Greenwillow
review © 2/23/2016
by Garnette Arledge
One gloomy Saturday in January my local library held their Book Sale. I ‘greatly admire’ local libraries sometimes even holding onto a book until it’s overdue just to give the fine. Of course I’m a member and contributor also. For there are treasures to found in village libraries, well worn books written in, perhaps a kinder age to readers’ psyches.
Like it was waiting for me, spring be praised, there was Greenwillow by B.J. Chute, published in 1956 by E.P. Dutton and Company before it was just Dutton. With line drawings of 19th Century English village life. Turns out it was a famous book on its own becoming a Broadway play with Anthony Hopkins. So it is in the genre of Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West. Perhaps even a bit of a Jane Austen-like.
Village life, rival clergy who have separate entrances, belief systems and service times into the one Anglican church. Pub. Old Ladies. Young Love, seemingly thwarted by tradition. Descriptive language so the reader can see the seasons, the flowers, the food, the hopes and dreams thanks to the author who was once president of Penwomen. Even a whimsy -- a mysterious call of the East that afflicts one family’s eldest son, a bit like Beau Geste by P.C. Wren. I could smell the tea cakes, root for the animals, love the folk. Reminds me of how Downton Abbey will be missed.
Greenwillow is a nostalgic reading treasure. It’s on Amazon, hold on, one copy for more than a thousand dollars. I’m thankful for bookstores but my heart belongs to the village library.
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