Since reading An Episode of Sparrows, I have read two more books by Rumer Godden. The first was Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy. It was surprisingly gritty/modern in parts (a significant portion of plot takes place in a brothel, and in some of the before-and-after circumstances surrounding members of that brothel), and then surprisingly meandering/religious in others. Like, I didn’t measure, but if I had to ESTIMATE what percentage was gritty and/or focused plot and what percentage was nearly-unrelated meanderings about day-to-day convent life, including who was assigned to which daily chores and which saint-day it was, I’d say 30/70. I read the whole thing, but was sometimes unsure why I was still reading. And then one of the major plotlines, which seemed to be building to a book-long Ultimate Plot Confrontation, went utterly unresolved! Just, “Welp, I guess we’ll never know! Okay bye!” Definitely I liked it less than An Episode of Sparrows, and I also felt it did not hold together well. It was like the author got super interested in nuns/convents and just wanted to write about that, but felt she had to incorporate it into a fiction plot, and then couldn’t figure out how to resolve the fiction part.
Then I read The Kitchen Madonna. I would never, ever, ever have chosen this book off the shelf without having been motivated to read more Rumer Godden. Here is the cover:
I mean, absolutely not! But I enjoyed it enormously, and it was similar in some ways to An Episode of Sparrows: quirky interesting children pull off a relatively minor feat that will nevertheless have you breathlessly rooting for them to succeed. And there are illustrations! And by the time I finished the book, I felt so fond of the cover I can’t even express it to you; you will just have to try it for yourself and see if you feel the same way. I do wish Mary weren’t a blonde. And are her eyes blue? Let’s say they are not. This is a book I might want to own, and might want to re-read annually, perhaps near Christmastime, even though it is not Christmassy. The vibe is Christmassy.
In other vintage-media news, William has been working his way through old Halloween/scary movies, and we have joined him sometimes. (Not for The Exorcist, which William described palely as “very medical.”) Last night we watched The Invisible Man (1933), which reminded me of the Disney Sunday Night Movies I enjoyed so much in my childhood (Escape to Witch Mountain! The Cat From Outer Space! The Absent-Minded Professor!). I would have found some parts much too scary back then (lots of invisible throttling, and a Scary Invisible Voice), but I could imagine a version of it where I would have just enjoyed the thrilling special effects. Tonight we watched Werewolf of London (1935) which I found even more enjoyable. There were many genuinely witty moments. Both movies end (spoiler alert!) with the monster (a MAN who has REACHED FOR WHAT MAN SHOULD NOT REACH FOR!!) dying dramatically and conveniently, with Final Words Expressing Regret and Humanity, as well as devotion for The Blonde Love Interest. If I were compiling a list of movies to watch every Halloween, like I do at Christmas, I would add Werewolf of London for sure.
In this world of suck, I am exceedingly glad that you seem to have doubled down on posting frequency. It brings joy to my day to read a Swistle post and then meander back occasionally to check the comments. Besides your posts being a joy, you also have the best comment section. Thank you.
I have zero opinions on the books or the movies. Regardless I will be checking back in the coming days for everyone else’s opinions on both.
It IS the best comments section, isn’t it??
I remember reading The Kitchen Madonna when I was quite small, and I loved it. The part that stood out most to me then was the colourful toffee wrappers the children used for their gift. Up until they changed the wrappers, I thought fondly of the book every Christmas when we bought a big tin of Quality Street toffees.
Does 2001 count as old?? Because “The Others” starring Nicole Kidman is just about the scariest movie I have ever seen (and I love scary movies!). If you’re going to watch it don’t read much about it bc there are definite spoilers. Also I remember being TERRIFIED by “The Blair Witch Project” but I’m not sure if it’s possible to go into that not spoiled? Or also if it would hold up today?
My favorite novel of all time is In This House of Brede – please read that one next?!!
I got very excited by the title but should note it is 100% about nuns/convents 😂
(I also *love* that book – it is amazingly crafted and the characters are just stunning – but it has a traumatically-recalled child death in it and I cannot remember if that is one of the No Go things for Swistle?)(but also yes, it is all about the people and the vast majority of it takes place in a convent.)
Rumer Godden DID become super interested in nuns and convents as an adult- she was not raised Catholic but either converted to Catholicism or considered it, and channeled that interest and knowledge into several books. I haven’t read The Kitchen Madonna but this post makes me want to track it down.
I have not read any of these books or watched any of these movies! My husband and I did watch the first Scream with our kid last weekend, which was much funnier and less scary than I remembered.
I haven’t watched the movie, but i just read Bradbury’s Something Wicked this way Comes, which was very good. I think the movie came out in the early 80s, so not exactly old, but it has a bit of a cult following and may be nostalgic for some people.
The opening scenes of The Witches (Roald Dahl’s 1990s version), Ernest Scared Stupid, and probably a lot of other family Halloween movies are just the right amount of spooky, and not overly so. The rest of these movies are more adventure/comedy but man they draw me in. I also love to rewatch 90’s family sitcom Halloween episodes like Home Improvement and Family Matters.
Currently I am reading middle grades horror novels—scary, not gory, and everything resolves in the end. I recently enjoyed Another by Paul Tremblay, who usually writes for adults. This was his first middle grades horror book, and it was full of psychological terror, and a spooky what if? ending.
“Very medical”! Haha!! Perfectly sums up a whole sub-genre of horror that I am not interested in!
I love the idea of watching very old horror movies, as the patina of age (and lack of special effects) makes them less disturbing and more enjoyable. I remember liking House of Wax as a kid.
Not horror but extremely tense: Night of the Hunter (1955). Shot in black and white, with Robert Mitchum as a renegade priest trying to track down 2 children who run away after he tried to make them tell him where their dead father hid the money he got in a robbery.
It’s really atmospheric and creepy in a gothic sense. I love it!
Thank you! I used to read The Kitchen Madonna when I was a kid (My mom had a copy with a cover very similar to yours) and I had forgotten all about it until this moment. Now I have to go hunt it down for the nostalgia and also it did seem to me to be very holiday seasonish somehow so the timing is perfect:)
As a kid, I absolutely ADORED Escape to Witch Mountain and The Cat From Outer Space. Ahhhh, memories.
I still have never watched The Exorcist all the way through, it gives me the heebie jeebies. Once I fell asleep with the tv on and when I woke up it was on for a spooky movie marathon. I’ve never leaped for the remote so fast. There is something really disturbing about the sound design for that movie in addition to *gestures broadly*
One of the things I’ve noticed about movies that are labeled ‘modern horror’ is that they inflict ANXIETY with a CAPITAL A more than horror for me, though the anxiety slowly builds until the horror threshold is reached. Hereditary and Midsommar did this to me. :(
I briefly confused Werewolf of London for An American Werewolf in London, which was also good, but quite different.
Oh, Rumer Godden!! I love her. I have several books of hers that I have not yet read, and you have inspired me to get them out.
My favorites of her books I have read so far are “The Battle of the Villa Fiorita” (as far as novels go) and “Miss Happiness and Miss Flower” (in the world of kid lit).