Tag: Elizabeth Goudge

The White Witch

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The White Witch
Elizabeth Goudge
historical fiction
1 star
439 pages

This book, the last Goudge book I plan on reading, typifies what I dislike about her. A banal, feel good, all good things are God mix. Her obvious dislike of an ordered Christian life comes through very strongly in this book. There is no such thing as “white” magic and Goudge refuses to acknowledge that. In her world there is God, “good spirits” and “bad spirits”, 3 sources, not just 2. Her sentimental blather about children, nature, love, and life itself really got on my nerves. I couldn’t recommend this to anyone.

Gentian Hill

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Gentian Hill
Elizabeth Goudge
Romance
2 stars
317 pages

the romance that grows between a young girl and a young man as they are separated and eventually come back together.

Goudge likes to describe things in too much detail. I don’t care how the elderberry bush looks as it waves in the wind next to the potted gardinias that are riot in full bloom in the 17th century pot that is pure white with an image from a legend about a Saint in the Crusades who… and on and on.

I am thinking I will read The White Witch and then be done with her. Even still, I’m going to need a couple of months break before tackling it.

The Dean’s Watch

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The Dean’s Watch
Elizabeth Goudge
fiction
2 stars
383 pages

A story about an old clockmaker, a Dean of a City, and several other people. Misc feel goodism’s about “wuv, sweet wuv” and how everything would just be better if we all wuvved each other. I don’t know why I keep reading Goudge’s books. They tend to irritate me with their rose tinted outlook.

Castle on the Hill

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Castle on the Hill
Elizabeth Goudge
Fiction
3 stars
346 pages

takes place in 1940’s, during the height of the bombing of London. A 40 year old woman is displaced and ends up being the head of the household of a castle out in the country.

I found this to be a tough book. People loving, people dying, people sacrificing for each other. In the end, Miss Brown, who loved the owner of the castle, is rejected by him, but then is asked in turn by another man, and she sacrifices so that he, and some orphan children, can have a Home. Referred to as “Second Best” love. I would rather die alone than have a woman marry me out of some sense of pity, duty or friendship.