From Here to Eternity: Aspects of Pastoral in the Green Knowe Series

On first reading, the six novels that make up L. M. Boston's Green Knowe series appear to follow the ironic conventions of pastoralism. A young boy finds a home at Green Knowe and discovers its timeless essence only to see it invaded by destructive forces, not the least of which are those of modern civilization. However, rereadings reveal important departures from the conventions: Boston allows her pastoral setting to survive the threats to its existence and provides her heroes with the means of maintaining their lives in it. Thus, whereas most pastorals show the impossibility of escaping the destructiveness of time, the Green Knowe books imply that those who have fully experienced and completely committed themselves to the pastoral world will always remain part of it. In studying this aspect of the Green Knowe series, we shall first examine the central setting, Green Knowe, and the children who most fully comprehend its timelessness, and then trace the overall structure of the six novels, showing both relationships to the pastoral tradition and significant departures from it.

A major aspect of the pastoral world is its difference from the area that surrounds it. It is a natural, pure, and calm setting in which truth, tranquility, contentment, and innocence dominate, a contrast to the sullied, artificial, complex world beyond its borders, a world in which the more evil aspects of progress—especially greed, anxiety, and ambition—are found. The pastoral setting is an oasis which, except for the recurrent rhythms of nature, seems eternal. These aspects and these contrasts are found in the central symbol of the Green Knowe series, the manor itself.

Built nine centuries ago, during the reign of William Rufus, its dominant characteristics are its antiquity, its continuity, and, most important, its essential timelessness.¹ Thinking about her home as she awaits Ping's arrival in A Stranger at Green Knowe, Mrs. Oldknow muses: "It was of such antiquity that its still being there was hardly believable. By all the rules of time and change it should long long ago have become a ruined heap of stone. . . . Somehow, century after century while much younger castles and houses rotted or were burnt down, or their owners grew tired of them and cleared them away to make room for new, Green Knowe stood quietly inside its moat and its belt of trees."² While it has been altered externally, its fundamental structure has remained the same. Chief of its features is the great fireplace, "the hearth [which] from all time was the center and heart of the family."³ The words Boston used to describe her own home can be applied to Green Knowe: "Inside, partly because of the silence within the massive stone walls, partly because of the complexity of incurving shapes, you get a unique impression of time as a co-existent whole."⁴

The grounds of the manor are an extension of the manor itself. The garden, referred to by one visitor as a "wild paradise" (Stranger, p. 136), is a pleasant place. Hidden from the road, it contains Mrs. Oldknow's roses, "to her the clearest sign of the essential nature of life,"⁵ and is watched over by the beneficent statue of St. Christopher, created from the same living stones as the house. At the edge of the garden flows the river, "sleepy and timeless,"⁶ while bordering the property is Toseland Thicket, jealously guarded by Mrs. Oldknow as a bird sanctuary. As one of Mrs. Oldknow's guests notes, the area is a "real sanctuary. Nowadays everything is changing so quickly we all feel chased about and trapped. . . . Here, in the heart of industrial England, is this extraordinary place where you can draw an easy breath" (Stranger, p. 90).

Those who approach Green Knowe in the proper spirit can experience a timelessness which does not exist beyond its boundaries. They can come in contact with the "truth about being and knowing" (Enemy, p. 116) which emanates from the house, and which is absent from the modern world outside. The contrast between Green Knowe and the world...