To the ordinary angels watching over you

[sovay]

The miracle of interlibrary loan has found for me a children's book called The Valley of Song (1951) by Elizabeth Goudge, which I have not read since I was in elementary school and some bastard stole the only copy from the Cambridge Public Library. I remembered it only in fragments—the eponymous valley into which only children can enter, so that the protagonist at one point takes on the years of another's life to allow her inside, where the characters meet with elementals and living figures of the zodiac and the god Vulcan at his forge. (I had serious flashbacks to this book at certain points in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). I wonder if Terry Gilliam did, too.) Something about shipbuilding. Probably lots of Anglicanism, which I wouldn't have noticed at the time. And someone who kept a clipped and ribbon-dressed poodle named Mignon.

I am now two chapters in, and I can report that while there is indeed a fair amount of Anglicanism (and a poodle named Mignon), it has not eaten the story so far; and while I have not yet encountered the constellations, I have met up with a character I remember. Ten-year-old Tabitha Silver is contemplating the stranger who has caught her back from falling into a well after her own reflection, "a disreputable-looking tramp of an ordinary man" who promptly nicknames her Narcissus:

Quite recovered from her fright, and independent now that she was her normal self again, Tabitha slid off the ogre's knee and stood in front of him to have a look at him. His deplorable appearance, she discovered, was due to the fact that he had what she called a Saturday beard. Her father, who had never shaved in his life, had a great black beard that was a delight to behold, and Mr. Peregrine the Master-Builder, who shaved every day, had also a pleasing appearance, but there were other men on the Hard who only shaved on Sunday mornings, and on Saturday afternoons Tabitha did not think they looked their best. The ogre had not cut his wild dark hair for a long while, either, and his lined tanned face had dust in the creases. His clothes were dusty too, torn and stained, but they had been nice clothes once, and he talked as Mr. Peregrine and Parson Redfern talked, not like the gipsies and tinkers who sometimes came to the Hard. His dark eyes were amused, and yet desolate as a lost dog's, and deeply sunken in his head as though he had not had enough to eat lately, yet he had a gold ring on one finger and a torn silk handkerchief was hanging out of his pocket. Altogether Tabitha found him very puzzling.

"What are you?" she asked.

"A complete disaster," he said.

"Oh," said Tabitha. "I don't think I've met one before."

Hello, archetype.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Most of Goudge seem to have been reprinted pretty regularly in Puffin-type YA lines. You can probably find all you want for a couple bucks a book, as long as you don't want firsts VG+ w DJ.

The exception is The Valley of Song, which now seems to be considered too strange for children (and C. S. Lewis isn't?). Perhaps a Christian publisher would be interested in picking that one up.

The encounter with Vulcan is in the version of Munchausen's adventures I have before me (attributed to Raspe):

Mr Drybones' "Travels to Sicily," which I had read with great pleasure, induced me to pay a visit to Mount Etna...it was then, and had been for upwards of three weeks, raging...At last, having made up my mind, in I sprang feet foremost...I found myself in the midst of noise and clamor, mixed with the most horrid imprecations; after recovering my senses, and and feeling a reduction of my pain, I began to look about me. Guess, gentlemen, my astonishment, when I found myself in the company of Vulcan and his Cyclops, who had been quarreling, for the three weeks aforementioned, about the observation of good order and due subordination, and which had occasioned such alarms for that space of time in the world above. However, my arrival restored peace to the whole society, and Vulcan himself did me the honor of applying plasters to my wounds, which healed them immediately; he also placed refreshments before me, particularly nectar, and other rich wines, such as the gods and goddesses only aspire to. After this repast was over Vulcan ordered Venus to show me every indulgence which my situation required. To describe the apartment, and the couch on which I reposed, is totally impossible, therefore I will not attempt it; let it suffice to say, it exceeds the power of language to do it justice, or to speak of that kind-hearted goddess in any terms equal to her merit.

I keep meaning to post something about Karel Zeman's "The Fabulous Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1961).

[sovay]

Most of Goudge seem to have been reprinted pretty regularly in Puffin-type YA lines. You can probably find all you want for a couple bucks a book, as long as you don't want firsts VG+ w DJ.

Thanks! We actually own a fair number of firsts VG+ w (and occasionally w/out) DJ—The Valley of Song was one of the few that I had to get out from the library to read. Off the top of my head, I know we have A City of Bells, Towers in the Mist, The Dean's Watch, The Bird in the Tree, Pilgrim's Inn, The Heart of the Family, Green Dolphin Street, The Little White Horse, Gentian Hill, The White Witch, Linnets and Valerians, The Child from the Sea, and possibly one or two others that I am forgetting, although it may be only that we have doubles of some of the above. It's a little ridiculous. I doubt I would have read so much of her as a child if they hadn't been there handily on the shelf.

The exception is The Valley of Song, which now seems to be considered too strange for children (and C. S. Lewis isn't?).

Yes; I don't see why. Children, meet numinous. It's a recognized genre.

I keep meaning to post something about Karel Zeman's "The Fabulous Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1961).

I've never heard of it. You should.