Elizabeth Goudge: The Dean's Watch

I took The Dean's Watch to London with me, because, of all the candidates for 'next book I want to read', it was the best combination of 'long enough to last the journey' and 'portable small paperback'. It was a good choice for another reason, too: it's not a Christmas book, exactly - the action spans some eight hundred years, from the Norman Duke Rollo to the Dean of the title, appointed in 1865 - but it moves to its crisis as Christmas approaches, and the final Christmas Day is crucial. In a better ordered world, I would have posted this before Christmas, and this extract would have served as a Christmas card:

All over the city men and women and children poured out of the chapels and churches exclaiming at the beauty of the day. It all looked as pretty as a picture, they said. The frost kept the sparkling snow from slipping away from roofs and chimney pots, but it was not too cold to spoil the sunshine. There was no wind. On their way home, whenever a distant view opened out, they could pause and enjoy it without having to shiver. The stretch of the snow-covered fen almost took their breath away, it was so beautiful under the blue arc of the sky. It was like the sea when it turns to silver under the dazzle of the sun. When they turned and looked up at the Cathedral its snow-covered towers seemed to rise to an immeasurable height. Then a wonderful fragrance assailed their nostrils. In steam-filled kitchens the windows had been opened now that the day was warming up. The turkeys and baked potatoes and plum puddings were also warming up and in another forty minutes would have reached the peak of their perfection. Abruptly Christmas Day swung over like a tossed coin. The silver and blue of bells and hymns and angels went down with a bang and was replaced by the red and gold of flaming plum puddings and candled trees. Everyone hurried home as quickly as they could.

The Dean's Watch is, technically, a realist novel. It has no unicorns, no domesticated lion, nothing happens which could not, at a pinch, happen in the real world. But in its own way it has something of the same enchantment as The Little White Horse, and this passage demonstrates that kinship: the juxtaposition of bright transcendent beauty and good solid food. And the wonderful image that asserts the compatibility of the two: "Christmas Day swung over like a tossed coin..."

( On the one hand; on the other hand. Also, spoilers! )