What do you think?
Rate this book
The Dean's Watch: The Cathedral Trilogy
A rich and beautiful story, set in a quiet cathedral city during the eighteenth-century.
When cathedral dean Adam Ayscough encounters clockmaker Isaac Peabody, their unlikely friendship touches the lives of the entire community.
Behind the dean's fearsome reputation lies a humble man crippled by shyness. Desperate to leave behind a lasting legacy of goodness, his only wishes are to serve God and his parishioners, and to be loved by his young and dissatisfied wife.
Haunted by the memories of a miserable childhood, gifted clockmaker Isaac Peabody has spent a lifetime perfecting his craft and rejecting all belief in God.
Despite their fundamental differences, both men find a common understanding, and discover that faith can come in many different guises.
When cathedral dean Adam Ayscough encounters clockmaker Isaac Peabody, their unlikely friendship touches the lives of the entire community.
Behind the dean's fearsome reputation lies a humble man crippled by shyness. Desperate to leave behind a lasting legacy of goodness, his only wishes are to serve God and his parishioners, and to be loved by his young and dissatisfied wife.
Haunted by the memories of a miserable childhood, gifted clockmaker Isaac Peabody has spent a lifetime perfecting his craft and rejecting all belief in God.
Despite their fundamental differences, both men find a common understanding, and discover that faith can come in many different guises.
376 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1960
182 people are currently reading
3179 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Goudge
64 books891 followersElizabeth Goudge was an English author of novels, short stories and children's books.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in Wells, Somerset, in Tower House close by the cathedral in an area known as The Liberty, Her father, the Reverend Henry Leighton Goudge, taught in the cathedral school. Her mother was Miss Ida Collenette from the Channel Isles. Elizabeth was an only child. The family moved to Ely for a Canonry as Principal of the theological college. Later, when her father was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, they moved to Christ Church, Oxford.
She went to boarding school during WWI and later to Arts College, presumably at Reading College. She made a small living as teacher, and continued to live with her parents. During this time, she wrote a few plays, and was encouraged to write novels by a publisher. As her writing career took off, she began to travel to other nations. Unfortunately, she suffered from depression for much of her life. She had great empathy for people and a talent for finding the comic side of things, displayed to great effect in her writing.
Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), was a failure and it was several years before she authored Island Magic (1934), which is based on Channel Island stories, many of which she had learned from her mother, who was from Guernsey. After the death of her father, Goudge and her mother went to Devon, and eventually wound up living there in a small cottage. There, she wrote prolifically and was happy.
After the death of her mother, and at the wishes of Goudge's family who wished her to live closer to them, she found a companion who moved with her to Rose Cottage in Reading. She lived out her life there, and had many dogs in her life. Goudge loved dogs, and much preferred their company to that of humans. She continued to write until shortly before her death, when ill health, successive falls, and cataracts hindered her ability to write. She was much loved.
Goudge was awarded the Carnegie Medal for The Little White Horse (1946), the book which J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter stories, has said was her favorite as a child. The television mini-series Moonacre was based on The Little White Horse. Her Green Dolphin Country (1944) was made into a film (under its American title, Green Dolphin Street) which won the Academy Award for Special Effects in 1948.
A Diary of Prayer (1966) was one of Goudge's last works. She spent her last years in her cottage on Peppard Common, just outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in Wells, Somerset, in Tower House close by the cathedral in an area known as The Liberty, Her father, the Reverend Henry Leighton Goudge, taught in the cathedral school. Her mother was Miss Ida Collenette from the Channel Isles. Elizabeth was an only child. The family moved to Ely for a Canonry as Principal of the theological college. Later, when her father was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, they moved to Christ Church, Oxford.
She went to boarding school during WWI and later to Arts College, presumably at Reading College. She made a small living as teacher, and continued to live with her parents. During this time, she wrote a few plays, and was encouraged to write novels by a publisher. As her writing career took off, she began to travel to other nations. Unfortunately, she suffered from depression for much of her life. She had great empathy for people and a talent for finding the comic side of things, displayed to great effect in her writing.
Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), was a failure and it was several years before she authored Island Magic (1934), which is based on Channel Island stories, many of which she had learned from her mother, who was from Guernsey. After the death of her father, Goudge and her mother went to Devon, and eventually wound up living there in a small cottage. There, she wrote prolifically and was happy.
After the death of her mother, and at the wishes of Goudge's family who wished her to live closer to them, she found a companion who moved with her to Rose Cottage in Reading. She lived out her life there, and had many dogs in her life. Goudge loved dogs, and much preferred their company to that of humans. She continued to write until shortly before her death, when ill health, successive falls, and cataracts hindered her ability to write. She was much loved.
Goudge was awarded the Carnegie Medal for The Little White Horse (1946), the book which J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter stories, has said was her favorite as a child. The television mini-series Moonacre was based on The Little White Horse. Her Green Dolphin Country (1944) was made into a film (under its American title, Green Dolphin Street) which won the Academy Award for Special Effects in 1948.
A Diary of Prayer (1966) was one of Goudge's last works. She spent her last years in her cottage on Peppard Common, just outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 344 reviews
February 24, 2020
Before a few Goodreads friends strongly recommended this 1960 novel by Elizabeth Goudge, I had never heard of this author or any of her books. But these friends were so enthusiastic about The Dean’s Watch that I had to read it – which meant buying an actual copy of the paperback online, since it’s not in ebook form, or in the library, or even in my local bookstores. But I’m glad to say the search was worth it.
This is a lovely, inspiring novel set in an English town in the 1870s. The main characters are a diverse set: Isaac Peabody is an older clockmaker, a lifelong bachelor who lives with his embittered sister Emma. He lives for his work with clocks and watches, both creating them and repairing and maintaining them for others.
The Dean is a brilliant but homely and cripplingly shy man who nevertheless has an absolute gift for cleansing organizations of corruption – be they schools or religious organizations or cities. Although Isaac the clockmaker and the Dean belong to completely different social circles, they become friends through their shared interests in horology (clockmaking), and they begin to affect each other’s lives in unexpected ways.
Surrounding these two central characters, moving in and through their lives, are several other unique characters: Polly, who is Emma and Isaac’s maid, who is poor in worldly possessions but rich in love and joyfulness; Job, a long-suffering young man apprenticed to a cruel fishmonger, whose artistic soul yearns to make beautiful things and to love Polly; Garland, the Ayscoughs’ dedicated butler; and others.
Equally important are the non-human characters in the story: the town cathedral that inspires the Dean and many others, but whose size and darkness scare Isaac to death. The city itself, with its aristocratic quarters, its streets of genteel poverty, and its appalling slums. The watches and clocks that bring order and loveliness to their lives.
This is an unabashedly spiritual story, exploring how God affects our lives and how people can touch each other’s lives for good, but I didn’t find it sappy or overdone. It’s inspiring but at the same time gently humorous and charming. As the Dean watches over the city in his twilight years, he learns more than he ever thought he would about loving and helping people, and how much the people around him also love him.
Highly recommended!!
This is a lovely, inspiring novel set in an English town in the 1870s. The main characters are a diverse set: Isaac Peabody is an older clockmaker, a lifelong bachelor who lives with his embittered sister Emma. He lives for his work with clocks and watches, both creating them and repairing and maintaining them for others.
Every clock of importance in the aristocratic quarter of the city was in his care, intimately known to him and loved and cherished during half a lifetime… Isaac’s humility did not discriminate between man and man and scarcely between man and watch. In his thought men were much like their watches. The passage of time was marked as clearly upon a man’s face as upon that of his watch and the marvelous mechanism of his body could be as cruelly disturbed by evil hazards. The outer case varied, gunmetal or gold, carter’s corduroy or bishop’s broadcloth, but the tick of the pulse was the same, the beating of life that gave such a heartbreaking illusion of eternity.The most intricate and beautiful watch in the city belongs to Adam Ayscough, the Dean of the city cathedral.
The Dean is a brilliant but homely and cripplingly shy man who nevertheless has an absolute gift for cleansing organizations of corruption – be they schools or religious organizations or cities. Although Isaac the clockmaker and the Dean belong to completely different social circles, they become friends through their shared interests in horology (clockmaking), and they begin to affect each other’s lives in unexpected ways.
Surrounding these two central characters, moving in and through their lives, are several other unique characters: Polly, who is Emma and Isaac’s maid, who is poor in worldly possessions but rich in love and joyfulness; Job, a long-suffering young man apprenticed to a cruel fishmonger, whose artistic soul yearns to make beautiful things and to love Polly; Garland, the Ayscoughs’ dedicated butler; and others.
Equally important are the non-human characters in the story: the town cathedral that inspires the Dean and many others, but whose size and darkness scare Isaac to death. The city itself, with its aristocratic quarters, its streets of genteel poverty, and its appalling slums. The watches and clocks that bring order and loveliness to their lives.
This is an unabashedly spiritual story, exploring how God affects our lives and how people can touch each other’s lives for good, but I didn’t find it sappy or overdone. It’s inspiring but at the same time gently humorous and charming. As the Dean watches over the city in his twilight years, he learns more than he ever thought he would about loving and helping people, and how much the people around him also love him.
Highly recommended!!
April 19, 2020
I accomplished two things by reading this novel. I removed a book from my physical shelves that had been waiting, and I found a new favorite author when I am in need of a comfort read, to join the likes of Wendell Berry and Willa Cather and Kent Haruf. This is an old fashioned novel in the best sense of the word, full of life and joy and heartbreak.
I say old-fashioned, because this book was published in 1960, telling of a time period in 1870 in a cathedral town in England. It is the story of the cathedral and the village, and the people of the village, rich and poor, well born and slum dwellers. It is particularly the story of the friendship that develops between the Dean of St. Michael's and a humble watchmaker, Isaac Peabody, and how that friendship changes things for the better for so many among them. I say old-fashioned because goodness and kindness and love triumph in the end, as it does not in so many modern novels. I say old-fashioned because the story and it's characters became my world while I was reading, leaving behind the 21st century problems I know so well, to be replaced by those of the 19th century, just as worrying for the people of that time.
This novel brought to mind Dickens, without the caricatures, and George Eliot, without the scope, but every bit as good as those more famous writers.
Oh, and I lied when I said I could remove this book from my shelves. I cannot part with it, so it goes back, albeit to a different section. That would be favorite books that I surely will read again.
I say old-fashioned, because this book was published in 1960, telling of a time period in 1870 in a cathedral town in England. It is the story of the cathedral and the village, and the people of the village, rich and poor, well born and slum dwellers. It is particularly the story of the friendship that develops between the Dean of St. Michael's and a humble watchmaker, Isaac Peabody, and how that friendship changes things for the better for so many among them. I say old-fashioned because goodness and kindness and love triumph in the end, as it does not in so many modern novels. I say old-fashioned because the story and it's characters became my world while I was reading, leaving behind the 21st century problems I know so well, to be replaced by those of the 19th century, just as worrying for the people of that time.
This novel brought to mind Dickens, without the caricatures, and George Eliot, without the scope, but every bit as good as those more famous writers.
Oh, and I lied when I said I could remove this book from my shelves. I cannot part with it, so it goes back, albeit to a different section. That would be favorite books that I surely will read again.
October 27, 2018
"About the novels of Elizabeth Goudge there is always something of the fairy-tale, and The Dean's Watch is full of the enchantment of goodness- it has the timelessness that marks the author's best work"
The Scotsman"
From the back cover of my copy - & I don't know if I can improve on this review quotation.
I'll try.
I wasn't well whilst I was reading this novel, so I had trouble getting into it at first, gave it another shot & was swept into a world of magic!
My sisters are wonderful people and one of them has the gift of making people (well, me!) believe that they are better people than they actually are when you are with her. For me, the best of Goudge's writing has that quality. And this book is one of her best. Goudge's characters have flaws, but she loves them, and you come to love them too. I was bawling my eyes out from Chapter 12 onwards, but Goudge's sentimental style is never treacly. I enjoyed feeling that much emotion!
This would be an ideal Christmas read and I may reread then to get the whole Goudge experience.
My copy is illustrated. I'll put up an example here - I always worry another librarian will think Cover Artist & delete the illustrator credit!
January 1, 2019
At first The Dean's Watch seems no more consequential than a lovely tour through a picturesque English village, with a little talk about the town's history and the craft of watchmaking offered after tea.
Then the first accident happens: Isaac Peabody, an elderly, desperately shy watchmaker has two repaired watches to return to their owners, but somehow, a watch paper inscribed with a bit of doggerel verse has gone missing from one customer's watch and ends up inserted in the watchcase of the brilliant and terrifying Dean of Ely's great cathedral.
Isaac always tries to avoid meeting the Dean when he goes to wind the Deanery clocks, yet this time he is caught on the wrong side of the green baize door and finds himself facing the tall black figure holding the returned watch in one hand.'Personal terror was lost in professional anxiety. Had he failed in his mending of the watch?...He came nearer and his heart nearly stopped...By mistake he had put one of the watch papers he kept for his humbler clients inside the Dean's watch. And what was on it? Several of his watch papers were comic ones, some even vulgar. "It was an accident. Please forgive me, sir."'
This is what the watch paper said:
I labour here with all my might,
To tell the time by day or night;
In thy devotion copy me,
And serve thy God as I serve thee.
To tell what happens next would be to deprive you of the pleasure of watching this delicate story unfold, softly, petal by petal. Because the accident was a hidden miracle, and what happens next is a series of small changes, of chance encounters, and moments of compassion that alter dozens of lives.
Each one of the many characters who people this little village in the Fens of Cambridgeshire is drawn with perfection, and the descriptions of the land, the town and the churches are breathtakingly exquisite.
This is a joyful and very old-fashioned book. Authors don't write books like this anymore; no one thinks like this anymore. But beyond the literary mastery, for those who enjoy gently told tales, this is a story that lifts the heart.
Content rating G.
Then the first accident happens: Isaac Peabody, an elderly, desperately shy watchmaker has two repaired watches to return to their owners, but somehow, a watch paper inscribed with a bit of doggerel verse has gone missing from one customer's watch and ends up inserted in the watchcase of the brilliant and terrifying Dean of Ely's great cathedral.
Isaac always tries to avoid meeting the Dean when he goes to wind the Deanery clocks, yet this time he is caught on the wrong side of the green baize door and finds himself facing the tall black figure holding the returned watch in one hand.'Personal terror was lost in professional anxiety. Had he failed in his mending of the watch?...He came nearer and his heart nearly stopped...By mistake he had put one of the watch papers he kept for his humbler clients inside the Dean's watch. And what was on it? Several of his watch papers were comic ones, some even vulgar. "It was an accident. Please forgive me, sir."'
This is what the watch paper said:
I labour here with all my might,
To tell the time by day or night;
In thy devotion copy me,
And serve thy God as I serve thee.
To tell what happens next would be to deprive you of the pleasure of watching this delicate story unfold, softly, petal by petal. Because the accident was a hidden miracle, and what happens next is a series of small changes, of chance encounters, and moments of compassion that alter dozens of lives.
Each one of the many characters who people this little village in the Fens of Cambridgeshire is drawn with perfection, and the descriptions of the land, the town and the churches are breathtakingly exquisite.
This is a joyful and very old-fashioned book. Authors don't write books like this anymore; no one thinks like this anymore. But beyond the literary mastery, for those who enjoy gently told tales, this is a story that lifts the heart.
Content rating G.
September 29, 2024
This was an absolute beautiful, enchanting book! I just love Elizabeth Goudge's writing, she is outstanding! She has become one of my favorite authors! This is definitely a book I will read over and over again.
I would probably have never read this book, or even tried one of hers, if it wasn't for a very dear friend. So thank you so much!! ❤️
I would probably have never read this book, or even tried one of hers, if it wasn't for a very dear friend. So thank you so much!! ❤️
January 1, 2020
Although the English language can be maddeningly difficult to learn and even more impossible to master, its complexity confers a wealth of multiple meanings for words.
In our novel’s title, The Dean’s Watch, the obvious reference is to the physical object Dean Adam Ayscough used for his timepiece. As the story progresses, and the dean’s tenure unfolds in this nameless city with its magnificent cathedral on the fens* of England, ‘watch’ can also refer to the time he served as dean, what he did and its impact.
The double meaning is significant. The pocket watch, in need of repair, brings together the two main characters, the Dean and Isaac Peabody, a frightened, agnostic, horologist (watchmaker) who lives with his spinster sister, Emma who he despises. The Dean, in his turn, lives with his beautiful, beloved, but cold wife, Elaine, who can barely abide him. At the start of the story, Dean Ayscough has been dean over the city for ten years. He came at the specific request of the bishop, to ‘clean things up’ and he has, but at the cost of his personal popularity. He is admired—from afar—for his ‘success’ but not liked and he stands very much alone. Miss Montague, perhaps his one true friend, is an elderly lady, for the most part confined to her home. It is she who encourages the Dean to initiate friendly relations with the shy watchmaker by showing interest in his trade, beginning with, the Dean’s own watch.
The second meaning, of ‘the Dean’s watch’, is located within the breadth of the story. We learn the vast history of the cathedral and city, the ups and downs, fictional, yet believable. It is a fascinating tale and could be, but isn’t, the history of almost any cathedral city in England, from the early days of founding, through medieval growth, to the despoiling of the monasteries during the Reformation, a period of calm followed by further destruction under Cromwell, and then rebuilding. Coming at the end of this epic saga, is our dean’s turn. He will be there for his time, but a matter of a few years, ‘a watch’ so-to-speak, and then he will be replaced by another.
There is such depth to this story, I have held on to the book since finishing it, going back over parts, searching for passages to highlight, re-read, savor and ponder. Just a few of my favorite quotes are listed below; there are so many! It’s a book of wisdom and transformation, so there is rich gleaning. This has left me a confirmed Elizabeth Goudge fan. Thank you once again dear Dhanaraj!
Excellent, excellent read!
*The constant references to the ‘cathedral on the fens’, was frustrating for me having lived in Ely, UK for 2 years in the early 1980’s. Searching my memory—as well as the Internet—there seems to be no other cathedral (or city) which comes close to fitting the description in this story, except Ely Cathedral and yet, there are also innumerable clues which insist it is NOT Ely. Taken as a whole, however, those details which preclude Ely, are author-fabricated. The things which she cannot get deny, change or refute, such as the location and description of the fens, the significance of the cathedral to the area, its massive presence rising out of the vast plain on the lone high ground in all the area, cry out: Ely Cathedral, or I should say, the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. This photo of Ely Cathedral most resembles the misty towers portrayed on the book’s cover.
December 28, 2019: A Christmas gift from a DEAR friend! Thank you Dhanaraj! This book is so gentle and peaceful and uplifting, I keep turning to it as tonic for the soul. I have already looked up the rest of the books by the author so I can them ALL!
Almost finished, but I am reluctant to finish it, if you know what I mean. I don't want to leave this place. It is a Cathedral town on the fens and I keep seeing Ely where I lived once many years ago, so it has very special memories for me as well.
In our novel’s title, The Dean’s Watch, the obvious reference is to the physical object Dean Adam Ayscough used for his timepiece. As the story progresses, and the dean’s tenure unfolds in this nameless city with its magnificent cathedral on the fens* of England, ‘watch’ can also refer to the time he served as dean, what he did and its impact.
The double meaning is significant. The pocket watch, in need of repair, brings together the two main characters, the Dean and Isaac Peabody, a frightened, agnostic, horologist (watchmaker) who lives with his spinster sister, Emma who he despises. The Dean, in his turn, lives with his beautiful, beloved, but cold wife, Elaine, who can barely abide him. At the start of the story, Dean Ayscough has been dean over the city for ten years. He came at the specific request of the bishop, to ‘clean things up’ and he has, but at the cost of his personal popularity. He is admired—from afar—for his ‘success’ but not liked and he stands very much alone. Miss Montague, perhaps his one true friend, is an elderly lady, for the most part confined to her home. It is she who encourages the Dean to initiate friendly relations with the shy watchmaker by showing interest in his trade, beginning with, the Dean’s own watch.
The second meaning, of ‘the Dean’s watch’, is located within the breadth of the story. We learn the vast history of the cathedral and city, the ups and downs, fictional, yet believable. It is a fascinating tale and could be, but isn’t, the history of almost any cathedral city in England, from the early days of founding, through medieval growth, to the despoiling of the monasteries during the Reformation, a period of calm followed by further destruction under Cromwell, and then rebuilding. Coming at the end of this epic saga, is our dean’s turn. He will be there for his time, but a matter of a few years, ‘a watch’ so-to-speak, and then he will be replaced by another.
There is such depth to this story, I have held on to the book since finishing it, going back over parts, searching for passages to highlight, re-read, savor and ponder. Just a few of my favorite quotes are listed below; there are so many! It’s a book of wisdom and transformation, so there is rich gleaning. This has left me a confirmed Elizabeth Goudge fan. Thank you once again dear Dhanaraj!
Excellent, excellent read!
*The constant references to the ‘cathedral on the fens’, was frustrating for me having lived in Ely, UK for 2 years in the early 1980’s. Searching my memory—as well as the Internet—there seems to be no other cathedral (or city) which comes close to fitting the description in this story, except Ely Cathedral and yet, there are also innumerable clues which insist it is NOT Ely. Taken as a whole, however, those details which preclude Ely, are author-fabricated. The things which she cannot get deny, change or refute, such as the location and description of the fens, the significance of the cathedral to the area, its massive presence rising out of the vast plain on the lone high ground in all the area, cry out: Ely Cathedral, or I should say, the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. This photo of Ely Cathedral most resembles the misty towers portrayed on the book’s cover.
December 28, 2019: A Christmas gift from a DEAR friend! Thank you Dhanaraj! This book is so gentle and peaceful and uplifting, I keep turning to it as tonic for the soul. I have already looked up the rest of the books by the author so I can them ALL!
Almost finished, but I am reluctant to finish it, if you know what I mean. I don't want to leave this place. It is a Cathedral town on the fens and I keep seeing Ely where I lived once many years ago, so it has very special memories for me as well.
December 20, 2025
Advent 2025: This reread is still in progress but I want to make some notes as I go. Chapter 7 about Mary Montague is exquisite. I love Mary’s commitment to love as a life’s work and then her dark night of the soul and how she comes to be reconciled to it. Brings tears to my eyes.
Absolutely fascinating this chapter called King Lear. Now I want to reread Lear so I’m picking up more fully on the illusions. Is Dr Penny Lear or the Dean? 🤔
“Be at peace now and let the tide carry you into calm water. That is all you have to do for the moment” (199).
“Firelight and Polly had lent a momentary charm to the parlour but now, looking up at the portrait, he was aware of having passed under the shadow of a dark hand. Emma, he realized, lived under it always. Her parlour was her past, and Isaac’s, and if Isaac in tearing himself out of its grip had torn himself too he was better off with his asthma and his nerves and his eccentricity than Emma. Better to struggle through life with a broken wing than to have no wings at all” (210).
The scene of the Dean at tea with Emma profoundly moved me this time. Just like the Dean, I disliked Emma. I’ve been reading several novels recently with Elder Brother characters and it strikes me with Emma that their sin is just as black as the prodigal’s. Woe to me, a literal Elder Sister. But just like the Dean, my heart also broke open for Emma when he imagines her as a child longing for love from a barren father. The fact that her father was a pastor is even more poignant, which the Dean also recognizes. He sees suddenly Emma as forlorn and his big heart opens to her and draws her into goodness. And now I have tears on my cheeks as Emma does when the Dean leaves. How profound is redemption for the Elder Brother types too: love has always been there for us. May our eyes be open to see it.
Absolutely fascinating this chapter called King Lear. Now I want to reread Lear so I’m picking up more fully on the illusions. Is Dr Penny Lear or the Dean? 🤔
“Be at peace now and let the tide carry you into calm water. That is all you have to do for the moment” (199).
“Firelight and Polly had lent a momentary charm to the parlour but now, looking up at the portrait, he was aware of having passed under the shadow of a dark hand. Emma, he realized, lived under it always. Her parlour was her past, and Isaac’s, and if Isaac in tearing himself out of its grip had torn himself too he was better off with his asthma and his nerves and his eccentricity than Emma. Better to struggle through life with a broken wing than to have no wings at all” (210).
The scene of the Dean at tea with Emma profoundly moved me this time. Just like the Dean, I disliked Emma. I’ve been reading several novels recently with Elder Brother characters and it strikes me with Emma that their sin is just as black as the prodigal’s. Woe to me, a literal Elder Sister. But just like the Dean, my heart also broke open for Emma when he imagines her as a child longing for love from a barren father. The fact that her father was a pastor is even more poignant, which the Dean also recognizes. He sees suddenly Emma as forlorn and his big heart opens to her and draws her into goodness. And now I have tears on my cheeks as Emma does when the Dean leaves. How profound is redemption for the Elder Brother types too: love has always been there for us. May our eyes be open to see it.
Read
September 3, 2017I never know what to make of Elizabeth Goudge. I see her categorized as a Christian author, and her books often have religious themes woven closely through them; and yet she can get much too mystical for my taste, to the point where I wonder whether the Christianity presented in her books is genuine or something to be handled with caution.
In The Dean's Watch, the bothersome elements include the complete blurring of the lines between the Catholicism in the history of the fictional cathedral town and the (presumably) Church of England diocese now established there; and too much of a sense of spiritual things being bound up in things and places—i.e. the way it always seems to be the Cathedral itself exercising some sort of mystical influence over the people, not purely their relationship to God.
The theme of the story is the beauty that results from people showing genuine love (not in a romantic sense) for each other, and mostly this seems to be correctly traced back to the influence of divine love on them. There's even a couple of references to divine love exercised through Calvary and to Jesus taking men's sins in his own body. Yet there seems to be a tiny but vital hole in the theology, in that there's no reference to individual repentance or saving belief in Christ—when the Dean speaks of the atonement, that omission almost seems to imply that it automatically applies to all of humanity.
In a purely artistic sense The Dean's Watch is a delight, with sparklingly descriptive writing, memorable and lovable characters—Polly, Job, Miss Montague, Garland, Bella—and a moving story. There's also a lovely thread of appreciation for artistic creativity woven through it. I felt conflicted when I finished, because I very much enjoyed the story itself—and also appreciated a novel that could make religious themes so central to the story without being the least dull or preachy—but couldn't get past the fact that the theology felt incomplete at best.
In The Dean's Watch, the bothersome elements include the complete blurring of the lines between the Catholicism in the history of the fictional cathedral town and the (presumably) Church of England diocese now established there; and too much of a sense of spiritual things being bound up in things and places—i.e. the way it always seems to be the Cathedral itself exercising some sort of mystical influence over the people, not purely their relationship to God.
The theme of the story is the beauty that results from people showing genuine love (not in a romantic sense) for each other, and mostly this seems to be correctly traced back to the influence of divine love on them. There's even a couple of references to divine love exercised through Calvary and to Jesus taking men's sins in his own body. Yet there seems to be a tiny but vital hole in the theology, in that there's no reference to individual repentance or saving belief in Christ—when the Dean speaks of the atonement, that omission almost seems to imply that it automatically applies to all of humanity.
In a purely artistic sense The Dean's Watch is a delight, with sparklingly descriptive writing, memorable and lovable characters—Polly, Job, Miss Montague, Garland, Bella—and a moving story. There's also a lovely thread of appreciation for artistic creativity woven through it. I felt conflicted when I finished, because I very much enjoyed the story itself—and also appreciated a novel that could make religious themes so central to the story without being the least dull or preachy—but couldn't get past the fact that the theology felt incomplete at best.
June 27, 2016
Often when reading poster's reviews, I am struck by how much superlatives are used. Often. I have been guilty myself. But not as often as I view here.
Well, this one can't be set into those same scales as "the best", IMHO. It's that good. It's better.
When this novel was written, there seemed to be a much higher regard for self-examination. But that's only one pivotal point in this novel.
It starts off slow and in a rather tedious progression to the history of a Cathedral, and its authority or district leader throughout 400 years or more. A history also of timepieces, watches, clocks from those eras and through the eyes of the present city dwelling watchmaker, Isaac.
But the center is truly the Cathedral city itself. It too, works like a time piece. The city in England that grows as a market town in the fens, around the Cathedral on its hill. The city that is not London of voluminous strangers.
And we get here 4 to 10 exact personal prisms of individual personalities for the people who have lived in this fen placed city, all of their lives. Some to a nearly complete cognition and others to merely a smaller reflective mirror to part of the crystal or flint inside. They are everyday people. Everyday people who strive- tow the lines. People with a job. And beyond that a place or fixture in their unique societal puzzle. And without them the puzzle lacks. It would not be complete. Like a jigsaw 2000 piece set with 10 key pieces missing.
But beyond this tremendous frame for the art in this novel- Elizabeth Goudge has a masterpiece of individuals' evaluations upon themselves in the center in spectacular oils. Oils of emotive marvels and blessed by Light that engulfs them. The shadows is this masterpiece are not black, they may be dark, but it is the dark of quiet, peace and eventual contentment. Yet it is not free from all sorrow.
They are flawed, these everyday people. They are often unsuccessful, or beyond any notice, or consistently rejected, or ill, or tired, or with odd physical flaws. But they have and hold their identity.
This doesn't begin to describe the peace achieved through these self-evaluations. And the learning to accept the simple joys and being filled with God's love. The chapter on Miss Montague, her thoughts, that chapter alone is worth the 5 stars. Joy in all the small things.
There is also some inclusion to fate here. Read it, and see if you don't see similarities in your own life. How having a fall over a rug, or an open door in a strange place, or just having an odd encounter while shopping or a look over a pew- how all of that can change a whole life! Not often, at all. But I do know it has happened to me. One time when I was very young and locked myself out of the house comes to mind.
This is a book to take very slowly. And to not be discouraged by the long (I can just hear the "boring" swears resounding)introduction and time piece lessons- but to continue to the crux. Come into that dark foyer and into the Cathedral and just sit awhile. Please read this one.
Highly, highly recommend. 6 Stars
And I know they were not contemporaries, but why is Dickens read and not Goudge. That's a travesty.
Well, this one can't be set into those same scales as "the best", IMHO. It's that good. It's better.
When this novel was written, there seemed to be a much higher regard for self-examination. But that's only one pivotal point in this novel.
It starts off slow and in a rather tedious progression to the history of a Cathedral, and its authority or district leader throughout 400 years or more. A history also of timepieces, watches, clocks from those eras and through the eyes of the present city dwelling watchmaker, Isaac.
But the center is truly the Cathedral city itself. It too, works like a time piece. The city in England that grows as a market town in the fens, around the Cathedral on its hill. The city that is not London of voluminous strangers.
And we get here 4 to 10 exact personal prisms of individual personalities for the people who have lived in this fen placed city, all of their lives. Some to a nearly complete cognition and others to merely a smaller reflective mirror to part of the crystal or flint inside. They are everyday people. Everyday people who strive- tow the lines. People with a job. And beyond that a place or fixture in their unique societal puzzle. And without them the puzzle lacks. It would not be complete. Like a jigsaw 2000 piece set with 10 key pieces missing.
But beyond this tremendous frame for the art in this novel- Elizabeth Goudge has a masterpiece of individuals' evaluations upon themselves in the center in spectacular oils. Oils of emotive marvels and blessed by Light that engulfs them. The shadows is this masterpiece are not black, they may be dark, but it is the dark of quiet, peace and eventual contentment. Yet it is not free from all sorrow.
They are flawed, these everyday people. They are often unsuccessful, or beyond any notice, or consistently rejected, or ill, or tired, or with odd physical flaws. But they have and hold their identity.
This doesn't begin to describe the peace achieved through these self-evaluations. And the learning to accept the simple joys and being filled with God's love. The chapter on Miss Montague, her thoughts, that chapter alone is worth the 5 stars. Joy in all the small things.
There is also some inclusion to fate here. Read it, and see if you don't see similarities in your own life. How having a fall over a rug, or an open door in a strange place, or just having an odd encounter while shopping or a look over a pew- how all of that can change a whole life! Not often, at all. But I do know it has happened to me. One time when I was very young and locked myself out of the house comes to mind.
This is a book to take very slowly. And to not be discouraged by the long (I can just hear the "boring" swears resounding)introduction and time piece lessons- but to continue to the crux. Come into that dark foyer and into the Cathedral and just sit awhile. Please read this one.
Highly, highly recommend. 6 Stars
And I know they were not contemporaries, but why is Dickens read and not Goudge. That's a travesty.
June 15, 2018
This book stands at the top of my list of favorite novels. It's an old-fashioned story but one with such depth and spirituality, wisdom, and beautiful writing that it has found its way into my heart and remains there. Whenever I feel a real need for comfort and truth I know I can turn to Elizabeth Goudge's books and find it in abundance. I love almost everything Goudge has written but in my opinion this is, without question, her best.
Highest recommendation, a book to treasure and re-read often.
Highest recommendation, a book to treasure and re-read often.
May 26, 2016
This is my second Elizabeth Goudge read, and I am noticing her propensity to create characters that have disfigurements or oddities. Instead of making them victims or underdogs, she is able to magnify the strengths that each character has developed as a result of their suffering. The parson suffering from dementia, the ugly dean, the watchmaker who goes on drinking binges, the lame old maid who is imprisoned in her home----all considered the "least of these" and all possessing qualities that are the saving grace to others.
Goudge has a very literary touch with the pen and her writing has a depth that causes me to stop and ponder. She melds together elements of history, art, and music. In the case of this book, she explores horology (a new word to me!), the art of making clocks and watches. She weaves many spiritual insights in with her telling, but keeps her analogies subtle. You have to think about them and I prefer that over overtly "preachy" insights.
The title has a dual interpretation---just lovely! You can't go wrong with this book. Here are a few quotes I highlighted:
"There was nowadays an integrity about his obstinancy; his refusal to accept his father's God had in it something of the courage and fire of the true faith."
"Could mere loving be a life's work? Could it be a career like marriage or nursing the sick or going on the stage? Could it be adventure?"
"Until now she had only read her Bible as a pious exercise, but now she read it as an engineer reads a blueprint and a traveler a map"
"Whyshould we always want a light? He chose darkness for us, darkness of the womb and of the stable, darkness in the garden, darkness on the cross and in the grave. Why do I demand certainty? That is not faith."
Goudge has a very literary touch with the pen and her writing has a depth that causes me to stop and ponder. She melds together elements of history, art, and music. In the case of this book, she explores horology (a new word to me!), the art of making clocks and watches. She weaves many spiritual insights in with her telling, but keeps her analogies subtle. You have to think about them and I prefer that over overtly "preachy" insights.
The title has a dual interpretation---just lovely! You can't go wrong with this book. Here are a few quotes I highlighted:
"There was nowadays an integrity about his obstinancy; his refusal to accept his father's God had in it something of the courage and fire of the true faith."
"Could mere loving be a life's work? Could it be a career like marriage or nursing the sick or going on the stage? Could it be adventure?"
"Until now she had only read her Bible as a pious exercise, but now she read it as an engineer reads a blueprint and a traveler a map"
"Whyshould we always want a light? He chose darkness for us, darkness of the womb and of the stable, darkness in the garden, darkness on the cross and in the grave. Why do I demand certainty? That is not faith."
April 16, 2016
I LOVED it! Elizabeth Goudge has done it again for me.
It’s hard to know where to start on a review. Maybe I could list the many things that made the book for me?
Elizabeth Goudge’s writing style is rich and descriptive and bears a fairytale quality, yet tells stories of realistic settings and daily life. It brings out the beautiful in this world. She shows that, despite sadness and ugliness, there is much that is lovely that we should dwell upon.
It’s a tale of redeemed lives. I adore stories that show broken lives put back together by God’s love.
She offers rich spiritual insights that you can apply to your own life. She puts you in adoration of the Holy One; her writing imparts reverence for Him.
It has characters whose souls sink into yours so that you wish you knew them. (Most of them, anyway. There are those who need a lot of improvement before they’d be halfway pleasant companions!) They are each unique and easy to distinguish from one another, which makes for a very enjoyable and realistic cast of characters. They are deep—Goudge delves into the innermost spirits of many of them. They transform, like real people. They are English Victorians and therefore lead interesting lives, vastly different from my own, but yet familiar and loveable because I know aspects of their world from classic literature.
The setting is a character in itself. The cathedral, the city (which is never named), the fen country (located in eastern England, north of London), the clockmaker’s shop—they are all portrayed in so much detail it’s as if you were there seeing them. Just like the human characters, you wish you could know this setting in person!
She attaches importance and symbolism to objects (usually beautiful objects you want to feast your eyes upon). There are such scrumptious things in The Dean’s Watch as a celestial clock (clocks and watches galore, actually), cathedral carvings and stained glass, and three darling umbrellas. It makes the story tangible…our lives are full of physical objects that we ascribe importance to, and that come to symbolize to us significant events or people. I know I’m above-average sentimental, but all of us hold on to objects because of the people they remind us of, or the feelings they conjure.
The story was really well crafted. Even though some of the things that occur could be considered ordinary, they are anything but in the light of her pen. She makes life epic. At the end I almost felt the same sense of triumph against all odds that I got from the ending of Return of the King. It makes you look at your life in the same light—what will you allow God to accomplish in it?
In short, Elizabeth Goudge is the first author I’ve found who I’d wholly like to write like. I feel a kinship with her—she writes such soul-satisfying books!
It’s hard to know where to start on a review. Maybe I could list the many things that made the book for me?
Elizabeth Goudge’s writing style is rich and descriptive and bears a fairytale quality, yet tells stories of realistic settings and daily life. It brings out the beautiful in this world. She shows that, despite sadness and ugliness, there is much that is lovely that we should dwell upon.
It’s a tale of redeemed lives. I adore stories that show broken lives put back together by God’s love.
She offers rich spiritual insights that you can apply to your own life. She puts you in adoration of the Holy One; her writing imparts reverence for Him.
It has characters whose souls sink into yours so that you wish you knew them. (Most of them, anyway. There are those who need a lot of improvement before they’d be halfway pleasant companions!) They are each unique and easy to distinguish from one another, which makes for a very enjoyable and realistic cast of characters. They are deep—Goudge delves into the innermost spirits of many of them. They transform, like real people. They are English Victorians and therefore lead interesting lives, vastly different from my own, but yet familiar and loveable because I know aspects of their world from classic literature.
The setting is a character in itself. The cathedral, the city (which is never named), the fen country (located in eastern England, north of London), the clockmaker’s shop—they are all portrayed in so much detail it’s as if you were there seeing them. Just like the human characters, you wish you could know this setting in person!
She attaches importance and symbolism to objects (usually beautiful objects you want to feast your eyes upon). There are such scrumptious things in The Dean’s Watch as a celestial clock (clocks and watches galore, actually), cathedral carvings and stained glass, and three darling umbrellas. It makes the story tangible…our lives are full of physical objects that we ascribe importance to, and that come to symbolize to us significant events or people. I know I’m above-average sentimental, but all of us hold on to objects because of the people they remind us of, or the feelings they conjure.
The story was really well crafted. Even though some of the things that occur could be considered ordinary, they are anything but in the light of her pen. She makes life epic. At the end I almost felt the same sense of triumph against all odds that I got from the ending of Return of the King. It makes you look at your life in the same light—what will you allow God to accomplish in it?
In short, Elizabeth Goudge is the first author I’ve found who I’d wholly like to write like. I feel a kinship with her—she writes such soul-satisfying books!
August 21, 2017
"Life had taken on a strange richness since Mr. Peabody had sidled like a terrified crab into his study, had lifted the thin gold shell of his watch and show him the hidden watchcock. Until now life for him had meant the aridity of earthly duty and the dews of God. Now he was aware of something else, a world that was neither earth nor heaven, a heartbreaking, fabulous, lovely world where the conies take refuge in the rainbowed hills and in the deep valleys of the unicorns the songs are sung that men hear in dreams, the world that the poets know and the men who make music."
Even in her realistic stories, like this one - set in a Cathedral city in England during the 1870s - there is the trademark Goudge whimsy, always alive to the magic of the world. The reader is always aware of Goudge's deep religious faith, but it manifests itself in a deep love and wonder for God's creation. She is a unique writer - very old-fashioned, I suppose - but her writing has an enduring beauty to it. I love her writing; like the best children's books, its simple wisdom has the power to move and comfort me.
Only when I finished the book, did I think about how the title has a double meaning. It refers, on the literal level, to the ancient timepiece that was handed down to the Dean (Adam Ayscough), and which he later bequeaths to Isaac Peabody, the watchmaker. But more importantly, it refers to the Dean's 'watch' over the city that has been entrusted into his care. All his life, the Dean has had a sense of dutiful vocation - and he has attempted to eradicate evil where he has found it - but he has struggled to feel or show love. At the end of his life, he discovers the joy (and sometimes pain) of becoming entangled with the lives around him.
The book has a small cast of varied characters: the watchmaker Isaac Peabody, his embittered sister Emma, their cheerful maid Polly, the young apprentice Job, the elderly Miss Montague, a wilful child called Bella and several others. The Dean finds a way to befriend each of them, for mutual benefit. The novel is about the qualities of service, faith and love, but that definition doesn't do justice to the charm of the story.
September 29, 2024
"It is by love alone that we escape death, and love alone is our surety for eternal life. If there were no springtime there would be no seeds. The small brown shell, the seed of an apple tree in bloom, is evidence for the sunshine and the singing of birds."
Both my sister and my best friend have been encouraging me to read this book for a long time. At last I got around to reading it along with them this month, and I'm so glad I did! Miss Goudge's writing is very beautiful and she puts so many things into words that I've felt but could never have expressed. The struggles of many of the characters were very real to me. I also loved her descriptions of the Fen Country with its magnificent sunsets...and of course the Cathedral!
A delightful, quiet, encouraging read!
Both my sister and my best friend have been encouraging me to read this book for a long time. At last I got around to reading it along with them this month, and I'm so glad I did! Miss Goudge's writing is very beautiful and she puts so many things into words that I've felt but could never have expressed. The struggles of many of the characters were very real to me. I also loved her descriptions of the Fen Country with its magnificent sunsets...and of course the Cathedral!
A delightful, quiet, encouraging read!
December 15, 2023
We Americans are notorious for our mass-produced-throw-away society, and skilled craftsmen like watchmakers or clock-repairers are increasingly difficult, or impossible, to find. I’m 52, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a clock repair shop. When I was young, there were at least two sewing machine shops in our small town of 20,000. Neither of those exist now, and if you still own a sewing machine, you have to take it to another town to have it worked on. So a modern reader could be forgiven for not understanding:
From the glorious epitaph of a watchmaker at the opening of the book to the immersive descriptions of both people and settings, it is a delight. The many clocks in this book act as metaphors for time and timeliness and timelessness and eternity. And perhaps most of all, the book refers to the inner worlds of the mind that each of us inhabit and which we cannot and do not share with even - or especially - our nearest and dearest.
We meet various residents of this unnamed cathedral city; characters include streets and houses and of course, sitting physically and spiritually above the city, the Cathedral. Perhaps my favorite character is Miss Montague, the last resident member of the aristocratic family who acquired the monastery after the Dissolution. She was injured in a fall in childhood and now, in her old age, has severe rheumatism. She had been a plain child to begin with and the consequent disability further sealed her perpetual status as spinster. She had struggled against this fate in her earlier years and one day, with a rare hour to spare, visited the Cathedral. She entered the chantry of the original Duchess and became immersed in the peace of the ancient building. She speaks to the Duchess’s effigy:
Light is another motif found throughout the story - the sunlight after a storm, an autumn sunset, the light shining through the Cathedral’s windows and making beautifully colored patterns where it falls inside; the light is contrasted with darkness. Of course, the light is a symbol of God. (Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 8:12. KJV)
Some of the themes in the book are the profound truths of our Faith:
God is love and all genuine love is a gift from Him.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
No one is beyond redemption.
I loved this book. The story was mesmerizing, the writing was exquisite and even if you aren’t of the Christian faith, there are lovely lessons to be learned - it’s not at all preachy.
And on a lighter note, I now have the urge to go shopping for an antique clock. Perhaps a stately grandfather, or a dignified mantel clock, or a rustic cuckoo clock, like those I remember from my childhood.
Quotes I want to remember:
P 7-8
Isaac was aware of all the lamp lit rooms in the crooked houses, little and big, that climbed upon each other’s shoulders up the hill to the plateau at the top where the Cathedral towered, looking out over the frozen plain to the eastern sea. Another night he would have shivered, remembering the plain and the sea, but tonight he remembered only the warm rooms and the faces of men and women bent over their bowls of steaming soup, and the children already asleep in their beds. He felt for them all a profound love, and he glowed. The moment of his loving was in the world of time merely sixty seconds ticked out by his watch, but in another dimension it was an arc of light encircling the city and leaving not one heart within it untouched by blessedness.
P 11
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest but in his motion like an angel sings.” Isaac did not believe it but he had the kind of mind that delights to collect the pretty coloured fragments of old legends that lie about the floor of the world for children to pick up.
P 30
Those whose duty compelled them to crawl about like ants beneath it had a feeling that [the Cathedral] was towering up and up and might curve and break over them like an annihilating wave.
P 45
A man may build as he chooses upon his foundations but he cannot change them or forget them, and if at the last the superstructure of his own building falls about his ears he tends to rediscover them at the end as the only rock he has to cling to.
P 49
...slowly deep needs of whose existence she had scarcely been aware began to be satisfied and their woke in her the question. Who am I? – a question that she had not asked in the crowded orphanage days. The solitude of her room made her aware of her self and the illimitable beauty it looked upon made her aware of something beyond herself, so far away that its unattainable perfection broke her heart. And yet it was near. It was as far as the brown brink of the horizon before dawn, and near as the yellow rose that climbed from the walled garden below and in June propped itself up on her windowsill and scented her room. The scent of a flower is a very close and intimate thing, she thought. It can seem to be a part of your body and blood.
P 66
The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the rooms to show them to him. As he read, his dreams slowly changed. The nightmares of being stuck in chimneys that suddenly started to get smaller and smaller, squeezing him until he woke up choking and screaming, gradually gave way to dreams of forests full of great trees, where fabulous beasts galloped down the cool green aisles, meadows full of flowers and celestial mountains musical with streams. He dreamed of the sea that he had never seen and of ships upon it, and of caves where the tide washed in and out. And gradually the dreams became his world...
P 75
They were men of about the same age, man of tradition, and they like to do things in exactly the same way year after year. It gave them a sense of security.
(I could write an entire essay contrasting these two sentences to our 21st century world in which tradition has been largely discarded as boring. But perhaps the security here described has gone with it leaving an epidemic of anxiety in its place?)
P 87
All of [the patrician residents] them, and especially the terrible Dean, had seemed to live in a world where compassion was not necessary. He saw now that it was the very first necessity, always and everywhere, and should flow between all men, always and everywhere. Men lived with their nearest and dearest and knew little of them, and strangers passing by in the street were as impersonal as trees walking, and all the while there was this deep affinity, for all men suffered.
P 96
[Polly] still wore the outdoor clothes the orphanage had given her, a gray gown and cloak and a plain black bonnet, but with her very first earnings she had bought some cherry-colored ribbon to replace the black velvet strings, enough to make two roses and a large defiance bow that tied beneath her chin...
P 104
... now that she was so old she did not distinguish very clearly between those who were what the world calls dead and those were who still lived here.
P 119
Shrewd as she was she could not but be aware that her chair by the fire had become a throne, and that when she went to the Cathedral in her Bath chair it was a queen‘s progress. . . She knew her own worthlessness and so did God, though He loved her nonetheless, and this false idea of her that the city had got into its head was a private joke between them.
P 123
Love. The only indestructible thing. The only wealth and the only reality. The only survival. At the end of it all there was nothing else.
P 134
...the rainbow mist that softens all outlines of the past.
P 180
“The child has joy,” said the Dean. “You stored your joy for her within the cuckoo clock. As I see it there is no giving without giving away. But joy is a homing pigeon. Good day to you, Mr. Peabody.”
P 227
Better to struggle through life with a broken wing than have no wings at all.
P 232
There is no more satisfactory sight than a lighted bookshop in the dusk...
P 237
“Are you glad that I persuaded you to take a little joy?”
“Yes, ma’am, but the complications, and indeed the anxieties, have been and are very great.”
“Naturally,” said Miss Montague. “If you turn for your joy to the intractable and explosive stuff of human nature it’s in for a penny, in for a pound.”
P 243
They worked now in that companionable silence...between two who are as attached to the work they do together as they are to each other is one of the most satisfactory things in life.
P 244
What he really did was to set free the living bird imprisoned in the wood. Once he had whittled out of a bit of cherry wood a bird he had never seen. A fortnight later he had seen his first gold-crested wren in the Willowthorn drove. He wondered if poets ever wrote of experiences with which they had not yet caught up. Time as one understood it seemed oddly nonexistent when one made things.
P 268
It was Job who heard the heavy footsteps first, and he thought again that he knew now what Christmas was. It was expectancy. This time last year he had expected little except the dreary continuation of misery but now the horizon of his expectations was lost in glory.
page 273
The Dean speaking of death:
“...the dark auditorium with its unseen crowd of witnesses is a frightening thing, pressing in upon our poor little garish stage, frightening because we know nothing of it. Yet when our play is ended and the house lights go up we shall see many kindly faces."
‘Clocks and watches, sir, they’re alive. They live longer than we do if they’re treated right. There’s nothing in this world so beautiful as a well-made timepiece. And every one different, sir. Never even a watch cock the same.’
From the glorious epitaph of a watchmaker at the opening of the book to the immersive descriptions of both people and settings, it is a delight. The many clocks in this book act as metaphors for time and timeliness and timelessness and eternity. And perhaps most of all, the book refers to the inner worlds of the mind that each of us inhabit and which we cannot and do not share with even - or especially - our nearest and dearest.
Isaac’s humility did not discriminate between man and man and scarcely between man and watch. In his thought men were much like their watches. The passage of time was marked as clearly upon a man’s face as upon that of his watch and the marvelous mechanism of his body could be as cruelly disturbed by evil hazards. The outer case varied, gunmetal or gold, carter’s corduroy or bishop’s broadcloth, but the tick of the pulse was the same, the beating of life that gave such a heartbreaking illusion of eternity.
We meet various residents of this unnamed cathedral city; characters include streets and houses and of course, sitting physically and spiritually above the city, the Cathedral. Perhaps my favorite character is Miss Montague, the last resident member of the aristocratic family who acquired the monastery after the Dissolution. She was injured in a fall in childhood and now, in her old age, has severe rheumatism. She had been a plain child to begin with and the consequent disability further sealed her perpetual status as spinster. She had struggled against this fate in her earlier years and one day, with a rare hour to spare, visited the Cathedral. She entered the chantry of the original Duchess and became immersed in the peace of the ancient building. She speaks to the Duchess’s effigy:
”You’ve been here so long,” Miss Montague said to Blanche, “praying with those wounded hands.” For though her mind told her that Blanche was either nowhere, or somewhere else, but anyhow not here, yet she could not this afternoon quite get rid of the feeling that Blanche was here. . . Blanche was here, and the Man on the rood, sharing the same darkness with her and with a vast multitude of people whom she seemed to know and love. . . Why should we always want a light? He chose darkness for us, darkness of the womb and of the stable, darkness in the garden, darkness on the cross and in the grave. Why do I demand certainty? That is not faith. . . He is here, not only love in light illuming all that He has made but love in darkness dying for it...
Light is another motif found throughout the story - the sunlight after a storm, an autumn sunset, the light shining through the Cathedral’s windows and making beautifully colored patterns where it falls inside; the light is contrasted with darkness. Of course, the light is a symbol of God. (Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 8:12. KJV)
Some of the themes in the book are the profound truths of our Faith:
God is love and all genuine love is a gift from Him.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
No one is beyond redemption.
I loved this book. The story was mesmerizing, the writing was exquisite and even if you aren’t of the Christian faith, there are lovely lessons to be learned - it’s not at all preachy.
And on a lighter note, I now have the urge to go shopping for an antique clock. Perhaps a stately grandfather, or a dignified mantel clock, or a rustic cuckoo clock, like those I remember from my childhood.
Quotes I want to remember:
P 7-8
Isaac was aware of all the lamp lit rooms in the crooked houses, little and big, that climbed upon each other’s shoulders up the hill to the plateau at the top where the Cathedral towered, looking out over the frozen plain to the eastern sea. Another night he would have shivered, remembering the plain and the sea, but tonight he remembered only the warm rooms and the faces of men and women bent over their bowls of steaming soup, and the children already asleep in their beds. He felt for them all a profound love, and he glowed. The moment of his loving was in the world of time merely sixty seconds ticked out by his watch, but in another dimension it was an arc of light encircling the city and leaving not one heart within it untouched by blessedness.
P 11
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest but in his motion like an angel sings.” Isaac did not believe it but he had the kind of mind that delights to collect the pretty coloured fragments of old legends that lie about the floor of the world for children to pick up.
P 30
Those whose duty compelled them to crawl about like ants beneath it had a feeling that [the Cathedral] was towering up and up and might curve and break over them like an annihilating wave.
P 45
A man may build as he chooses upon his foundations but he cannot change them or forget them, and if at the last the superstructure of his own building falls about his ears he tends to rediscover them at the end as the only rock he has to cling to.
P 49
...slowly deep needs of whose existence she had scarcely been aware began to be satisfied and their woke in her the question. Who am I? – a question that she had not asked in the crowded orphanage days. The solitude of her room made her aware of her self and the illimitable beauty it looked upon made her aware of something beyond herself, so far away that its unattainable perfection broke her heart. And yet it was near. It was as far as the brown brink of the horizon before dawn, and near as the yellow rose that climbed from the walled garden below and in June propped itself up on her windowsill and scented her room. The scent of a flower is a very close and intimate thing, she thought. It can seem to be a part of your body and blood.
P 66
The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the rooms to show them to him. As he read, his dreams slowly changed. The nightmares of being stuck in chimneys that suddenly started to get smaller and smaller, squeezing him until he woke up choking and screaming, gradually gave way to dreams of forests full of great trees, where fabulous beasts galloped down the cool green aisles, meadows full of flowers and celestial mountains musical with streams. He dreamed of the sea that he had never seen and of ships upon it, and of caves where the tide washed in and out. And gradually the dreams became his world...
P 75
They were men of about the same age, man of tradition, and they like to do things in exactly the same way year after year. It gave them a sense of security.
(I could write an entire essay contrasting these two sentences to our 21st century world in which tradition has been largely discarded as boring. But perhaps the security here described has gone with it leaving an epidemic of anxiety in its place?)
P 87
All of [the patrician residents] them, and especially the terrible Dean, had seemed to live in a world where compassion was not necessary. He saw now that it was the very first necessity, always and everywhere, and should flow between all men, always and everywhere. Men lived with their nearest and dearest and knew little of them, and strangers passing by in the street were as impersonal as trees walking, and all the while there was this deep affinity, for all men suffered.
P 96
[Polly] still wore the outdoor clothes the orphanage had given her, a gray gown and cloak and a plain black bonnet, but with her very first earnings she had bought some cherry-colored ribbon to replace the black velvet strings, enough to make two roses and a large defiance bow that tied beneath her chin...
P 104
... now that she was so old she did not distinguish very clearly between those who were what the world calls dead and those were who still lived here.
P 119
Shrewd as she was she could not but be aware that her chair by the fire had become a throne, and that when she went to the Cathedral in her Bath chair it was a queen‘s progress. . . She knew her own worthlessness and so did God, though He loved her nonetheless, and this false idea of her that the city had got into its head was a private joke between them.
P 123
Love. The only indestructible thing. The only wealth and the only reality. The only survival. At the end of it all there was nothing else.
P 134
...the rainbow mist that softens all outlines of the past.
P 180
“The child has joy,” said the Dean. “You stored your joy for her within the cuckoo clock. As I see it there is no giving without giving away. But joy is a homing pigeon. Good day to you, Mr. Peabody.”
P 227
Better to struggle through life with a broken wing than have no wings at all.
P 232
There is no more satisfactory sight than a lighted bookshop in the dusk...
P 237
“Are you glad that I persuaded you to take a little joy?”
“Yes, ma’am, but the complications, and indeed the anxieties, have been and are very great.”
“Naturally,” said Miss Montague. “If you turn for your joy to the intractable and explosive stuff of human nature it’s in for a penny, in for a pound.”
P 243
They worked now in that companionable silence...between two who are as attached to the work they do together as they are to each other is one of the most satisfactory things in life.
P 244
What he really did was to set free the living bird imprisoned in the wood. Once he had whittled out of a bit of cherry wood a bird he had never seen. A fortnight later he had seen his first gold-crested wren in the Willowthorn drove. He wondered if poets ever wrote of experiences with which they had not yet caught up. Time as one understood it seemed oddly nonexistent when one made things.
P 268
It was Job who heard the heavy footsteps first, and he thought again that he knew now what Christmas was. It was expectancy. This time last year he had expected little except the dreary continuation of misery but now the horizon of his expectations was lost in glory.
page 273
The Dean speaking of death:
“...the dark auditorium with its unseen crowd of witnesses is a frightening thing, pressing in upon our poor little garish stage, frightening because we know nothing of it. Yet when our play is ended and the house lights go up we shall see many kindly faces."
October 31, 2021
This book is warm, lovely, satisfying, beautiful, everything good I can possibly think of. It has become my favorite and one I'm sure I will read many times over.
Let me note, there are some characters I disliked, and even despised at the start...that all changed. In the end, I love each and every single person in the book, though to varying degrees, my favorites being the Dean and Isaac Peabody, and Mary Montague.
I think this quote sums up the story perfectly:
"He took his text from Dean Rollard's psalm, the sixty-eighth, 'God is the Lord by whom we escape death.' He spoke of love, and a child could have understood him. He said that only in the manger and upon the cross is love seen in its maturity, for upon earth the mighty strength of love has been unveiled once only. On earth, among men, it is seldom more than a seed in the hearts of those who choose it. If it grows at all it is no more than a stunted and sometimes harmful thing, for its true growth and purging are beyond death. There it learns to pour itself out until it has no self left to pour. Then, in the hollow of God's hand into which it has emptied itself, it is his own to all eternity. If there were no life beyond death, argued the Dean, there could be no perfecting of love, and no God, since he is himself that life and love. It is by love alone that we escape death, and love alone is our surety for eternal life. If there were no springtime there would be no seeds. The small brown shell, the seed of an apple tree in bloom, is evidence for the sunshine and the singing of the birds."
I was often very upset with some of the characters who didn't appreciate the Dean for what he really was. He was so humble that he did not see his own worth to the city. "Nothing ever had been, or ever would be, of any consequence except that which had given such power to this man's life and death."
Mary Montague expressed it perfectly: "Garland, believe me when I tell you that nothing stems and turns wickedness more certainly than the death of a good man."
Let me note, there are some characters I disliked, and even despised at the start...that all changed. In the end, I love each and every single person in the book, though to varying degrees, my favorites being the Dean and Isaac Peabody, and Mary Montague.
I think this quote sums up the story perfectly:
"He took his text from Dean Rollard's psalm, the sixty-eighth, 'God is the Lord by whom we escape death.' He spoke of love, and a child could have understood him. He said that only in the manger and upon the cross is love seen in its maturity, for upon earth the mighty strength of love has been unveiled once only. On earth, among men, it is seldom more than a seed in the hearts of those who choose it. If it grows at all it is no more than a stunted and sometimes harmful thing, for its true growth and purging are beyond death. There it learns to pour itself out until it has no self left to pour. Then, in the hollow of God's hand into which it has emptied itself, it is his own to all eternity. If there were no life beyond death, argued the Dean, there could be no perfecting of love, and no God, since he is himself that life and love. It is by love alone that we escape death, and love alone is our surety for eternal life. If there were no springtime there would be no seeds. The small brown shell, the seed of an apple tree in bloom, is evidence for the sunshine and the singing of the birds."
I was often very upset with some of the characters who didn't appreciate the Dean for what he really was. He was so humble that he did not see his own worth to the city. "Nothing ever had been, or ever would be, of any consequence except that which had given such power to this man's life and death."
Mary Montague expressed it perfectly: "Garland, believe me when I tell you that nothing stems and turns wickedness more certainly than the death of a good man."
January 15, 2021
An amazing, beautiful, and humbling story of love.
Love, and nothing else, was eternal. Love is the Lord by whom we escape death.
Love, and nothing else, was eternal. Love is the Lord by whom we escape death.
February 7, 2021
Unfortunately, the Dean's Watch, seemed dated and old fashioned in a way I just couldn't warm up to. I found many of the world choices jarring, "Five minutes slow, ejaculated Issac" or a description of an old woman as dumpy. People were often described in ways that made me prickle. Because of the language I could easily identify the book as having been written in 1960. This book made me think of Mary Stewart, an author I loved as a child. And while it's fun to revisit this kind of literature occasionally, this one wasn't for me.
December 24, 2025
Much here to enjoy, and some that takes a revisit to appreciate. I enjoy the way that kindness shown to one person is often passed on to others.
One note: there's some minor but definite racism, e.g. pejorative terms for native servants in India, mistrust of people of Romany heritage. As Goudge set this novel ca. 1870, she may have intended these comments to add realism, but they are a bit jarring now.
One note: there's some minor but definite racism, e.g. pejorative terms for native servants in India, mistrust of people of Romany heritage. As Goudge set this novel ca. 1870, she may have intended these comments to add realism, but they are a bit jarring now.
October 20, 2018
What a marvelous book. Very old-fashioned, very spiritual but never preachy or saccharine.
Goudge has such a way with characters--every one of the people she involves in her story is so real, so nuanced. No cardboard cut-outs here! I enjoyed meeting all of them, especially the Dean, Adam Ayscough and Isaac Peabody, clock maker extraordinaire. And Miss Montague, a very wise and wonderful old woman who knows that love is the answer. And the two young people, Polly (who is naturally happy) and Job (needs to find happiness), and... well, if I go on I'll end up naming almost everyone!
This one will stick with me for a long time.
Now to track down a copy for my own shelves, preferably one with the lovely line drawings by A R Whitear. The library wants their copy back. Imagine that!
Goudge has such a way with characters--every one of the people she involves in her story is so real, so nuanced. No cardboard cut-outs here! I enjoyed meeting all of them, especially the Dean, Adam Ayscough and Isaac Peabody, clock maker extraordinaire. And Miss Montague, a very wise and wonderful old woman who knows that love is the answer. And the two young people, Polly (who is naturally happy) and Job (needs to find happiness), and... well, if I go on I'll end up naming almost everyone!
This one will stick with me for a long time.
Now to track down a copy for my own shelves, preferably one with the lovely line drawings by A R Whitear. The library wants their copy back. Imagine that!
December 8, 2022
"A man may build as he chooses upon his foundations but he cannot change them or forget them, and if at the last the superstructure of his own building falls about his ears he tends to rediscover them at the end as the only rock he has to cling to."
Many people turn to "comfort foods" when they are feeling low. To me, The Dean's Watch is like that and I join many others in calling it a "comfort read." To me, this book is so much more than just an ordinary book one might read to pass the time. It's not a book I ever get through in a hurry. It always seems to last me about a month, and this last time was my fifth read of the book, and it was every bit as beautiful this time around as it was the first time I read it.
I find it sad that so few people in the city see the dean for what he really is. In trying to decide on a favorite character (which, I should note, is nearly impossible!) I feel that it must be Adam Ayscough, with Isaac Peabody a close second. The friendship between the man so close to God and the man so terrified of Him is beautiful and inspiring. If the dean had not stuck with poor Isaac to the end, trying to give him faith in the loving God, how much differently might it have ended!
This is a book I would recommend to anybody.
Many people turn to "comfort foods" when they are feeling low. To me, The Dean's Watch is like that and I join many others in calling it a "comfort read." To me, this book is so much more than just an ordinary book one might read to pass the time. It's not a book I ever get through in a hurry. It always seems to last me about a month, and this last time was my fifth read of the book, and it was every bit as beautiful this time around as it was the first time I read it.
I find it sad that so few people in the city see the dean for what he really is. In trying to decide on a favorite character (which, I should note, is nearly impossible!) I feel that it must be Adam Ayscough, with Isaac Peabody a close second. The friendship between the man so close to God and the man so terrified of Him is beautiful and inspiring. If the dean had not stuck with poor Isaac to the end, trying to give him faith in the loving God, how much differently might it have ended!
This is a book I would recommend to anybody.
February 11, 2016
Just re-read this, one of my favourite novels as a single woman.
I was even more moved by it this time around. I think in this book Goudge's strengths are all powerfully on show, and her flaws are seen very minimally. Of course she has to have her dig at Cromwell and the puritans, but that's over early in the book so I had plenty of time to get over it. ;)
I was reminded more than once of Charles Williams, and especially of his book Descent into Hell. I think this is a far better novel, and it is mainly about people who are already in their own little chosen hells, and are gripped and drawn out of them by irresistible grace. (I'm of the mind that Goudge was on the side of the Puritans without knowing it.)
It is a novel that is unblinking about the cost of love, the high cost of coming out of your own safe little hell into the unpredictable heaven of loving God and others. I highly recommend it, especially if you have any interest in horology, English cathedrals, or unabashedly beautiful prose.
I was even more moved by it this time around. I think in this book Goudge's strengths are all powerfully on show, and her flaws are seen very minimally. Of course she has to have her dig at Cromwell and the puritans, but that's over early in the book so I had plenty of time to get over it. ;)
I was reminded more than once of Charles Williams, and especially of his book Descent into Hell. I think this is a far better novel, and it is mainly about people who are already in their own little chosen hells, and are gripped and drawn out of them by irresistible grace. (I'm of the mind that Goudge was on the side of the Puritans without knowing it.)
It is a novel that is unblinking about the cost of love, the high cost of coming out of your own safe little hell into the unpredictable heaven of loving God and others. I highly recommend it, especially if you have any interest in horology, English cathedrals, or unabashedly beautiful prose.
December 31, 2020
Thank you dear Elizabeth Goudge, memory eternal, thank you Dorothy, many blessings to you and yours, thank you dear EG group🤗Blessed to have read it, earlier than it was intended, and for this I apologise but I could not help it, the tide was too strong and I am glad I yielded to it. It was a wonderful experience and I am glad my heart tells me that I will definitely go back to it. Profound and so much to underline and ponder on, so much to move the heart and compel the eyes to water and the soul to sing Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Much obliged⌚
October 20, 2018
This was my third attempt at this book, and now I know why I didn't succeed the first two times. Goudge takes about one-third of the book to paint the landscape and flesh out her characters before she brings them into serious interaction or collision with one another. Now I realize that I had not given her time to work her wordsmithing on me. And I'm delighted that I pressed on, for it was so worth it. The reader will see something of herself in all these characters and be reminded to intentionally change those bad qualities and cling to those good ones.
Quotes to remember:
"The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the rooms to show them to him."
"There is no more satisfactory sight than a lighted bookshop in the dusk, and his heart glowed."
"It had been a busy day . . . and their tiredness was of the pleasant sort that invests the thought of supper and bed with haloed glory."
"[H]e liked books not only for their contents but for their shape and feel. She had seen him touch and turn their pages as though each one were a unique thing of beauty, like the petal of a flower."
"Could mere loving be a life's work?"
Quotes to remember:
"The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the rooms to show them to him."
"There is no more satisfactory sight than a lighted bookshop in the dusk, and his heart glowed."
"It had been a busy day . . . and their tiredness was of the pleasant sort that invests the thought of supper and bed with haloed glory."
"[H]e liked books not only for their contents but for their shape and feel. She had seen him touch and turn their pages as though each one were a unique thing of beauty, like the petal of a flower."
"Could mere loving be a life's work?"
October 29, 2014
That image of Isaac the watchmaker stooped over his work in the lamp lit workshop is just so endearing to me. Within the covers of this book, an individual has power to lift people and effect change in a way I believe is possible but rarely witness in real life. Goudge gets very close to over-sentimentalizing without actually tipping over the edge (in my opinion). She is so good at creating atmosphere, I thoroughly enjoyed this world she created, and wished I could stay. Each individual carries a light, it seems - how else can I describe it?!! The world out here seems very cold by comparison, even though it follows the same pattern. This book is the fire to warm our hands by. Loved it.
April 17, 2023
This is quintessential Goudge. Rich characterization (delightfully flawed characters who have consequences for their failings but not every virtue is rewarded #becauselife), detailed descriptions that don't burden the story ( I wish Dickens could've used a Tardis and come forward in time to learn that from her), and a story that teaches without preaching. What more could you ask for?
As it is... I want to be Miss Montague when I grow up, but I'll be content not to be Emma Peabody. I want to learn from Isaac's unwillingness to enter the cathedral, and the Dean's lessons in humility (not what you'd think). All in all, it's a beautiful story that will keep me thinking for a long time. When it stops... I'll probably just read it again.
As it is... I want to be Miss Montague when I grow up, but I'll be content not to be Emma Peabody. I want to learn from Isaac's unwillingness to enter the cathedral, and the Dean's lessons in humility (not what you'd think). All in all, it's a beautiful story that will keep me thinking for a long time. When it stops... I'll probably just read it again.
December 25, 2018
This old-fashioned book was a joyful and inspirational place to wind up at this holiday. The author beautifully ties up themes of human and spiritual love within the theme of watch/clockmaking.
November 23, 2021
The most beautiful story! This is my second time reading The Dean's Watch and it was just as touching and lovely as it was the first time around. As with all of the Elizabeth Goudge books that I read, I always make sure to bookmark my favorite passages. I could almost bookmark every chapter!
The way that Elizabeth Goudge describes people, small home or nature details, and the atmosphere of a place astounds me. Some authors write too much detail, and others, not quite enough. All of EG's books I have read include the perfect amount of intricate and fitting descriptions. When I read a particular sentence, I feel like I need to close my eyes and spend time absorbing what she's written and letting the feelings wash over me until I'm fully immersed in the experience.
Even though I love the main characters of Isaac, the Dean, and Job (such wonderful lessons they learn!), I have to admit that my favorite characters will always be Polly, Bella, and Miss Montague. I love Polly for her overwhelming aura of joy and happiness (with a heavy dose of patience and empathy), Bella for her directness, loyalty, and her ability to switch from "adhering" to the wiser behavior of "allowing" and, finally, Miss Montague's practicality, steadfast friendship, and openhearted care of those of around her. I always felt like she was the less-detective, more affectionate version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.
This book never disappoints and is the perfect book to read around the winter holidays. It's a story that will stay with your forever and fill your heart with joy and hope. It's never too late to be kind to others and ask for forgiveness. One of my favorite books of all time. Highly recommended!
The way that Elizabeth Goudge describes people, small home or nature details, and the atmosphere of a place astounds me. Some authors write too much detail, and others, not quite enough. All of EG's books I have read include the perfect amount of intricate and fitting descriptions. When I read a particular sentence, I feel like I need to close my eyes and spend time absorbing what she's written and letting the feelings wash over me until I'm fully immersed in the experience.
Even though I love the main characters of Isaac, the Dean, and Job (such wonderful lessons they learn!), I have to admit that my favorite characters will always be Polly, Bella, and Miss Montague. I love Polly for her overwhelming aura of joy and happiness (with a heavy dose of patience and empathy), Bella for her directness, loyalty, and her ability to switch from "adhering" to the wiser behavior of "allowing" and, finally, Miss Montague's practicality, steadfast friendship, and openhearted care of those of around her. I always felt like she was the less-detective, more affectionate version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.
This book never disappoints and is the perfect book to read around the winter holidays. It's a story that will stay with your forever and fill your heart with joy and hope. It's never too late to be kind to others and ask for forgiveness. One of my favorite books of all time. Highly recommended!
May 22, 2019
Sigh. There are so many reasons to love this book. The characters are exceptionally well-crafted, the prose is beautiful and something to be savored, the story draws you in, and many of the themes are worthwhile. I particularly loved the way in which this book pulls us readers from our enclosed, self-centered little worlds to consider who and what is all around us. It is good to have our sense of wonder and joy at beautiful things restored. It is good for us to be reminded that how our life intersects with another person's could make all the difference in the world for them, and perhaps even for us.
Sadly, the author's theology, while sometimes touching on some very good ideas, completely ruined the ending of this book for me. The Dean's and Isaac's climactic moments of character development both fall prey to a flimsy all-you-need-is-love kind of "Christianity":
Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe my feelings seeing everything wrap up as it did. I really wish I could just toss the last two chapters so that I could give this book the 3- or 4-star rating I was originally intending. Alas.
Sadly, the author's theology, while sometimes touching on some very good ideas, completely ruined the ending of this book for me. The Dean's and Isaac's climactic moments of character development both fall prey to a flimsy all-you-need-is-love kind of "Christianity":
It is by love alone that we escape death, and love alone is our surety for eternal life.No sin, no Christ, no gospel. Just love. In other words, the Beatles would agree with the conclusion more than the Bible would.
Faith in God. God. A word he had always refused. But the Dean had said, put the word love in its place.
Love, and nothing else, was eternal. “Love is the Lord by whom we escape death.”
Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe my feelings seeing everything wrap up as it did. I really wish I could just toss the last two chapters so that I could give this book the 3- or 4-star rating I was originally intending. Alas.
October 25, 2018
What a beautiful, sentimental (without being at all mawkish or maudlin) novel! This was my first Elizabeth Goudge novel, and it will not be my last.
So many wonderful characters - the Dean, his cold but beautiful wife, his many friends in the cathedral city: clockmaker Isaac, his brilliant apprentice Job, the elderly invalid Miss Montague, and the terrifying toddler (wasn’t sure of her exact age), Bella. I read this book with the Retro Reads group, and in the discussion one of our members pointed out that although child characters often don’t work in books, Goudge had the gift of making each character vital to the plot; Bella is a self-confident, determined little girl who keeps her nanny, her grandparents, and any other adult who comes into her orbit on their toes! No saccharine little miss for Goudge, Bella is a delight in any scene she blows through.
I think my personal favorite character was Polly, an orphan girl who keeps house for Isaac and Emma; she personifies love and comfort and joy to everyone around her. She never overthinks life or suffers from the “bad times” or moods suffered by the artistic craftsmen Isaac and Job, who becomes her beau, or the misery and repression of religious zeal, like Emma, her mistress. She brings love and comfort and warmth to everyone around her!
A wonderful, beautifully written, old-fashioned novel. I loved it, and look forward to reading more of this author’s work.
So many wonderful characters - the Dean, his cold but beautiful wife, his many friends in the cathedral city: clockmaker Isaac, his brilliant apprentice Job, the elderly invalid Miss Montague, and the terrifying toddler (wasn’t sure of her exact age), Bella. I read this book with the Retro Reads group, and in the discussion one of our members pointed out that although child characters often don’t work in books, Goudge had the gift of making each character vital to the plot; Bella is a self-confident, determined little girl who keeps her nanny, her grandparents, and any other adult who comes into her orbit on their toes! No saccharine little miss for Goudge, Bella is a delight in any scene she blows through.
I think my personal favorite character was Polly, an orphan girl who keeps house for Isaac and Emma; she personifies love and comfort and joy to everyone around her. She never overthinks life or suffers from the “bad times” or moods suffered by the artistic craftsmen Isaac and Job, who becomes her beau, or the misery and repression of religious zeal, like Emma, her mistress. She brings love and comfort and warmth to everyone around her!
A wonderful, beautifully written, old-fashioned novel. I loved it, and look forward to reading more of this author’s work.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 344 reviews