The Snow Goose

Paul Gallico, ill. Angela Barrett

Hutchinson

0091893828

Oct 2007

Similar in tone and tempo to ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and in feel and form to ‘Wuthering Heights’, Paul Gallico’s modern-classic, ‘The Snow Goose’ is sumptuously re-defined in this sumptuously produced edition published by Hutchinson.
‘The Snow Goose’ follows the plight of Philip Rhayader, an artist living out a solitary existence on the Essex Coast. Blighted by a physical deformity that distances him from the society surrounding him, his tenderness and love find purpose only through nurturing injured wild-fowl back to well-health.
An injured snow goose brings the feisty young Frith to Rhayader, and together the two of them nurse the creature. The other-worldly aspect of the Great Marsh is purged by current affairs as news of the war and the situation facing soldiers in Dunkirk spreads. With this, human devastation infiltrates the ebb-and-flow of the natural, wild environs of the marsh.
Rhayader resolves to sail his boat across to Dunkirk whereupon he plans to rescue the soldiers stranded upon the beach. From this point, the remainder of the story becomes piecemeal, gathered from a variety of sources and puzzled together arriving at a conclusion laced with pathos, unfulfilled desires and things unsaid.
The salt-sting of the sea air and its desolation are captured brilliantly by Angela Barrett’s majestic illustrations which evoke the wild untamed, atmosphere of the book with a raw, untamed power and grace that proves entirely equal to this haunting tale.