Classics Club Spin!

     Rumer Godden devoted five years to writing In This House of Brede, a story of life in Brede Abbey, a fictional, though based on fact, Benedictine monastery. Prior to writing, Godden spent years researching and thinking about writing it. Published in 1968, it is considered to be the most complex and contemplative of all Godden’s books, and many monastic critics have deemed it to be the most accurate depiction of the monastic life in fiction.

     Godden was drawn to a Benedictine monastery, Stanbrook Abbey, which at that time was located in Worcestershire (today it's in Yorkshire). Her interest in the Benedictines began with her friendship with a woman affiliated with the order. Over the years, the women of the order gave her unprecedented access to their religious celebrations and to contact with individual members.  

     As Godden learned more about the religious life at Stanbrook, she became disturbed by how inaccurately she portrayed the religious lives of the nuns and the convent in Black Narcissus (1939), her first best-selling book. (By the way, I was fascinated to learn that this book had dismal sales in the UK, but was a huge best-seller in the U.S.)

     Godden converted to Roman Catholicism in 1968, the same year that In This House of Brede was published.

     I was astonished by just how much I appreciated and enjoyed this novel. I was so sorry to leave the characters and Brede Abbey when I turned the last page and felt bereft for several days after. What most impressed me was the way Godden created such human characters, especially considering that most women in the religious life, in monasteries and convents, are so stereotyped by society and in literature. But in Brede, each character is a distinct, complex individual, each with strengths and faults, who participates in a monastic society that is also extraordinarly complex.

     I was raised a Roman Catholic, though I am no longer observant. Yet I appreciated the way Godden made the liturgical seasons, feast days, and the passing of the religious calendar as beautiful. The setting is endlessly fascinating as well, because of the Abbey’s centuries-long history and the beautiful grounds and gardens. Reading this book made me feel that I was a member of this Benedictine monastery. I was there. I could breathe there. And I learned so much.