Customer Reviews

The Middle Window

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A perfect romance story. Well written and
totally engrossing! Combine Scotland, a lively
and intelligent group of characters, and a
little reincarnation, and viola!

I have read this book many times over the years. It is a favorite of mine and no doubt will hold a prominent position on your bookshelf as well. Elizabeth Goudge deftly tells a tale of Scotland through the ages. Her characters are well developed. The heroine recalls a love affair that transcends lives and geographical locale. Her lover, a soldier, comes to her through the middle window and their boundless love brings them both joy and suffering. No other book takes readers on a love journey through the silver seas.

A story about a couple which is able to discover a past life and continue their mission. Elizabeth Goudge was interested by idea of reincarnation and imagine how things which have not been solved in the past could go on in the present. A love story which can make believe how important our deeds are. A lovely country and a part of history.

Goudge's SECOND novel, The Middle Window, published in 1935, is unusual in being two linked stories, one set in modern Scotland, the other in Scotland at the time of the Bonny Prince Charlie rebellion of 1745.
Young Judy Cameron from London, recently affianced to a stuffed-shirt, meets the impoverished laird of Glen Suilag, Ian Macdonald, and experiences a tragedy from that earlier time.
Is she haunted, or is she a reincarnation of Judith, who married Randald Macdonald, the laird and clan chief, on the day when the heather bursts into flame?
Goudge was fascinated by the idea of reincarnation, despite her own strong Christian faith.
What was read, when it was published in 1935, as whimsical speculation, has become standard time-slip fantasy fare for Young Adult (YA) readers since Phillipa Pearce's "Tom's Midnight Garden".
Few earlier books used such a theme: Margaret Irwin's "Still She Wished For Company", a neglected romance-historical-ghost novel published in 1924, is one example. Perhaps, as with Hope Mirrlees' remarkable supernatural fantasy "Lud-in-the-Mist", published in 1926, the grief for the lost generation of World War I was an explanation for stories in which star-crossed lovers of an earlier era connect with, and find redemption in the happiness of their inheritors.
Interestingly, a very similar Scottish islands story, at the end of World War II, became the Michael Powell and Emerich Pressberger film, "I Know Where I'm Going".
There are, too, hints of Wagner's legend of "The Flying Dutchman" -- redemption through love and sacrifice by another.
In her reflective autobiographical memoir "The Joy of Snow", Goudge describes her own eerie experiences on the remote heathers of the Isle of Skye, during a walking holiday.
Highly recommended.
John Gough -- Deakin University - jagough49@gmail.com

For so long this book was out of print. I was so happy to finally find it at a reasonable price. I ordered it right away. The paper back copy from the 1960's that I own is held together by a rubber band. It is one of my favorite books. A wonderful English/Scottish love story with a little fantasy and flash back to times long past, to the era of Bonnie Prince Charlie. I loved it.