I stepped outside yesterday afternoon during the solar eclipse, and although my area was outside the path of 100% totality - and it was pretty cloudy anyway - there was a silvery, uncanny light filling the air and sky. It put me in mind of some of the magical moonlight descriptions that I’ve been reading in The Little White Horse this past month:
“It was all black and silver, as it has been on the night of her arrival. The daffodils had had their gold stolen from them by the witchery of the moon, and each of them held up a silver trumpet on a slender silver spear. And the yew-tree men and yew-tree cocks were as black as night, and looked so alive that Maria felt that if the daffodil trumpets were to sound they would immediately begin to move…one was moving, and Maria caught her breath.”
My March reading wrap-up video above has plenty of quotations from this Elizabeth Goudge children’s classic, but a few more can’t hurt, right?
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
“But though Wiggins’s moral character left much to be desired, it must not be thought that he was a useless member of society, for a thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and Wiggins’s beauty was of that high order that can only be described by that tremendous trumpet-sounding word ‘incomparable.’”
Wiggins, in case you’re curious, is a dog, but I love how Elizabeth Goudge waxes lyrical about his tail, which is also described as “a pennon in the wind.” “Incomparable” is tremendous word, isn’t it? When we were growing up, my mother would read The Little White Horse to my brothers and me as a bedtime story, so I think that must make it one of the first books I ever encountered. It is an absolutely charming story, filled with coziness, wisdom, mystery, meaning, adventure, and Goudge’s special brand of matter-of-fact magic. The way the symbolism of moon and sun is woven into the tale is enchanting! It was lovely to hear everyone’s favorite parts in this month’s book club meeting - we agreed that the animals, even the incorrigible Wiggins, play such beautiful and important roles, but the human characters are also so warmly drawn. Marmaduke the cook, with his grandiose way of speaking, is a particular favorite of mine.
“I always like to be prepared for more guests than are actually expected,” said Marmaduke. “Also I gathered from the tone of your voice that this tea-party was to be a great occasion, and great occasions need to be greatly celebrated. The mere suggestion of meanness, upon a great occasion is much to be deprecated. The bodily sustenance of the inner man as well as the aesthetic satisfaction of the outward eye should be on a lavish scale.”
Since I started with a description of a moonlit scene, I’m tempted to add in a description of a sunrise that comes towards the end of the book, but as it could be considered a spoiler, I will encourage you to find a copy of The Little White Horse and discover that passage for yourself! Instead, we’ll move on to a sunset description from another of my March reads…
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
“The last colors slowly faded from the western sky, and, as they did, one by one the instruments stopped, until only the bass fiddles, in their somber slow movement, were left to play the night and a single set of silver bells brightened the constellations. The conductor let his arms fall limply at his sides and stood quite still as darkness claimed the forest.
“That was a very beautiful sunset,” said Milo, walking to the podium.
“It should be,” was the reply; “we’ve been practicing since the world began.”
When my cousin Becky recently discovered that I somehow failed to read The Phantom Tollbooth when I was growing up, she was so insistent that I needed to read it right away that she bought me a copy. She was, as usual, right! This book is right up my alley - the wordplay and whimsy are simply next level. The hero Milo visits lands peopled with personalities who, unexpectedly, behave exactly as expected, and the lessons that he slowly learns are beautiful. I’m sure I’ll want to read this again and again. It’s hard to choose a favorite scene or character, although I do love Chroma the Great, who conducts the symphony which brings colors to the world.
“You see what a dull place the world would be without color? But what pleasure to lead my violins in a serenade of spring green or hear my trumpets blare out the blue sea and then watch the oboes tint it all in warm yellow sunshine. And rainbows are best of all—and blazing neon signs, and taxicabs with stripes, and the soft, muted tones of a foggy day. We play them all.”
Chroma must have enjoyed playing the “muted tones” of the eclipse! My last read from the month of March was our Lenten readalong book…
The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day
Once a priest said to us that no on gets up in the pulpit without promulgating a heresy. He was joking, of course, but what I suppose he meant was that truth was so pure, so holy, that it was hard to emphasize one aspect of the truth without underestimating another, that we did not see things as a whole, but in part, through a glass darkly, as St. Paul said.
The Long Loneliness is full of thought-provoking anecdotes and observations such as the above! This is an autobiography of the Dorothy Day, a prominent Catholic social activist, but it is also a stunning reading list as Day constantly references authors and saints who inspired her. I need to find the work this quotation is from, I believe it’s St. Anthony…
“‘The spaces of this life, set over against eternity, are most brief and poor,’ one of the desert fathers said. It is part of the long loneliness.”
If you’d like to hear more thoughts and rambles about the book, be sure to watch our readalong livestream wrap-up. At one point Day made this observation about her fellow activist Peter Maurin: “The trouble was that he never filled in the chasms, the valleys, in his leaping from crag to crag of noble thought.” That’s not a bad way of summarizing the issues I had with Day’s own book, but it was certainly still an inspiring read full of beautiful and brilliant observations. I loved how she emphasized the importance of ritual, worship, and work.
We are already a week into a new reading month, and I’ve been starting on some reads for the Alcott April Readalong! When Tiffany invited me to be one of the co-hosts, I couldn’t pass up the chance to be part of the Louisa May Alcott fun. I’m excited to start on our group read, The Inheritance, and a few other readalong picks, and I also need to get started on this month’s book club pick, The Pilgrims Regress by C.S. Lewis. There should be lots of lovely spring reading ahead!
My Month in Books: March 2024