Gentian Hill: Week 2

Zachary's fortress, Dr Crane, the weather station at St Michael’s mount, and a Rescue at Sea

“There was nothing about him now, either spiritual or material, from whose contact he need shrink, and every strained nerve in his body seemed separately to relax, to leave off jumping and twanging, to sit down quietly and take a rest.”

🌿 Elizabeth Goudge, Gentian Hill

Welcome to our week 2 discussion of Gentian Hill!

Today we will look at chapters 7 to 12 to finish off Book 1.

When you read any of Goudge’s books, you fall in love with her locations, because she was so in love with them herself.

When she went to live in Devon just as WWII was about to break, amidst the danger of invasion and bombing, she found a cozy home and she brought the place to life in her Devon stories. You hear in several places where Stella is afraid of the invasion of the French in Torquay, and in 1948 when she was writing Gentian Hill, those worries of the past decade were still very fresh for Goudge. Perhaps that is why all of her Devon books have such potency - she was determined to save the magic of the area in case it did not survive.

With all its fairytale light and local lore, Gentian Hill is still profoundly a Christian tale. Selfless love, sacrifice, duty even in suffering, and the sort of reaching out beyond ourselves that Goudge believed was possible in God through prayer, make it a beautiful tale for what the good life might be like here in our own places. Goudge’s descriptions of the land, it’s cycle of seasons, the coziness and earthiness of her farm home, and Dr Crane’s love extended to Zackary are all touching moments in the chapters at the end of Book 1.

Join us today for a look at Zachary, Dr Crane, the weather station at St Michael’s mount, and the drama of a sea rescue…

Dartmoor covered in blue flowers with grazing ponies from Visit South Devon

Zachary’s struggle