Novel #18 - The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
"Is the spring coming? What is it like?"
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine."
Rude and obstinate, nine-year old Mary Lennox survives the cholera breakout that killed her parents in India. She was sent to England to live under the custody of her uncle, Mr. Craven, who lives in a manor outside of London. Mary discovers an abandoned garden that is once tended to by Mrs. Craven who has died many years ago. Mary becomes friends with Dickson, the brother of her maidservant Martha, and they secretly tend the garden. On many nights, Mary hears someone crying somehere in the house and she discovers Colin, her uncle's son. Frail and moody like her, Colin has been made to believe from the outset, and even all the servants believe, too, that he will die soon and that he cannot walk thus he is confined to a wheelchair. Mary tells Colin about the robin she talks to, about her friend Dickson and about the secret garden. She convinces Colin to get out of the house to see the secret garden and Colin eventually finds out that he actually has use of his legs and that his sickness stems from being cooped up in the house almost all of his life. He gets strong enough to be able to walk and run. At the same time, the garden comes to life.
-o0o-
it's late, so i grabbed a book that's easy to interpret and review. i didn't get to read this book until a few years ago along with charlotte's web (where have i been all this time, you ask). in fact there's a lot of children's classics that i have not read until i came to canada. you must understand, i grew up in the third world and my family was so poor we could not afford books as they are a definite luxury (that's another story for someday). however, in the mid-1980's i had read a book also titled 'the secret garden' but it was an 'adult novel' and definitely not this one. :-)
took this pic yesterday when i passed by a church ground. i note there's a pigeon - it can be a stand-in for the robin in the book.
@sunnygreenwood - thank you, anne. well, if the book is a really good book, it is easy to remember, or i read the first two pages, a page or two in the middle, then the last page, just to make sure i don't mix up the story with another book. and if i'm not too sure, there's always google :-)
@pamfromcalgary - thank you, pam. i've not seen the movie. this is one book i won't mind seeing the movie. and i think there's a play, i have to check tomorrow if it's still on here in toronto. i was told it was a very nice production.
Great book and wonderful garden shot. I was a bit curious if you were actually a flower garden person with all your activities. Glad to see it was in your neighborhood.
@jannkc - thank you, jann. i would like to have a flower garden but i don't have the patience for it. i can grow plants, whether from shoots or seeds; generally though i have reaction to pollen and some grass or weeds. if i would have a flower garden, i'd like it to come with a gardener to look after it and all i'd have to do is sit and watch or read (when i'm not out photographing). :-)
a classic. glad to read you finally got to enjoy it; we take so much for granted, that books are there for to be consumed whenever we want them. what an eye-opener your statement is. your photo is beautiful and i love the pigeon.
ooops, typo errors. horrors! sorry for that. hehehe!
@catsmeowb - thank you, camille. much appreciated. there are still so many, hundreds maybe even thousands, that i haven't read, have heard about and haven't read, or not aware. my father had an aunt who married an american after the war and i remember going to their house and the only thing i'd like to stay in was the library (well, the kitchen, too) and i would just lose myself in books, even ones heavier than me.
my father allowed us to read whatever was in the house and whatever we could comprehend. i read a lot of Asimov, other sci-fi- he was a physicist so had these interests in time travel, etc. i remember that the Illustrated Man freaked me out as a child, and Flowers for Algernon made me cry for days.
as a P.S. to that, before he married my stepmother - i was 6 - he would wake me up to watch the old twilight tv show with him; loved the one where the man was on the wing of the plane and another where the man is the only one left alive one earth and is reading but breaks his glasses. even then, thought, just go find another pair.
@catsmeowb - wow! time travel so fascinates me. in fact i just finished reading a physicist's book where he explains how time travel might be possible. i e-mailed him after i read the book to ask how near we are actually to realizing this time travel dream and he said, not in this lifetime. and of course, i love twilight zone and outer limits :-)
@catsmeowb - thank you, camille. much appreciated. there are still so many, hundreds maybe even thousands, that i haven't read, have heard about and haven't read, or not aware. my father had an aunt who married an american after the war and i remember going to their house and the only thing i'd like to stay in was the library (well, the kitchen, too) and i would just lose myself in books, even ones heavier than me.
@daveanajao - thank you, dave.
@cscecil - thank you, CS. if i was near you, i would have used your garden for this ;-)
thank you, patti.