Elizabeth Goudge’s Linnets and Valerians: Part IV

This final article in the series contains some miscellaneous thoughts about Elizabeth Goudge’s Linnets and Valerians (aka The Runaways) and her witch Emma Cobley.

We begin with the J. K. Rowling connection and some accusations of paganism.

Elizabeth Goudge and J. K. Rowling

In 2001, J. K. Rowling gave an interview in which she said that Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse was one of her favourite childhood books and it was an inspiration for the Harry Potter series.

I am guessing that J. K. Rowling at some point investigated other books by Elizabeth Goudge. Her account of the witch Merope Gaunt, who came from a humble background and who probably bewitched the handsome and wealthy Tom Riddle Senior with a love potion, reminds me very much of the story of Emma Cobley and Hugo Valerian.

Christianity and paganism

J. K. Rowling’s recommendation of Elizabeth Goudge probably revived interest in an author who was no longer well known.

Some new readers may not have been too pleased with what they found.

Elizabeth Goudge’s books have been criticised for being sickly sweet and sentimental. I can see that they, or at least parts of some of them, may not be much to the taste of the modern reader.

Another drawback may be the religion: Elizabeth Goudge’s books are Christian in outlook, containing such themes as sacrifice, conversion, discipline, healing, and growth through suffering. This too might put some people off.

It is much the same with Madeleine L’Engle’s books: some people enjoy reading them despite the sweetness and religious references.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part V

Four articles so far; what more can there be to say about Stella Gibbons’s novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer?

One element of particular interest is something I think of as the big anomaly, where people who seem to have everything behave as if they have nothing. They are the exact opposite on the inside of what they appear to be on the outside. They are a combination of glamorous image and empty desperation.

I have some ideas to explore about this phenomenon.

Only one thing to live for

I said in a previous article that it is perfectly natural for some people to feel that there is nothing for them but a life of unbearable drabness. Their lives may indeed be very restricted, and there may be little hope of any improvement in the future.

I also gave examples of cases where this feeling was not natural and not based on reality: it was induced by an unscrupulous black magic practitioner.

The feeling some people have that there is only one thing to live for and that if they lose it or don’t get it they will be destroyed is also understandable in some, perhaps extreme, cases. The last ship might really have sailed or be about to sail. Sometimes one chance is all we ever get. Some people may be devastated because they know very well that they could have made the world a better place for many others if they had only got what they wanted.

However, it is very strange when people with many options, people such as Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey and Stella Gibbons’s Esmé Scarron, feel this way and behave like desperate predators who have pounced and missed, howling in rage and disappointment because now they will starve to death.

What is going on here? We can only speculate.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part IV

This article covers more elements that Stella Gibbons’s sorcerer Esmé Scarron and Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey have in common and goes into more detail about the final betrayal and showdown.

Zachary Grey, Esmé Scarron and the big anomaly

These two people are very different when it comes to attributes such as age, generation, nationality, background and lifestyle yet they both have the power to remotely influence people, they both have a similar bad effect on the girls they target and they both behave in much the same way when faced with the loss of the girl. Once again, the similarities are uncanny.

I described a big anomaly in Zachary Grey’s life here. Sometimes his glamorous image disappears and he becomes lost and frightened.

Scarron is much the same. He begins by appearing mysterious, glamorous and charming, then he is shown to be sinister and malevolent and finally he is seen as empty and pitiable.

Just as Zachary tells Vicky Austin that she is all that stands between him and chaos and she is his reason to live, Scarron begs Meg Lambert to help him and says that she is his only hope.

Describing this anomaly and making connections is much easier than finding answers to the questions it raises:

If they are so superior and their lives are so marvellous, why are they so desperate, why do they stake everything on one outcome and why are they destroyed when they lose?

I have had some ideas about this, which will appear in the next and final article in this series.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part III

A few of the common elements in Stella Gibbons’s Shadow of a Sorcerer and the Madeleine L’Engle books in which Zachary Grey appears have been mentioned in the first two articles.

There are more similarities to come, but first here is a summary of the remainder of the Sorcerer story:

How the story ends

The arrival at the language school of a young man called Humphrey gives Meg Lambert someone other than Esmé Scarron to think about. Humphrey is a worthy, dependable type and only 10 or so years older than Meg. Her mother likes him very much. Unfortunately he is engaged, and his fiancée Ruth soon comes out to join him at the guest house/language school in Austria.

Meg, her mother and some of the other students including Humphrey and Ruth take a short sightseeing trip to Venice.

An attempt by Ruth to make Meg see reason about Scarron backfires; her well-meaning criticism pushes Meg into doing something drastic. She tells Scarron on the phone that she will give him her final answer in person at his palazzo. Then, in revenge for the pressure to forget Scarron, she hits back by telling the others in her party a big lie: she says that she has just got engaged to him over the phone. This hurts her mother terribly and confounds the others.

Scarron sets out for Venice. He has asked his ex-wife and daughter to keep away from his palazzo, but this backfires and they go there to sabotage his plans. This is their big chance to take some revenge for what he has done to them. They reveal many of Scarron’s secrets to the Lamberts, including his age and his experiments on his son and daughter.

Scarron makes one last attempt to capture Meg by bombarding her with more waves of pity, but it doesn’t work.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part II

Going through Stella Gibbons’s novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer in the light of what I have learned about cults, occultists, energy vampires and other relevant topics since I first read it has provided enough material for a whole series of articles.

I am particularly interested in the connections I can now see between some of the material in this book and material in previous articles about cults, very different books and very different people.

The first article introduced the two main characters and ended with a description of some of the harm Esmé Scarron had done by abusing his powers and knowledge.

The next topics to be covered are the dreadful effect that Scarron’s attempts to influence her have on his chosen disciple Meg Lambert and the cult leader/cult member aspect of their relationship.

Many of the unpleasant symptoms that Meg experiences are very familiar: they are typical of the negative effects that energy vampires and black occultists have on their victims.

The unbearably drab existence

Early on in the book, thinking about the delightful and exciting life that Scarron could offer her makes Meg’s life and future in England appear unendurably drab in comparison. It seems that there will be nothing for her back home but ordinary people and pastimes, ageing morons, a dull colourless existence with no beauty and no sense of romantic excitement and nothing to look forward to.

Many people have had a taste of this feeling, especially ambitious people of ability who feel trapped in a limiting environment and are desperate to escape from a godforsaken place full of deadbeat losers, but in Meg’s case there is something sinister at work.

Another look at Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey

I thought at the time that my article about Zachary Grey - or Gray - contained all the relevant material of interest; I have since found a few more significant points and incidents and noticed some intriguing connections.

The bad boys are a bad omen

In The Moon By Night, Vicky Austin and her family stay in a series of camping grounds as they travel across the USA. 

There are some unpleasant incidents during these stopovers. The first one happens just before Zachary Grey comes into Vicky’s life, and it could be interpreted as a bad omen.

Vicky feels edgy and rather scared when they arrive at one campsite, and these feelings are soon justified. As Vicky and her family are eating a meal, a car drives by very fast. It passes them again, and one of the occupants throws a glass bottle out of the window; it hits the side of the Austins' station wagon, shattering with a sound like a bomb going off. The car comes back again, and a gang of young ‘hoods’ gets out. One of them is wearing black trousers and a black leather jacket, a cheap copy of what Zachary Grey often wears.

Vicky’s father gets rid of them, but not long afterwards the Austins hear a vehicle approaching and are afraid that the gang of thugs is returning. This time, it is Zachary Grey and his parents. This is Zachary’s first appearance in Vicky’s life.

The black bear is a bad sign

I described Vicky’s symbolic encounter with a skunk and its connection with a letter from Zachary in the first article; this time around I noticed an incident involving a black bear.

Soon after meeting Zachary for the first time, Vicky walks around the campsite with him and hears his cynical and pessimistic philosophy of life. Later that evening, while walking back from the wash-room, she sees something dark behind her. At first she thinks it is one of the gang, but then realises that it is an animal, probably a bear. Her family don’t believe that she saw a bear.

Twice during the night they are wakened by a loud crash: something keeps knocking their ice-box over. In the morning they see large paw marks everywhere. The ranger tells them that it was a black bear and it was looking for food.

Born at the end of November

Some of the writers who have been mentioned in previous articles were born during the last two days of November. 

Here is some interesting information to mark the occasion.

Born on the 29th
November 29th is the 333rd day of the year (except in leap years). 

Amos Bronson Alcott entered this world on the 29th November 1799; Louisa May Alcott, his daughter, was born in the early hours of the 29th in 1832, thus they were born exactly 33 years apart.

C. S. Lewis was born on the 29th November 1898.

Madeleine L’Engle was born on the 29th November 1918.

Born on the 30th
Angela Brazil was born on the 30th November 1868.

L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery was born on the 30th November 1874.

Influences and connections
For the Alcotts, sharing the same birthday was not the only connection. Bronson died in March 1888; Louisa died 2 days later.

C. S. Lewis died one week short of his 65th birthday and one hour before President John F. Kennedy died.

Louisa M. Alcott, L. M. Montgomery and Angela Brazil all wrote classic girls’ books.

One of Madeleine L’Engle’s main characters is called Meg; so is one of Louisa M. Alcott’s.

Madeleine L’Engle said this about books she read in childhood:

“My favorite was Emily of New Moon by Lucy Maude Montgomery, who is better known for her Anne of Green Gables books. Emily wanted to be a writer. Emily and I had a lot in common. Emily lived on Prince Edward Island and I live on Manhattan Island. Both are islands! Emily's father was dying of bad lungs and so was mine…“

Both C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle have been called Christian myth-makers. When asked whether her work has been compared to his, she replied:

“Yes, it has. I think that the main difference is that C. S. Lewis has more answers and I have more questions…”

C. S. Lewis created a flying horse, wrote a book called Surprised by Joy and married an American called Joy.

Madeleine L’Engle’s winged unicorn is called Gaudior, which has a meaning connected with joy and rejoicing. 

Being born at the end of November means that they were born under the astrological sign of Sagittarius. 

Flying horses, centaurs, philosophy, joyful religion and angels are all very Sagittarian. 

Person of interest: Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey

Zachary Grey is a character in several young-adult novels by Madeleine L’Engle. Confusingly, he becomes Zachary Gray in the later books.

Madeleine L’Engle is not one of my favourite authors and her books do not inspire me to produce a series of articles, but some aspects of the behaviour of her character Zachary Grey and the destructive effect it has on people around him are relevant to my ideas about energy vampires and unseen influences.

About Zachary Grey

Zachary Grey, often known as Zach, is a bit of a Bad Boy. He is very rich and throws money around. He is moody and troubled; he is wild, reckless, unpredictable and sometimes self-destructive; he likes to hurt and frighten people; his outlook on life is cynical, amoral, nihilistic, negative and pessimistic: he is always saying, “What’s the point?” and wondering whether there is anything worth living for in this lousy world. He sees nothing but doom and disaster ahead. 

There are times when he hates just about everyone: he drives them away then tries to cajole them into staying.

Zach has a weak heart; he knows that he could die at any time and uses this as a weapon to control people: if they don’t do just as he likes he might have a heart attack. He uses hysterical outbursts to manipulate his parents into giving him whatever he wants; they are under his thumb.

Zach has a death wish and courts danger; he habitually does things he knows he shouldn’t do. He is always getting kicked out of schools for smoking and cheating and not turning up for classes. He does this for kicks, because he is bored. He intends to study law just to learn how to get away with things and get the better of and outsmart the phonies who run this lousy world.

Zach believes that money is everything; he has nothing but withering scorn for religion: he thinks that all religious people are phonies; he thinks that people care only about number one and that the only way to get on in the world is to step on people. His goal in life is to have what he wants, do what he wants, go where he wants and get what he wants. 

Zachary Grey is a devil’s advocate.