Joanna Godden is such a wonderful novel, a VMC title which demonstrates perfectly why the VMC imprint has been so important. In this novel, Sheila Kaye-Smith gives voice to an extraordinary woman, who pulls valiantly against the conventions of her community. Joanna Godden is a very real woman, in her the author has created a character who is strong, flawed, loving and firmly wedded to the Sussex marshes where she lives.
As the novel opens it is 1897, it is the day of Joanna Godden’s father’s funeral. Joanna is twenty-three, her younger sister Ellen; just ten. Everybody in the nearby village or on the neighbouring farms think they know exactly what Joanna will be do now. Her father’s farm of Little Ansdore has been left to Joanna entirely – and someone will need to run it. It seems obvious to everyone that Joanna will marry, she’s a handsome young woman, and her father’s farm makes her a good catch. As, Joanna’s good friend Arthur Alce has been trying (and failing) to court her for years it seems the perfect solution. However, Joanna has other ideas, she has no immediate plans to marry – and sadly for Arthur, Joanna makes it clear she won’t marry him, and more importantly she intends to run her father’s farm herself, she is full of ideas, passionate about the land. Joanna defies convention and raises more than a few eyebrows – and not all her ideas are successful.
“She forgot her distrust of the night air in all her misery of throbbing head and heart, and flung back the casement, so that the soft marsh wind came in, with rain upon it, and her tears were mingled with the tears of night. ‘Oh God!’ she moaned to herself – ‘why didn’t you make me a man?””
She works hard to make the farm a success – increasing its worth – and putting money in the bank. She invites plenty of comment with her smart, eye-catching costumes and newly painted cart. The men gather in the nearby hostelry and discuss all the latest news from Little Ansdore – they tell their wives when they get home – but Joanna rather thrives on the attention and quite enjoys thinking about everyone discussing her.
As well as running her farm, Joanna must also raise her sister Ellen. She’s not above clipping her round the ear, indulging in a sisterly screaming match or hauling the shrieking ten-year old under her arm and carting her off in front of a startled tea guests. Though as Ellen begins to grow, Joanna wants more for her, to make a lady of her, and now that she has the money – she decides to send Ellen away to school. The Ellen who returns to Joanna during the holidays is a changed girl – and in time the differences between Joanna and her little sister begin to tell.
In matters of the heart Joanna judges poorly sometimes, her heart very much ruling her head. When she first takes over the farm, she employs a ‘looker’ the man she employs is physically the kind of man she finds attractive. It is unthinkable that a farm owner would pursue a relationship with her ‘looker’ and Joanna doesn’t really intend to – but as Socknersh is bad at his job, Joanna’s preference is noted and talked about. Joanna nearly makes a fool of herself.
“Over the eastern rim of the Marsh the moon had risen, a red, lightless disk, while the sun, red and lightless too, hung in the west above Rye Hill. The sun and the moon looked at each other across the marsh, and midway between them, in the spell of their flushed, haunted glow, stood Socknersh, big and stooping, like some lonely beast of the earth and night…. A strange fear touched Joanna – she tottered, and his arm came out to save her…”
Joanna will fall in love for real, her enormous appetite for life making her throw herself whole heartedly into every life experience. But with everything she does, Joanna’s traditionalism, religion and love of the land drives her forward.
The years pass, Ellen makes some terrible choices that really test Joanna. Joanna knows sadness, loss and great achievement – she never stops being a favourite topic of local conversation. There comes a day when Joanna, older, but possibly no wiser – acts against her own character, she remains unconventional making decisions for herself that are right for her – no matter what anyone else thinks.
Joanna Godden was one of those books I was sad to finish – a strong sense of place and one of the most heroic country heroines I have ever read about. This was the first novel I have read by Sheila Kaye-Smith so I am looking to reading Susan Spray – by the same author that I have tbr.
Apart from Joanna Godden and Susanna Spray nobody mentions the other novels.The ones satirised in part by Stella Gibbons in Cold Comfort Farm.Who would want to read “The Tramping Methodist” today?Many of her books were about rural folk speaking in dialect with an oppressive Hardy-esque tone involving death and religion.
Well I don’t know about those other books. I had always thought Stella Gibbons had satirised Mary Webb. Also I am quite a Hardy fan, so Hardy-esque might suit me.
Nothing wrong with a Hardy-esque tone and a bit of death and religion! And, after all, Gibbons was satirising him and Mary Webb in her novel, and the doom-and-gloom-in-the-country second-tier writers. Mary Webb is brilliant, as is Hardy, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to be one of Gibbons’ assumed targets.
I agree, I don’t think it was a bad thing at all, after all Gibbons was just having a bit of creative fun writing as she did. I haven’t read Mary Webb since my late teens or early twenties my sister and I rather loved Precious Bane the book and the TV adaptation which we had recorded on video and used to watch over and over until the tape nearly wore out. I really should find out what I think of Mary Webb now.
I’ve got lots of her for borrowing purposes!
I’m so pleased you thoughts as well of this book as I did. Sheila Kaye-Smith is definitely underappreciated and it seems to be forgotten that Stella Gibbons wasn’t so much satirising the successful rural novelists as their imitators, whose stories she had to read when she was a magazine journalist.
Her earlier books seem less accomplished, and I’m given to understand that her latter books are somewhat didactic, but the books she wrote in the twenties look interesting, and I have read and can recommend ‘The House of Alard’.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Ah yes that makes sense, I don’t think Gibbons was satirising this kind of book. I am so glad I read this.
Great review, Ali! I really loved her autobiography based on the books she’d loved (All The Books of My Life) but have steered away from the novels as I thought they might be too much in that rural novel type satirised by Cold Comfort Farm, as Jane mentions. But this certainly gives me encouragement to try her!
A wonderful blog “Reading 1900 to 1950” has reviewed 3 of her books if more info is needed.They seem to conclude Joanna Godden is the best book she wrote.
Ah right thank you, I will look up those others. This was a fabulous read.
Ooh that autobiography sounds great. I suspect Gibbons was satirising Mary Webb – though it is a very long time since I read her.
Lovely review Ali and great quotes! Personally I always thought Gibbons was satirising “Precious Bane” but this sounds nothing like that at all! 🙂
Yes, I had thought the same. I read Precious Bane and one other Mary Webb novel when I was in my late teens. I loved them then, but I suspect I might react differently now. I have had another Webb tbr for years and keep avoiding it.
(Spelling correction: ‘Sheila’.)
Yet another author of whom I have not heard. Are you determined to wreck my bank balance Ali?
Oops sorry 🙂 (not sorry!).
What no apology??? not even a teeny one? LOL
So pleased to read this review! I love Shelia Kaye-Smith and collected a considerable number of her novels in the 1990s, in the ‘Sussex’ edition. Personally, I think she’s a fascinating writer, and sadly under-valued today. I recommend ‘Three Against the World’, ‘Starbrace’ and ‘Sussex Gorse’.
Glad to hear from other fans, thanks for those recommendations.
This sounds excellent, she reminds me already of Bathsheba Everdene which is always good. Great to discover this author.
Oh yes, she reminded me a bit of lovely Bathsheba my favourite Hardy heroine.
This sounds excellent – your description made me think of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, another rural farming story with a strong female at the centre of it.
Sunset song is another one I haven’t heard of.
I suspect it might be your type of thing. 🙂
[…] Joanna Godden (1921) by Sheila Kaye-Smith was such a lovely read, it was a pleasure spending time on the Sussex marshes with Joanna in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. Joanna is a gloriously unforgettable country heroine. […]
[…] I read Ali’s warm words about Sheila Kaye-Smith’s Joanna Godden I remembered how warmly I felt about it too; and I […]