The Curt Jester Reviews "In This House of Brede"

This book is certainly no pious stereotype of perfect contemplative nuns, but instead a book that reads more like an autobiography than a novel. The characters in the story are so real that you forget you are reading a novel. From the abbess down to the novices each person described could easily find their counterpart in real life.

Read the whole review. Y'all know that I am a fan and it is nice to see that Jeff enjoyed the book also.

Something I rarely see mentioned about Godden's books but that one commenter pointed out is that Godden's books often have unsettling elements which can often be painful to think about. I think about the way that the youngest child is ignored practically to the point of abuse in Thursday's Children, the way that Lovejoy's mother has abandoned her in An Episode of Sparrows, Philipa's secret in In This House of Brede. I haven't read all of Godden's books but I think that the only one that I have read where I can't remember something of the sort included is The Kitchen Madonna.

I think it is because Godden doesn't sugar-coat life. She shows the worst side of human behavior and we find it painful because we know just how it would feel to be treated like that. However, she also shows the best side and it is a redemptive side that I find extremely rewarding. For me, this mirrors life and I think that Godden does it with a subtle yet sure touch. Perhaps most amazing thing is that Godden manages to show those bad qualities in extremely good, non-offensive prose. That is an art that is lost on many modern writers.

God's Not as Fastidious as We Are

... Odd, she [Philippa] had thought, I never seriously visualized coming out of Brede again; it had not occurred to her, but in those minutes it occurred painfully. She could have blushed to think how once she had taken it for granted that, if she made enough effort -- steeled herself -- it would be settled. "I know," Dame Clare said afterwards. "I was as confident. Once upon a time I even thought God had taste, choosing me!"

Dame Perpetua had been more blunt. "Weren't you surprised that God should have chosen you?" a young woman reporter, writing apiece on vocations, had asked her. "Yes," Dame Perpetua had answered, "but not nearly as surprised that he should have chosen some of the others -- but then God's not as fastidious as we are," said Dame Perpetua.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

Shaped to Have Meaning

The statue seemed to emerge almost naturally from the stone, though again, statue seemed the wrong word, it was so alive. "He's uncovering it," said Dame Gertrude, marveling.

After the novitiate had watched him, Sister Constance had said, "It's like us. We come as a rough piece of stone and have to be carved and shaped to have any meaning."

"But he can only shape," said Cecily. "He can't put anything there that wasn't there before."

"Still more like us, "said Philippa ...

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden