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In early 1920s Canada, drastic circumstances give Valancy, a twenty-nine-year-old unmarried woman resigned to being an "old maid," the courage to defy her controlling family and escape to a life of her own choosing.
allisongryski: This is by no means an obvious recommendation. However, the quality of writing and something of the heroines' characters is similar. The heroines of these two books are both under-appreciated members of their families, who are thought beyond any chance of marriage. They are both forced by circumstance to find courage that they didn't know they possessed and they are rewarded with eventual happiness.… (more)
humouress: 'Blue Castle' and 'Journey to the River Sea' have the same sense of wonderment and discovery at exploring the wilderness around the protagonist in the company of someone else who has made an effort to live in harmony with nature.
This is one of L.M. Montgomery's adult novels. It is different from Anne of Green Gables, although the story is still as innocent by today's standards. I appreciate how everything worked out in the end. How it gets there is interesting. ( )
Such a lovely read! I am just sad I didn't read this one sooner. If you haven't read it and you loved other books by Montgomery then do it... just read it. You won't be disappointed. ( )
I received this book as an Early Reviewer a while ago and didn't realize I had forgotten to review it. I couldn't relate well to the romantic Valency although I had a version of a Blue Castle which was much more practical than hers. It was a medical diagnosis that gave her the courage to change from an obedient daughter to a rebel much to the horror of her mother and her staid relations. Her life becomes much more interesting when she gets to know the "outcasts' of her village and horrifies her relatives by moving out. The descriptions of the village and the lake and forest are vivid enough to bring the scene to life. I enjoyed this book more than I expected since I'm not a reader of romances, but this was much more than a romance.
If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different. She would have gone with the rest of her clan to Aunt wellington'd engagement picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.
Quotations
...fringed by aspens that were always quivering with some supernal joy.
Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was - the possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of an unbreakable diamond.
The new moons always looked down through it (the oriel window), the lower pine boughs swayed about the top of it, and all through the nights the soft, dim silver of the lake dreamed through it.
In a corner a nice, tall, lazy old clock ticked - the right kind of a clock. One that did not hurry the hours awaybut ticked them off deliberately. It was the jolliest looking old clock. A fat, corpulent clock with a great, round man's face painted on it, the hands stretching out of its nose and the hours encircling it like a halo.
...they ate out on the verandah that almost overhung the lake... Supper was the meal that Valency loved best. The faint laughter of winds was always about them and the colours of Mistawis, imperial and spiritual, under the changing clouds, were something that cannot be expressed in mere words. Shadows, too. Clustering in the pines until a wind shook them out and pursued them over Mistawis. They lay all day along the shores, threaded by ferns and wild blossoms. they stole around the headlands in the glow of the sunset, until twilight wove them all into one great web of dusk.
(about the suggestion of owning a large house) "No. It's too elegant. I would have to carry it with me everywhere I went. On my back like a snail. It would own me - possess me, body and soul. I like a house I can love and cuddle and boss. Just like ours here."
All the tintings of winter woods are extremely delicate and elusive. When the brief afternoon wanes and the sun just touches the tops of the hills, there seems to be all over the woods an abundance, not of colour, but of the spirit of colour.
"No, no. I don't want to forget Barney. I'd rather be miserable in heaven remembering him than happy forgetting him."
lakes drunken with moonshine
Last words
But, despite the delights before her--'the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome'--lure of the ageless Nile--glamour of the Riviera--mosque and palace and minaret--she knew perfectly well that no spot or palace or home in the world could ever possess the sorcery of her Blue Castle.
In early 1920s Canada, drastic circumstances give Valancy, a twenty-nine-year-old unmarried woman resigned to being an "old maid," the courage to defy her controlling family and escape to a life of her own choosing.
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From the back cover: At twenty-nine Valancy had never been in love, and it seemed romance had passed her by. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she found her only consolations in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle. Then a letter arrived from Dr. Trent -- and Valancy decided to throw caution to the winds. For the first time in her life Valancy did and said exactly what she wanted. Soon she discovered a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.
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This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
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