The Small Rain
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| cover of the 1984 edition of The Small Rain | |
| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
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| Cover Artist | Sam Salant |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Katherine Forrester |
| Genre(s) | Bildungsroman (coming of age novel) |
| Publisher | The Vanguard Press (1945) Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1984) |
| Released | 1945 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 371 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-374-26637-9 |
| Preceded by | '18 Washington Square, South: A Comedy in One Act (play) |
| Followed by | Ilsa |
The Small Rain is a semi-autobiographical novel by Madeline L'Engle, about the many difficulties in the life of talented pianist Katherine Forrester between the ages of 10 and 18. Published in 1945 by The Vanguard Press, it was the first of L'Engle's long list of books, and was reprinted in 1984. L'Engle began work on it in college, and completed it while an actress in New York.[1]
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[edit] Plot Summary
Young Katherine has not seen her mother Julie in three years, since the latter was in an accident that ended her career as a pianist. Katherine has been studying piano herself, doing a little professional acting, and living with "Aunt Manya", a family friend known to the rest of the world as Madame Sergeivna, a famous actress on the Broadway stage. When she is ten, Katherine is reunited with Julie, and lives with her until Julie's premature death four years later.
Manya marries Katherine's father, a composer named Tom Forrester, with whom Katherine has a cordial but not especially close relationship. Katherine thinks all will be well until she learns they are sending her away to a boarding school in Switzerland. She is miserable there until she meets the school's piano teacher, Justin Vigneras, who was away at the beginning of the term. Katherine adores him, and is gratified that there is finally someone at school who understands and supports her passion for music and her need to practice. She also learns to get along better with her peers, forming an intense friendship with Sarah, a girl she previously met briefly on her seventh birthday. However, school officials misinterpret that friendship as a sexual attraction, and Sarah becomes distant with Katherine after Miss Valentine interrogates the girls. Just as Katherine's relationship with Justin begins to develop into a closer relationship, he leaves the school.
After a suffering through the rest of school and a brief romance with Charles Bejart, a young physician and Manya's adopted son, Katherine returns to New York. There she studies with her mother's old teacher, shares an apartment with Sarah, who is now an actress, and becomes engaged to Pete, who used to help look after Katherine at the theater. Ultimately Katherine is betrayed by them both, as Pete and Sarah become romantically involved with each other. Katherine leaves them behind and returns to Justin, ostensibly to study with him in Paris.
[edit] Context
In her introduction to the 1984 edition of The Small Rain, Madeleine L'Engle mentions a number of similarities between Katherine's early life and her own. Both lived in New York and worked in the theater, but had aspirations in another field of artistic endeavor. L'Engle says that Katherine "approached her work with the same determination and single-mindedness with which I approached mine." Both had mothers who played the piano, and both lost a parent while in their teens, although with L'Engle it was her father. Both had a slight limp from one leg being slightly shorter than the other.[2] Both attended boarding school in Switzerland, where they were "lonely and unhappy."[1] Both wrote to their families at a classmate's suggestion, asking to come home, but to no avail.[3] Nevertheless, L'Engle states that "The deeper I got into the novel, the more Katherine became Katherine and the less Madeleine. But we are sisters, there's no doubt about that."[1]
Some of these same elements reappear in other early novels by L'Engle. Flip (Philippa Hunter) of And Both Were Young is another aspiring artist who attends a boarding school in Switzerland, initially fails to get on well with peers, and has trouble with an athletics instructor over one leg being shorter than the other. Virginia ("Vee") Bowen of A Winter's Love (the protagonist's daughter) attends a similar school and is a future writer. However, Vee's problems, such as they are, stem from difficulties at home rather than at school.
[edit] Subsequent editions and related works
In 1968, The Vanguard Press issued the L'Engle novel Prelude (LC 68-56600). The indicia page notes the book's provenance: "This book has been especially adapted for young people by the author from the first part of her novel, The Small Rain." Dedicated to L'Engle's father, Charles Wadsworth Camp (as is The Small Rain), Prelude covers the events of Katherine's life until Justin leaves the boarding school. The ending of Prelude is slightly more upbeat than the corresponding one in The Small Rain, with mutual promises that they will see each other again. By contrast, the same scene in The Small Rain ends with the words, "She...sat there until she saw Justin leave the studio, carrying the music he hadn't already packed, walking happily, he head held high and proud, out of her life." Another major difference is that Prelude omits Justin's drunken advances toward the still-underage Katherine in Paris, shortly before she returns to school without him. The scene in which Miss Valentine interrogates Katherine and Sarah about their friendship (which does not directly mention homosexuality) is left intact.
In 1984, The Small Rain was reissued by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, the publishers of nearly all of Madeleine L'Engle's other novels since A Wrinkle in Time (1962). This current edition, ISBN 0-374-26637-9, features a dust jacket by Sam Salant and a new introduction by L'Engle, in which she mentions the continuation of Katherine's story in her 1982 novel A Severed Wasp. This sequel returns to Katherine as an elderly widow, looking back on her life while trying to survive and unravel a frightening mystery at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c L'Engle, Madeleine (1984). The Small Rain (introduction). New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, vii-xii. ISBN 0-374-26637-9.
- ^ L'Engle, Madeleine (1972). A Circle of Quiet. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pg 142. ISBN 0-374-12374-8.
- ^ L'Engle, Madeleine (1974). The Summer of the Great-Grandmother. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pg 100. ISBN 0-374-27174-7.
