Green Darkness (Rediscovered Classics)

Just like some people go to the same vacation spot each year, reading "Green Darkness" has become my own personal little tradition from the time it first came out in print, sometime in the late 70s.

In fact, I've read my way through three incarnations of this book - wearing each one out to the point where I had to discard a badly tattered copy and then purchase another.

When I need a mental break, I immerse myself in the world of Celia de Bohun and Brother Stephen..."reliving" the misery and splendor of the 16th Century again and again, hoping each time that their story will not end in heartbreak, yet knowing that, in another life, they'll meet again.

A wonderful story, and even more thrilling to me when I discovered that many of the characters, like Anthony Browne, Geraldine, Maggie, and a few others really did exist.

One of my all time favorites.

I can't decide if I liked this novel or not. Was somewhat interesting, once you got to the 16th century - all the 20th century characters, including the main characters were annoying.

Was confused and distracted by all the secondary characters in the 16th century as well. Would not consider this a romance, beings Stephen/Richard is hardly in the novel - this is more Celia's story in which Stephen is not around for most of the book - her interactions with many historical figures of the time were unbelievable due to her station in life - and her interaction with Thomas Wyatt (executed by Mary for starting rebellion to replace her with Elizabeth) was absolutely ridiculous, even for fiction.

Bought this book and Katherine together based on recommendations and reviews, not sure I want to try Katherine now..maybe if I am between other novels..

OK - I confess I did read the whole book, but asked myself why more than once. This is not a romantic book nor is it good historical fiction. The heroine past and present is utterly weak. Any book where the husband rapes the wife and then they get back together is just disgusting. I recommend Sharon Kay Penman, Candace Robb, and Colleen McCollough's brilliant series on ancient Rome beginning with "The First Man in Rome", and recently followed up by the fantastic "Antony and Cleopatra".

Celia and Richard Marsden are recently married and living in England in 1968. During a weekend get together with friends Celia Marsden slips into unconsciousness and her mother's friend, Dr. Akananda, a doctor who believes in reincarnation, realizes the only way to help Celia is to have her relive her past life that is haunting her. Thus the reader is transported back 400 years ago, during the reign of King Henry VIII's children, a tumultuous time in England, and learns the story of a servant girl Celia Bouhn.

Green Darkness, tackles reincarnation, mysticism, forbidden love, fate as well as beautifully descriptive detail about England as it truly must have been in the 1500's. While off to a slow start the author builds the story until you can wait no longer to find out the resolution - it finishes strong. A great historical fiction novel, filled with lively characters, Green Darkness is a truly beautifully written story.

Words of advice: It's a pretty dense book and starts out slow. Be patient it is worth it to get to the end! And if you enjoy this time period I would recommend The Autobiography of Henry VIII with notes by his fool Will Somers, by Margaret George.

UGH! It was a painful process to go through all the extra stuff in this book. I wanted to quit reading several times, but kept plodding through. At one point I was so frustrated with all the extra this and that, that I almost threw the book across the room. Needless to say, I didn't...no, couldn't finish this book. I got 3/4 of the way through and couldn't take it anymore.

Green Darkness was one of my all time favorite books having read it about 30 years ago. This year I chose to do a re-read, something I rarely ever do; now I know why it's not a good idea to mess with memories.

According to my copy, an original 1972 copy, this is a story of a great love that spans from 16th century to the present day and a brilliant reconstruction of the Tudor period; only part of that is true.

Green Darkness mixes a story of reincarnation and its roots in a love story from 500 years earlier. The problem for me this time around is I didn't find the love story all that interesting.

Celia and Richard Marsdon are recent newlyweds and have come to Richard's family ancestral home; soon the two are acting very differently to each other and during a weekend house party Celia collapses and is hospitalized. While Celia slips deeper and deeper into a catatonic state, one of her guests, Dr. Ankanada, very familiar with past life regression believes this is the only way to help Celia and so we journey back in time to the story of Celia Bohun and Father Steven Marsdon.

The bulk of this story takes place 1552 and 1559, a time of huge upheaval in English history, with the succession of three monarchs, Edward I, Mary and Elizabeth I. The country goes from Protestant to Catholic and back to Protestant in that short time frame. The affect on the `regular' people as well as the nobles and churches is depicted very well and I love the attention to historical detail, much better than some of the more recent historical fiction of this time period I have read. This was without doubt the best part of the book. The problem is the love story between the monk Steven and Celia, a poorer relation to Sir Anthony Browne of Cowdray castle. Celia lives here with her aunt and Steven is the house priest, living in hiding at the start of their story. For being what is the entire lynchpin of this story there was actually very little to the romance and I actually didn't much care for the two star crossed lovers. Steven was often too sanctimonious and Celia was a selfish and foolish young girl, I felt no connection to either of them. After the ending of their story we are back to the present (1968 in the book) and the resolution of Celia and Richard's story, which was rather abrupt and a little too perfect.

While I enjoyed the writing, I found the book a little too long, and some of the most important elements of the story seem to happen so fast and are over with in just a few paragraphs. This is not the great love story I remembered, it was just average and ultimately brings the overall rating down. So here is my advice: be careful when going back to an old well loved book, time may change your perspective and tarnish a memory.

I read this book at least 20 years ago...it remains on my bookcase, a perennial read, and one of my very favorite books.

I first read Anya Seton's Green Darkness several years ago -- I don't remember exactly when, sometime in the early 90s -- and although I have a vague memory of it as a "good book", it didn't make a strong impression on me. (Oddly enough, the thing I remember most is that "gillyflower" was an old-fashioned name for carnations). I just re-read it, as part of my current endeavor to read (and re-read) all of Anya Seton's books.

Many of the things that other reviewers have criticized about this book, simply weren't a problem for me. For instance, the complaint that the romance between Stephen and Celia isn't strongly developed. It is true that for a book touted as a romance there isn't a lot of interaction between the two of them; I think that Green Darkness can be considered a "romance" only in the loosest sense. However, I don't consider this a shortcoming in the book. Rather than make Green Darkness simply a love story that focuses on two people, Seton has woven a much larger historical story, a tapestry that incorporates many characters with their own stories within the larger story of the book. Simple love novels are a dime a dozen. However, a truly historical romance that immerses the reader in another time and place are rarer, Seton has done an excellent job of that in this book. The reader is truly drawn in to the historical context of the novel (difficult accents and all).

Also, I think the lack of interaction between Celia and Stephen works because it is a more realistic depiction of how such a relationship might have actually developed in Tudor England. A modern writer may have incorporated many more trysts between the two lovers, having them flout convention to be together. However, Seton's Celia and Stephen embody the culture and conventions of the times in which they lived. Throughout much of the book, it is almost as though the relationship is one-sided, existing only in Celia's imagination; which would be typical of a young, impressionable teenage girl. Later in the book the reader realizes without a doubt that Stephen truly is drawn to her, also, but that it is his religious vocation which holds him back. This, too, is reflective of society in Tudor England.

Another common criticism of this book is that the characters of Stephen and Celia were flat, under-developed and unsympathetic. However, I found them to be as developed and dimensional as any of the other main characters in the book. Indeed, it could almost be argued that Stephen and Celia are just barely the "main" characters at all; the others in the book play as big a role in the story as they do. I did not find Celia to be unlikable -- she was a young, emotional girl who was trying to control her own destiny through the very limited means available to a woman in 16th century Europe. That Stephen's character seemed for the most part to be cool and restrained was a realistic depiction -- a monk living in that time and place, struggling with the things he struggled with, certainly would have kept those struggles on the inside and maintained a cool, composed and "holy" demeanor on the outside. It is perhaps because we are given fewer glimpses into Stephen's mind and thoughts than we are the other characters in the book, that he comes across as cold and unfeeling.

All that being said, this is not my favorite work of Seton's. I suppose I should have foreseen that by the fact that it didn't make a lasting impression with me the first time I read it, although The Winthrop Woman -- which I first read 30 years ago -- made an impression that has lasted to this day. Although Green Darkness is one of Seton's two most popular books (the other being Katherine), I find it less pleasing than her earlier works. This was almost Seton's last book, written in the 1970s, and her style has taken on a coarseness that is off-putting. Two examples of this are the passages dealing with Crazy Bess' drinking blood, and Simkin's homosexuality. Both of these were disturbing to me, even more so since they were completely unnecessary to the plot of the story. In her earlier writing days, Seton would have been more constrained and, if these elements of the story were even mentioned at all, they would have been only implied or hinted at (think of how she dealt with certain aspects of Nicholas Van Ryn and his family in Dragonwyck). I think that such restraint made her earlier works much finer. If she had written Green Darkness 20 years earlier in her career, it would have been a much better book.

I was sorely disappointed with this novel. I found it to be extremely droll, stilted, contrived, totally unsuspenseful, and completely dry. The love story was BORING, the lovers interacting twice in the whole escapade, which utterly contradicts the claim of the author of this being a "gripping love story." I was wondering why this did not appear on the New York Times bestseller list if it was so "magnificent", and now I know. I am really surprised to read any reviews here over two or three stars.

I first read this book when I was a teenager!

I never returned the book to the libary, just could not part with it!

(I did pay for the book!)

Green Darkness remains one of the best books, if not the best I have ever read in my life.

My G-d what a good read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I could give it 10 star's I would.