Customer Reviews

In This House of Brede

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If we lived in the disutopia described in Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, this would be the book I would choose to memorize. Any sane person might ask: "Why would someone want to memorize lengthy fiction about cloistered nuns?" Answer: "Because the characters are so real and the writing is so luminous."

The main character is Phillipa Talbot, a 40-ish successful career woman who enters an English Benedictine monestary. Author Rumer Godden skillfully weaves several plot lines that tell Phillipa's story as well as the stories of many of the other nuns. Sister Cecily the musician, learned Dame Agnes who becomes Phillipa's bete noir, tragic, silly exaggerated Dame Veronica, a victim of the rigid British caste system, and Dame Catherine who is elected Abbess. The writing is so beautiful--there is one description of the seasons of the year that never fails to move me no matter how often I read the book. In addition, the book contains some of the most fascinating "shop talk" you'll ever read.

Godden is a master story-teller, and even if the book contains a jarring Deus ex Machina solution to a serious problem, in the context of monastic life, it is believable.

This book shows the rich and full life that was to be had in an abbey. Godden portrays the nuns as human and individual beneath the uniform guise of the habit. Religious devotion is depicted with respect and warmth--a difficult combination, and a rare and welcome perspective in this day and age. Each time I've read it, I've found the book moving and thought-provoking.

I've enjoyed Rumer Godden's books on many levels for years. As an Anglophile of long standing, I love the "Britishness" of the culture and people of which she wrote. I've also loved the quiet intelligence of her books, which never talk down to their readers. Recently, after dealing with the last illness and death of my mother, I have found in Godden's writings on faith comfort and support. In This House of Brede is her strongest and most complex work, and one I have found particularly valuable during the last few months.

Brede Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the south of England. Its nuns are an enclosed community who devote themselves to constant prayer and worship. The nuns are not saints but very human characters who struggle with pain, temptation, and sundry other challenges: physical, mental, and spiritual. It is comforting to read of their battles and of the faith which sustains them.

Godden wrote beautiful, thoughtful, prose, and in any of her books you will encounter engaging and attractive characters. In This House of Brede is her masterpiece.

I was given this book a week ago by a professor of mine, and read it with more relish than any book in a long time. A truly lovely book! I have spent a fair amount of time at monasteries and convents, and my sister, about Sister Cecily's age, 24 (but in character much more like Sister Hillary), is a nun in a very traditional community. Godden captures both the realism and the beauty of the consecrated life.

I have two responses after reading this book. The first is to become a cloistered Benedictine nun (!), and the second is to give this book to everyone I know to help them understand the reality of life in a convent. Most people cannot begin to fathom why anyone would chose such a life, and more than one person told my sister that they thought she was wasting her life by entering a convent. In This House of Brede provides a beautiful apology for the importance of "being" over "doing".

Oh yes, I also had a third response. Reading the book caused in me such a great desire to sing Gregorian Chant that I pulled down my Gradual Triplex and sang for the next hour or so! And now too, as I write this, I am listening to the Benedictine Sisters of Regina Laudis chanting the Office.

This is a wonderful book to read for Lent, and I've found it encouraging both my prayer and my work. My biggest dilemma is deciding to whom to give my copy now that I'm finished!

Personally, as a Benedictine Associate, the "life" of any religious is enriched through the journeying towards God in a communal atmostphere.

Since this book was written prior to the Vatican II Reformation, it shows the unique structure of the abbey hierarchy and depth with which the heart yearns for closeness to God through the daily Divine Office of Prayer, hard work, communal friendships and the strict observance of the Grand Silence and its true purpose. This book unlike any other, gives readers that rare glimpse at how difficult cloistered religious life can be and the constant rigors, tests,and hardships that can exist as we see with the protagonist "Phillipa" . She entered the convent "late" in life after she converted to Catholicism, renounced her powerful career, peers, high-bred social standing out of her heart's desire for God.

Even after all these years, this book is a true find for anyone leaning towards religious life. At the center of the story, we see the on-going personal challenges and growth of the women of Brede Abbey who are on the "journey" in their relationship with God and one another.

Who could compare with the story's lady Abbess, the indefatigable Dame Hester Cunningham Proctor? Who could not feel compasion for the little elderly nun hugging the newest Abbess who was crying? Who wouldn't love to hear the bells chiming the time of day that calls one to God for prayer? Who hasn't suffered in the night with painful memories that tear at the heart over and over?

Who wouldn't rejoice when one's sister, daughter, neice or friend is called to the "life"? This "life" is not chosen , rather a person is chosen for the "life". There is a great difference.

Ms. Godden thoroughly studied the Benedictine Sisters in Brede Abbey in England, and was given permission to see the holiness of a community en mass, and yet to see the individual struggles which reveal how human we all are. Even today, in non-cloistered monasteries, no one in religious life is ever exempt from jealousies, back-biting, joy, suffering and humor while forging meaningful friendships that last a lifetime.

Whether you are just curious as to what goes on behind the monastery doors, or if you are being pulled in your heart towards religious life, much can be gained by reading of "Phillipa's" experiences, as she learns just how humanly flawed she is and with what grace God bestows upon her as she struggles along like the rest of us in the world.

Religious or not, the book has withstood the test of time and will long be remembered for its accuracy and delicacy in the individual life of a woman who chose to become a nun.

Let your heart listen to the book and its message.

I have read this book several times over the years and each time I do, it never fails to bring upon me a sense of peace. This group of women is among the most interesting that I have ever had the pleasure to read about. The fact that they are English cloistered nuns, a group of people so far removed from my everyday realm of reality, is a tribute to the talent of the author. These woman are portrayed with all of their strengths, weaknesses and faults and thus are real people that any reader can relate to. Spirtuality is a thread that runs throughout this novel, and indeed is the basis of this book. These women strive to know, love and serve God through their everyday existence. Earthly concerns and human weaknesses are recognized and addressed as is necessary, but their ultimate reason for being "in this house of Brede" is to strive for holiness and to pray for humankind. Philippa is the conecting charactor -- one of us wordly people with all of the earthly ties who chooses a path to redemption that few of us even know exists much less view as a choice.

It is an interesting and joyous read, and I highly recommend it.

My mother gave this book to me many years ago with the inscription " I have read this book many times, I hope it brings you the same comfort it brings me." It was the last book I read to her as she lay dying of cancer. I know that her soul like Dame Emilys flew free, back to the Creator from whence it came. This book is like the loving hug of my mama. I remember the first time I read it, wondering what was Dame Philippas' secret and the tears I cried when I found out. Over the years these characters and the Abbey itself have become a place I need to go to regularly to feel that comfort of soul. What a gifted writer Ms.Godden was! Now I scour booksales and fleamarkets looking for more Rumer Godden. I have given away two copies of Brede to dear friends,it is a reading experience meant to be shared and savoured over and over.

Sorry that I forgot to mention this: I once read a short story by Rumer Godden called "Fireworks for Elspeth." Apparently the story is an early version of "In this House of Brede". The title character of the story became Sister Cecily in the novel. The story is a moving portrait of Elspeth's farewell lunch for friends and family before she leaves to join the abbey, and the mixed emotions and conflicts of the characters are movingly portrayed. Highly recommended for anyone who loves "In this House of Brede" as I do. I discovered the story in a volume called "Great Short Stories of the World" published by the Reader's Digest.

I first read this book when I was fifteen years old. I am now twenty-eight. In all the years in between, I do not remember a year when I did not pull this book out of my shelf, open it, and step right back into Brede Abbey.

It does not romanticize or stereotype the nuns. They aspire to be saints, but they can also turn into "devils" as Sister Hillary said. What I bring with me after this book is that faith is both personal and communal, is a constant struggle and a constant source of joy.

When I first read it I was near Cecily's age when she entered the Abbey; now I am her age when the book ended. I look forward to reading it again when I am Dame Philippa's age, Abbess Catherine's, and who knows, perhaps even Dame Emily's.

For so many reasons, this is truly a book to cherish, the world it reveals, to appreciate and love. It really is, as a reviewer put it, a quiet comfort. Thank you, Rumer Godden, for your beautiful book.

Like many other reviewers, I re-read this book once a year, always, it seems, when I am feeling "under the weather". Opening it's pages is like visiting with old friends, and I am always uplifted; I always come away with some new insight, too. At this point, I do believe I could recite whole passages of In This House of Brede. I love all the characters, and they are all richly drawn. I do get sad, thought, to think that this sort of life no longer exists. I would have liked to have lived it. Excellent, excellent. I owned three copies (two purchased on internet auction) and gave one away to a friend. Now SHE is hooked and looking for her extra copy too! You will love this book!