Goudge reader: Jody Collins
A “Share your Goudge Collection” Interview
“ I’m so grateful I read Green Dolphin Country first; to me it’s a treatise of sorts that offers us the widest look at her views on how to live a Christian life: it will be hard but keep going, because there is love along the way and beauty and forgiveness. ”
Jody Collins on Elizabeth Goudge
Today we are continuing with our series of interviews with readers about their own Elizabeth Goudge collections. I’m excited to share an interview with a Goudge reader I met years ago on Instagram, Jody Collins.
Jody is a poet, retired teacher and author of three books, most recently Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home. She began writing in Eighth Grade Typing class and words have been her currency ever since. Her first published work were essays penned while raising her kids, but nowadays she writes online.
Jody adds: “My husband and I are Southern California transplants to the Pacific Northwest where we enjoy visiting our six grandkids, watching birds from our deck and messing about in our Seattle-land garden. I’m enraptured by flowers and particularly drawn to the way the sun’s rays land on the trees at twilight. We traded gridlock for green and love it. Except I do kinda miss the beach.”
Welcome, Jody!
Julie: When did you first find Goudge? Which Goudge book did you read first?
Jody: The first Goudge book I read was Green Dolphin Country. I penciled my name and ‘2009’ on the inside front cover but I don’t think I read the book until 2012 when my friend K.C. Ireton mentioned Goudge's work to me. I can’t think what prompted me to purchase my copy in 2009—perhaps I’d heard it mentioned in another book? Because of K.C.'s introduction to Goudge's work I began collecting and reading with great abandon.1
Green Dolphin Country is my favorite Goudge book, one I read for the second time last year. When I did, I found even more that struck me in the story and descriptions; the characters and dialogue just blow me away.
In Sylvia Gower’s book The World of Elizabeth Goudge there’s a passage recounting something Jessie Munroe said when Sylvia went to visit her, “…every book needs to be read three times, first for the story, secondly for the descriptive background etc., and lastly for the real meaning and philosophy it contained.”
I would have to agree (though I’ve got a long way to go to get through my collection—that will last me awhile!)
Julie: Which Goudge book is your favorite vintage edition? What year and is it a UK or US edition?
Jody: My favorite vintage edition is A City of Bells, U.K edition from Gerald Duckworth and Co, 1936. As you can see it is quite worn :-).
Most of my Goudge titles are older editions; I loathe the titles that have been reprinted as US paperbacks because of their covers. While I do own a few of those—because they were the only copies available—I will always look for older originals first via Thrift Books or Abe Books.
Julie: Is there a scene from one of Elizabeth Goudge’s books that sticks with you?
Jody: There are several descriptions in Green Dolphin Country of “La Baies de Petits Fleurs” (the Bay of Small Flowers) which are charming and remind me so very much of home. Goudge’s description of tide pools and anemones and seaweed are quite vivid and descriptive; it’s like a photograph of one of my favorite small coves in Southern California, Little Corona.
The passage I’m thinking of is near the end of the book:
"The little Shell Beach beyond was carpeted with shells as a wood is carpeted with flowers in springtime, and all the shells had mouths and all of them were singing, their myriad tinkling voices making the music that one could hear and not hear like the sound of bells that the wind is always catching away...She looked up and a seagull was flying slowly backwards and forwards, seeming to gather all the light of the place with his shining wings and to trail it along on threads of silver after him, so weaving a pattern in the air over her head, like one of those canopies powdered with stars that one sees in old pictures over the heads of Queens. He was a symbol of prayer, of the prayer that went on day and night in the great convent that was towering up above her the convent that was home."
While the small cove I have in mind isn’t littered with shells, there are thousands of small pebbles that make muffled sort of clapping sound when the waves rush back into the ocean over them. And of course, there are seagulls above and everywhere, dipping and diving.
Julie: What do you love most about Goudge’s writing?
Jody: I’m so grateful I read Green Dolphin Country first; to me it’s a treatise of sorts that offers us the widest look at her views on how to live a Christian life: it will be hard but keep going, because there is love along the way and beauty and forgiveness.
I’ve underlined far too many passages, but will add a single sentence here, “What a price he must have paid for her salvation! That was what love was—a paying of the price.” From Book Four of GDC-The Country of the Green Pastures, p. 495.
Julie: What are you reading these days?
Jody: Goodness, well, many books at the same time as I usually do.
· Non-Fiction The Youngest Day Shelter Island’s Seasons in the Light of Grace-Robert Farrar Capon. The World of Elizabeth Goudge by Sylvia Gower.
· Poetry, Taking Root in the Heart collection from Christian Century poets and Solum Journal’s newest issue, Legacy, Vol 5. And always a Malcolm Guite volume. Just finished The House of 49 Doors by Laurie Klein.
· Fiction Reading Currently--along with your readers--The Little White Horse for the second time. So fun! Also, I just finished Marly Youman’s Charis in the World of Wonders—fascinating historical fiction.
· Fiction Audio—I’m listening to Jane Austen’s Persuasion for the first time. Oh my, what a story!
Julie: Where can people find you?
Jody: I’m no longer on social media so the best way to find me is via my website www.jodyleecollins.com and drop me a line using the Contact Form (my email is on the Contact Form as well). My website has links to my published work, poetry workshops, and blog archives. There’s also a tab for my Substack, Poetry & Made Things where I’ve been writing and posting since July 2023.
“In Sylvia Gower’s book The World of Elizabeth Goudge there’s a passage recounting something Jessie Munroe said when Sylvia went to visit her, “…every book needs to be read three times, first for the story, secondly for the descriptive background etc., and lastly for the real meaning and philosophy it contained.”
I would have to agree.”
Jody Collins on reading Elizabeth Goudge
Thanks for joining us, Jody!
Do you have a favorite Goudge book from Jody’s collection? Love to hear!
Other Goudge reader interviews in our series:
Here's a post from Jody’s website written in 2018 about Goudge’s books. Falling in Love with Books & The People Who Write Them - JODY LEE COLLINS
Jody! So fun to see your collection here! And surprised that I introduced you to Goudge. I wonder if I’d just read Green Dolphin Street? That book was a revelation for me, so maybe I talked it up and that’s why you read it? Funny how I don’t remember! But very glad to share a love of Goudge with you!
I loved learning more about your collection, Jody! I hand not yet read Green Dolphin Country but plan to read it along with Julie in September.