Caryll Houselander: "The Dry Wood"

There is still considerable interest in the life and works of Caryll Houselander [1901-1954], though I only discovered her in my late 70’s. Houselander’s novels are still in demand, republished over the past decade or so by Cluny Classics. Cluny’s corporate mission—and certainly Houselander’s—is evangelization, pre-Vatican II style. The Dry Wood [1947] is set in a poor English neighborhood on the cusp of World War II. To modern readers, particularly Catholics, the pastoral life of this community sounds, well, old, awash in the devotions and attitudes that Vatican II was about correcting. Overemphasis upon devotion to the Blessed Mother, silent adoration at Mass and Eucharistic processions; the extraordinary power of intercession by the saints.
 
In 1947 the novel would not have struck a knowledgeable Catholic as peculiarly antique. And. as I understand it, the devotion of young Catholic adults in the 2020’s is focused upon a renewal of Eucharistic veneration and devotion to Mary and the saints not so far removed from a century ago. My 2025 reading of The Dry Wood resonated with what I had seen during a prolonged stay in Ireland last year. Churches there, even the one on far flung Valentia Island in the Atlantic, are open for Eucharistic visits all day—and the visitors come.
 
The novel begins and ends with the pastors of the Catholic Church of Riverside, outside of London. Father Malone has just died after fifty years of service. Grieving parishioners—and the poor of Riverside in general—quoted in their recollections his standard answer when asked to take at least one day off: “I’ll take a day off when nobody needs me.” His ministerial style was not charismatic—but he was always there for the sacraments and the priestly counsel. What most amazed and endeared him to his people was concrete charity: from delivering food to the unemployed to giving his boots to barefoot vagabonds. He seemed to have something for every need.
 
His people believed he was a potential—if not already--a saint, and they knew that any thoughts of canonization would go nowhere without a miracle. And indeed, the perfect candidate for such a miracle was among them: a seven-year-old boy, Willie Jewell, born with multiple handicaps, unable to speak, but much loved by parishioners and neighbors who showered affection upon him and his parents. Amidst the grieving for the deceased pastor arose a glorious hope: that their former pastor, from his new place in heaven—where else could he be—would perform a miracle and heal Willie to full health. Mourning for Father Malone morphed into an apocalyptic prayer crusade for a miraculous intervention on behalf of the boy, whose physical condition was deteriorating by the hour.
 
Catholics and non-Catholics alike joined in a nine-day novena, an event which disturbed the local bishop and his staff— “cults are dangerous things, you know.” The former assistant and now new pastor, Father O’Grady, was counseled not to promote the miracle crusade, and indeed O’Grady himself doubted the effectiveness of this effort, though as the story unwinds, he cannot ignore the fervor of his people and its impact upon him.
 
Father O’Grady had been an assistant to Father Malone and lived with him in the rectory, something of an unwitting victim of his pastor’s Gospel poverty. [The rectory was not heated.] The author does not comment on precisely what the curate thought about his pastor though there are hints that the younger priest thought of his pastor as eccentric, with the latter’s eternal flame—i.e., a grubby pipe smoked incessantly, perhaps for his entire life—and a grungy hat of equal antiquity. [Apparently, not even the poorest beggar ever asked for it.]
 
On the other hand, Father O’Grady respected the energy, prayer, and effective orderliness of his predecessor, envying the latter’s ability to get so much done in one day. In his private thoughts and meditation, which expand through the book, Father O’Grady belittled his own inability to find time for everything important to his priestly life. Of significant frustration to him was his frequent inability to pray and meditate between midnight and one. Fatigue, chill, memories of the day broke his determination to “watch one hour” with the Savior as Jesus had requested on Holy Thursday night.
 
As The Dry Wood makes its way toward its climax of the nine-day novena, we get to see that Father O’Grady is himself a resolute pastor of souls. Several chapters might be titled “conversion stories,” each a unique tale of a troubled adult who found some measure of comfort, peace, or resolve in the novena atmosphere of the town. Father O’Grady is not a miracle worker, but whatever doubts he harbored about himself, he was able to say the right word to a drifting young adult, or a father who hated his daughter, or a woman who lived from night to night as a patron of “The Cat and Fiddle.”
 
Among the conversions is the awakening of the soul of the pastor himself. A critic of the book writes in Wikipedia that Houselander “sometimes seems to depart from the plot to enter into a meditation.” But “Meditation” is the soul of the work, and Father O’Grady’s progression of thoughts and insights bring the novel to a subtle but hopeful climax. For the new pastor, the novena has come to mean less about Father Malone and more about little Willie Jewell. For as his congregation has fixated upon Father Malone’s awaited transformation of the boy, O’Grady has come to behold Willie as he is, an innocent sufferer.
 
The priest comes to associate Willie’s circumstances as a reflection of the suffering of the innocent Christ, who witnessed the extreme of God’s love. O’Grady beholds Christ in the child, an insight that transforms the religious nature of his life and ministry. Willie has become for him a sign of Christ upon the cross, of Christ’s perfect love, of giving all. At his morning Mass the pastor beholds the consecrated host in the book’s final scene, and he comprehends “the smile of infinite peace, the ineffable bliss of consummated love.” [p. 228] Not a miracle, but a priest’s conversion.