12/31/2022 0 Comments When marnie was there marsh houseBut it was not there!….Alarmed, she stood up. Sitting alone on the shore….she looked back at the long, low line of the village and tried to pick out The Marsh House. No wonder she had felt she was being watched with all those windows staring at her! The house, which faced straight on to the creek, was large and old and square, its many small windows framed in faded blue woodwork. It sounded like ‘Pity me’! Oh, pity me!’Īnd then she saw the house….As soon as she saw it Anna knew that this was what she had been looking for. She didn’t feel good….Ī small bird flew over the creek, quite close to her head, uttering a short plaintive cry four or five times running, all on one note. Not that she herself was particularly naughty, in fact her school reports quite often gave her a ‘Good’ for Conduct, but in some odd way the word seemed to leave her outside. There was a picture over the bed, a framed sampler in red and blue cross-stitch, with the words Hold fast that which is Good embroidered over a blue anchor. Mrs Preston, seeing Anna’s ‘ordinary’ look – which in her own mind she thought of as her ‘wooden face’ – sighed and turned her attention to more practical things.Īlready the turmoil of Liverpool Street Station, the hurry, the confusion, the nearness of parting – against which she had only been able to protect herself with her wooden face – seemed a hundred years ago, she thought. She could only stand there stiffly by the open door of the carriage, with her case in her hand, hoping she looked ordinary and wishing the train would go. I hope I am not infringing copyright law by quoting to such a degree! ![]() For greater clarity, I have used italics purely to separate out paragraphs a little more, and to show where one quoted section ends, and another begins. All I can say is that they must have hung together in my sub-conscious, and this is my attempt to figure out why. There are still important plot points and many other beautiful and frightening components of the story that I have not given away.Įven without knowing the story, and without knowing my own internal context, I hope that these passages hang together. I very much hope that these passages will encourage you to obtain a second hand copy of the book and to read it, rather than feeling as though I have spoiled it by revealing some of how it unfolds. I hope you will forgive this post, therefore: both for its insularity (for without being me and without knowing why these passages chimed with me, they may appear rather random) but also for what it gives away. And that is what I did tonight – I went through every page with a turned-down corner, and typed those sections out, and am copying them below. What I have felt compelled to do, is write down all those passages that struck me. There are thoughts beginning to take shape in my mind, and a post starting to form. When I read it for the second time, I think I was looking for something redemptive, in the way that Anna had begun to be transformed through her encounters with Marnie, the little girl who lived at The Marsh House. ![]() The way she defended herself from the world and from her emotions, following on from loss, mirrored my own response as a child (and not only as a child). I know without a doubt that I saw (and still see) myself in Anna, the book’s main character. I am still trying to understand the power of this book which means so much to me. The second time, as I read it I turned over the tops of pages which contained sentences or paragraphs that particularly struck me or rang true. ![]() The first time I read it, I cried for almost an hour after I finished it, but for no reason particular reason that I could identify. The book was called ‘When Marnie was there’, and I have now read it twice within the space of a month. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about rediscovering a book that I read as a child, the memory and impact of which stayed with me, even though I could not remember anything apart from the name ‘Marnie’ in the title. [GFDL ( ) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 ( )%5D, via Wikimedia Commons. Photo is by Chris Wood (User:chris_j_wood). The house is located in Burnham Overy Staithe, in Norfolk (or ‘Little Overton’, as it is referred to in the book). The house on the far left is The Marsh House (Marnie’s house) – or rather, the house that inspired the book ‘When Marnie was there’.
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