I recall there are several famous paintings and poems involving the god Pan piping his children off to war. (Very creepy stuff. I will cite it here if I can track it down.)
The book seems to integrate well with the body of children's literature involving fantastical adventures befalling children in mundane settings. Other examples of which inclued
Children at Greene Knowe and the work of John Masefield, especially his Box of Delights. The books description of magical spells, rituals, intent, and protective objects is so good it seems like it should merit inclusion into the list of magically instructful texts Diana Wynne Jones included in her Fire and Hemlock.
I recommend this book to lovers of gentle, magical, adventures, and think it's description of the everyday magic of growing things makes it particularly appropriate for Spring.
Happy Reading!
Journal Entry 2 by hommedeplume at -- Wild Released In Santa Clara in Santa Clara, California USA on Friday, September 12, 2003
Released on Friday, September 12, 2003 at Apartment Complex by the Pool in Santa Clara, California USA.
I released this book to my mother some time ago. I really appreciated the bucolic magic and gentle, healing, adventures, that the characters have in this book. I think there are powerful metaphors in this book about the generation that came of age during the First World War.
She, however, was struck with how alien the characters world might be to contemporary readers, and commented that she didn't know if contemporary children would have the patience or the knowledge to read the entire book.
I stand by my original assessment. One thing that makes children's literature so valuable is its intimate descriptions of domestic details in times past. Few historical novels will give you that kind of insight. While this book was written well after the period in which it was set, there is a sense that the author has first hand knowledge of the (non-magical) details and settings she describes.
I released this book to my mother some time ago. I really appreciated the bucolic magic and gentle, healing, adventures, that the characters have in this book. I think there are powerful metaphors in this book about the generation that came of age during the First World War.
She, however, was struck with how alien the characters world might be to contemporary readers, and commented that she didn't know if contemporary children would have the patience or the knowledge to read the entire book.
I stand by my original assessment. One thing that makes children's literature so valuable is its intimate descriptions of domestic details in times past. Few historical novels will give you that kind of insight. While this book was written well after the period in which it was set, there is a sense that the author has first hand knowledge of the (non-magical) details and settings she describes.
