Review: “In This House of Brede” by Rumer Godden

Thumbs up for In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. Literature.

Nuns: the novel. If anything could convince you that I read purely by whim, this would be it. I read something laudatory about it, a long long time ago, and I don’t know what or where or when it was, but it made me put a nice copy on my shelf, and then every time I purged the shelves I’d reach for this book to get rid of, but it would say, “No, you want to read me someday, trust me, you’ll love me.” And I did, eventually, and it was right. You really don’t have to be Catholic to enjoy this. This is one of the best novels about women that I’ve ever read: it’s maxed out on the Bechdel test. It’s also one of the best novels about religious people I’ve ever read. Mysticism is overemphasized in portrayals of spirituality; it can be part of things, yes, but more often than not you just have to pray that the missing cashbox will turn up, and make contingency plans if it doesn’t. These women are human, they accept that they are human, and they know, in a very down-to-earth way, that they have chosen a life that is difficult and perhaps even a little absurd. It’s a peculiar book, but a great one. Highly recommended for any reader who likes to become immersed in a different world, which is sometimes all the stranger for being very close to our own.

If a place has been filled with prayer, though it is empty something remains; a quiet, a steadiness. Philippa had thought of a mosque she had seen in Bengal, a mosque of seven domes, eleventh century, and, as with all unspoiled Moslem mosques, empty, not a lamp or a vase or a chair; only walls glimmering with their pale marble. She remembered how, her shoes off, she had stood there, not looking but feeling. No one is there; God is there. And here, in Brede Abbey, the quiet was stronger—and close. The light flickering by the tabernacle was warm, alive, and as if they were still there, she heard what the nuns had sung last night at Benediction: ‘Christus vincit. Christus regnat. Christus imperat,’ with its three soft repeated cadences. ‘Christus vincit,’ and, “Thank you,” Philippa had whispered, “thank you for bringing me where I am,” and, “Even if you send me away, I shall be here for ever.”