The Joy of the Snow

Elizabeth Goudge wanted to answer questions from her friends and readers about her life. So many details on her family and the places where she lived, photos, and details on her books, the ones she loved, and mainly this period of time, when she was young, which seems so far away. It is marvellous to discover the persons the loved, for example her maternal grandma and how she depicted her in the book "the arch in the tempest". When pationnate by E.G.'s writings, this is just a wonderful book and such a gift.

Miss Goudge's autobiography has all the qualities that makes her fiction such a pleasure to read, vivid, interesting characters, marvellous descriptions of places, and lovely touches of humour. The earlier part of her life is described in the grteatest detail, her childhood in Wells, her teenage years in Ely, her twenties and thirties in oxford, where her father was Regius Professor of Theology. As in her novels, spirituality is very a very improtant part of the book, there are many accounts of religious and supernatural experiences, both her own and others, particularly those of her mother, whose life was blighted by illness and pain, but who remained gay and vivacious throughout her painful life, buoyed up by religious faith and indomitable courage. The humorous touches are wonderful, as when she describes the convoluted relationships on her father's side of the family, where there had been much intermarriage between cousins etc. One of her relatives once tried to sort out the family tree, but "on coming to the conclusion that he was his own uncle,he gave up in despair." If you have enjoyed reading miss Goudge's novels, you will want to read this too.