Book Review: In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden

Hi guys. Happy Sunday. I hope you're enjoying Lent!

I have in my drafts folder a half-begun analysis of Wonka (2023), which I am hoping to use as a submission to Grim's lovely Lenten even Remember, O Thou Man. However, the writing of said post is proving to be incredibly difficult. It's always difficult to write about things you really love, no? (Wonka is Great Art, I think. And now that I've said that I probably don't even need to write about why I think so. I have declared my admiration publicly and can leave it at that.)

Actually, I take it back: sometimes, it's EASY to write about things you really love because it's what you do in the first flush of discovering your love for said thing. 

Which is what this post is. I wrote these notes on Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede last Fourth of July, and I figured, I might as well publish them here.

Rambling intro over. On to the review!

***

I truly believe God sends us the books we need at exactly the time we need them. I've had In This House of Brede on my TBR in a vague way ever since Sam started raving about it; but I wasn't in any hurry, because, well, a 600-page book about life in a contemplative Benedictine monastery didn't exactly sound like a quick easy read. Or a particularly riveting one, honestly. 

Fast forward to the last week of June, when my roommates and I were sitting around talking about books we just couldn't get into. (My roommates' names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.) Paprika described the first chapter of Brede in words to this effect: it's like, so weird because it's from the point of view of the main character's secretary, who idolizes her, and then one day she calls her into her office and is like "goodbye I'm leaving" and the assistant is like "WHY" and the very successful 40-something businesswoman is like (please hear this in a faux British accent) "I'm leaving to become a nun!" and--

STOP, I told Paprika. I don't want spoilers. I want to read it. 

Paprika was surprised. And kindly refrained from spoilers.

(Dear Paprika.) 

ANYWAY, that's all to set the stage. That conversation happened at the end of our time in the Bronx together. A few whirlwind days of packing and finishing school and saying goodbyes and repacking and having to reschedule flights and re-saying goodbyes, my last morning in New York finally dawned gray and early. With two suitcases, a carry-on, and a personal item bursting at the seams, I happened across a copy of In This House of Brede in our prayer room among the piles of left-behind discarded things. And since it seemed providential, I decided I could find room in my carry-on. (And I did. It was a tight squeeze, but I did. You may applaud.) 

So yeah. I started Brede on the plane, leaving a very noisy city and a very stressful job and a break-your-heart-wide-open kind of year, in a state of emotional (and physical?) exhaustion. I met Philippa Talbot as she was taking leave of a noisy world, too, and plunging into an utterly new life for the love of God. It...was relatable, not because I have ever become a Benedictine nun, but because making major life transitions cuz you think it's God's will is...just a part of growing up, I guess.

It was what I needed to read right then. Not least of all for the sacred quietness that pervades the book. I just...really really craved the quiet of place and soul and body that week. I spent a lot of time drinking in the breezy green of my family's backyard and the work-and-pray culture of Brede, and...yeah. It was therapeutic. Rejuvenating. Etc.

ANYWAY. Enough about me. Bullet points about the book itself.

• Rumer Godden blends narrative with dialogue in a really interesting way that I don't think I've seen before, and the novel's sense of time isn't exactly linear. (Methinks this fits very well with the cyclical, rhythmic nature of life at the abbey, where the nuns have one foot in eternity all the time.)

• Philippa is a rock-solid, intensely practical, intensely private woman with deep emotions she does her best to manage. I LOVED HER SO MUCH by the end. Like, I always loved her, but I feel like her magnificence crept up on me. I love how--contrary to her expectations (and desires)--her managerial strengths never went away just because she entered Brede. Also: she made me weep.

• Dame Veronica was SO ANNOYING and it was weirdly cool to see human flaws being...well...regular human flaws magnified in a monastic setting.

• Cecily's vocation story had me hooked pretty much the whole time. (She made me weep, too.)

• DAME CATHERINE. I shall not spoil anything but I ended up loving her way more than I expected, too. 

• (There are a lot of nuns' names to keep track of, by the way. Don't try to keep track of them all; the important ones become clear as the novel progresses.)

• I relate super hard to Dom Gervase. (I kid, I kid. Mostly.) 

• PENNY. (She's the office underling in Chapter 1, and mild spoiler: we see more of her.)

• The MIDNIGHT VIGIL.

• ...Did I mention this was not a slow read? At least it wasn't for me in my particular mood? I kept laughing at myself and saying I had NOT expected a book about contemplative nuns to be a page-turner. I should've known better--nuns are highly interesting people.

• Part of me now wants to run away to a Benedictine abbey. Ye have been duly warned.

VERDICT: I think this is the most powerful novel I read all of 2023. As Paprika's experience shows, it won't be that for everybody. But I really, really, really loved it. A lot. 

Have you read In This House of Brede? Or anything else by Rumer Godden? What Rumer Godden novel should I try next? And what was your most powerful read of 2023? Tell me all the things!