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Summary: A book one can turn to time and again
Review: I am very moved to find that other readers also pick up this book again and again. I have read few stories that are as rich, complex and rewarding as this one. The strong women of Brede Abbey are an inspiration. Years ago, I visited a Trappist monastery and came away with the understanding that men and women in cloistered religious life give everything up to God, and get everything that matters given back to them in full. We see this in the lives of the nuns -- especially the postulants Philippa and Cecily as they begin and continue their journey into the heart of God. It's a wonderful book.
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Summary: women reaching for God in community
Review: I have read In This House of Brede at least once a year since the 7th grade, and it nevers fails to move me with both its simplicity and complexity. The women who comprise the Brede community of Benedictine nuns are achingly human--but human with a purpose, striving against nature and their own flaws to become the people God desires them to be. Each time I read the book, something new and different strikes me, adding to the depth of the characters and the world they inhabit. I particularly find the character of Dame Catherine appealing. She is a woman who desires nothing but anonymity but finds responsibility and power thrust upon her, and much reach up to God as well as deeply within herself to find the wisdom and strength to do a job she hates. The cloister is a microcosm of the outside world, full of human passions and frailties, different only in the common and stated desire of the women, as individuals and a community, to reach out to God to help them better themselves. This is far and away my favorite book, the one I most recommend to friends.
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Summary: A fascinating and soothing read
Review: I have read this book several times over the years and each time I do, it never fails to bring upon me a sense of peace. This group of women is among the most interesting that I have ever had the pleasure to read about. The fact that they are English cloistered nuns, a group of people so far removed from my everyday realm of reality, is a tribute to the talent of the author. These woman are portrayed with all of their strengths, weaknesses and faults and thus are real people that any reader can relate to. Spirtuality is a thread that runs throughout this novel, and indeed is the basis of this book. These women strive to know, love and serve God through their everyday existence. Earthly concerns and human weaknesses are recognized and addressed as is necessary, but their ultimate reason for being "in this house of Brede" is to strive for holiness and to pray for humankind. Philippa is the conecting charactor -- one of us wordly people with all of the earthly ties who chooses a path to redemption that few of us even know exists much less view as a choice. It is an interesting and joyous read, and I highly recommend it.
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Summary: An excellent re-read
Review: I recently picked up a new copy of this book (having ruined the bindings of two pb copies with frequent re-reading) and found that I was as impressed with it as I had been on first reading. The struggles that Phillipa goes through to become true nun resonate with the struggles that mature women go through to accept outside constraints. While I would never make the choices for my life that she did, I understand her completely. Godden takes the reader inside her and her fellow nuns and helps us know who they are.
This is one of my favorite all-time books.
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Summary: I wish I could give this book TEN stars!
Review: I was thrilled to see that Brede is back in print and so happy to receive my copy last week. I spent the weekend immersing myself in Brede Abbey again, and reminding myself what a wonderful, heartfelt, humorous and touching book this is. The characters are so vividly drawn that you feel you get to know them in all their human strengths and weaknesses. The situations are powerful and the emotions really grab you. Rumer Godden takes a world that few can really know and makes it totally real in all its humanness. Absolutely beautiful. For anyone who believes in faith and love and the triumph of the human heart and spirit when it is devoted to God and to others.
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Summary: A Favorite Novel by a Favorite Author
Review: If we lived in the disutopia described in Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, this would be the book I would choose to memorize. Any sane person might ask: "Why would someone want to memorize lengthy fiction about cloistered nuns?" Answer: "Because the characters are so real and the writing is so luminous."
The main character is Phillipa Talbot, a 40-ish successful career woman who enters an English Benedictine monestary. Author Rumer Godden skillfully weaves several plot lines that tell Phillipa's story as well as the stories of many of the other nuns. Sister Cecily the musician, learned Dame Agnes who becomes Phillipa's bete noir, tragic, silly exaggerated Dame Veronica, a victim of the rigid British caste system, and Dame Catherine who is elected Abbess. The writing is so beautiful--there is one description of the seasons of the year that never fails to move me no matter how often I read the book. In addition, the book contains some of the most fascinating "shop talk" you'll ever read.
Godden is a master story-teller, and even if the book contains a jarring Deus ex Machina solution to a serious problem, in the context of monastic life, it is believable.
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Summary: Comfort For The Soul
Review: My mother gave this book to me many years ago with the inscription " I have read this book many times, I hope it brings you the same comfort it brings me." It was the last book I read to her as she lay dying of cancer. I know that her soul like Dame Emilys flew free, back to the Creator from whence it came. This book is like the loving hug of my mama. I remember the first time I read it, wondering what was Dame Philippas' secret and the tears I cried when I found out. Over the years these characters and the Abbey itself have become a place I need to go to regularly to feel that comfort of soul. What a gifted writer Ms.Godden was! Now I scour booksales and fleamarkets looking for more Rumer Godden. I have given away two copies of Brede to dear friends,it is a reading experience meant to be shared and savoured over and over.
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Summary: Simple and beautiful
Review: One of the most beautiful books ever written. Luminous! Re-reading it is like a special occasion. I have never read anything that so well captures the majestic and immutable passage of time and the seasons of the year. Lovely melding of the medieval and the modern. An insprirational classic.
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Summary: An addendum to the above
Review: Sorry that I forgot to mention this: I once read a short story by Rumer Godden called "Fireworks for Elspeth." Apparently the story is an early version of "In this House of Brede". The title character of the story became Sister Cecily in the novel. The story is a moving portrait of Elspeth's farewell lunch for friends and family before she leaves to join the abbey, and the mixed emotions and conflicts of the characters are movingly portrayed. Highly recommended for anyone who loves "In this House of Brede" as I do. I discovered the story in a volume called "Great Short Stories of the World" published by the Reader's Digest.
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Summary: An addendum to the above
Review: Sorry that I forgot to mention this: I once read a short story by Rumer Godden called "Fireworks for Elspeth." Apparently the story is an early version of "In this House of Brede". The title character of the story became Sister Cecily in the novel. The story is a moving portrait of Elspeth's farewell lunch for friends and family before she leaves to join the abbey, and the mixed emotions and conflicts of the characters are movingly portrayed. Highly recommended for anyone who loves "In this House of Brede" as I do. I discovered the story in a volume called "Great Short Stories of the World" published by the Reader's Digest.
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