At the start of The Blue Castle we meet Valancy Stirling, who’s 29 and single, in a time and place “where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.” Her family looks down on her because of her timid nature and her “hopeless old maidenhood” and her lack of conventional good looks; her home life is rigid and dull, thanks to her strict mother and cousin, neither of whom has any conception of Valancy’s inner life. (Representative sentiment: “People who wanted to be alone, so Mrs. Frederick Stirling and Cousin Stickles believed, could only want to be alone for some sinister purpose.”) Valancy isn’t allowed to read novels, and the nature books she loves by her favorite author, John Foster, are only just barely allowed. But then Valancy gets some news that changes how she feels and how she acts, much to her family’s shock and dismay.
Without getting too much into the plot and its twists (some of which I saw coming, and others of which I did not) I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I like Valancy’s late-blooming determination, and I like the moments of humor (especially the ones involving Valancy’s many horrible/annoying relatives), and I like the romantic elements, and I especially like the descriptions of the natural world and the way the landscape changes with the seasons: I like that Valancy gets to have boat rides and snow-shoes and ice skates. “December. Early snows and Orion. The pale fires of the Milky Way.” Or: “the evanescent beauty of wild young trees in early leaf; frost-like loveliness of the new foliage of juniper trees; the woods putting on a fashion of spring flowers, dainty, spiritual things akin to the soul of the wilderness; red mist on the maples.”
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