The Mission House

Almost hidden in the delicate layers of this novel is a deeply moving, unlikely love story. Yet, it is only because Carys Davies is able to draw us inexorably into the moral lives of the characters and the chance each has to change for the better , that we come to understand in the final reckoning the importance of love. Hilary Byrd is a rather etiolated, desperately anxious, retired librarian who finds himself a heat-stricken traveller in southern India, having turned his back on an increasingly coarse, uncouth world at home he barely recognises and can no longer endure. He is a man of little conviction or moral certainty. Byrd is an emotionally brittle, vulnerable 58 year old who is unable to make the simplest of decisions without consulting his sister, Wyn, whose forbearance borders on the saintly. His physical unsteadiness seems symptomatic of a life off-balance and a mental atrophy. He is loveless and unfulfilled, a life slipping away. Yet It is a chance meeting with the ‘Padre’, a local priest, that draws Byrd into the temperate hills where the mission house and presbytery seem like an edenic sanctuary blessed by rain and cooling winds. The Christian mission is a haven for the poor and outcast where itinerant missionaries and overseas students salve their consciences with an inviolable if transient devotion to duty. Here, Byrd hears of the young Canadian missionary Henry Page who has returned home but whose return to the mission will have significance for them all.
If the reader is inclined to recall Scott and Forster or Seth and Rushdie, it is because Carys Davies is able to evoke the chaotic colours and sounds of India: the intractable complexities of culture, language and religion. But, she is also interested in creating a folklorish tale of love, parental authority, moral choice and attendant jeopardy at the heart of her story. For it would seem the father/Padre’s final act of faith and love is a moral covenant to find a husband for Priscilla, a young woman of the Toda people who was cast out as a young child because of physical deformity and she bears the stigmata of the pariah. The foundling child and the well-intentioned elder are two elements of the folk tale and Hilary Byrd becomes the third element as the latest stranger to enter the remote sanctuary and the plans of the matchmaker.
If Hilary Byrd’s vacillation and weakness have rendered him less than prepossessing in our minds then his grudging agreement to help Priscilla with her English is hardly going to change things. But, in time he seems almost to care for her as their days are filled with reading fairy stories, cooking and sewing. In fact the way he begins to,first, see himself as someone who can love and, second, Priscilla as someone he can love is gently heart-rending.
The characters are all faced with moral choices, from the rickshaw driver, Jamshed, who first tries to exploit Byrd but ultimately chooses to help him, to the Padre,himself, whose epiphany may be that he has been wrong to manipulate Byrd in his match making. Their human decency seems to prevail and things change But it is Byrd, who openly declares he is not a Christian who seems furthest out of redemptive reach.
Carys Davies’s achievement here is to generate such moral and emotional force from her unlikely love story; and she does it with a beautiful simplicity. In that sense it has echoes of Silas Marner, Of Mice and Men and Ethan Frome.

This book, for me, had the touch of a Somerset Maughan novel about it. Hilary Byrd a deeply troubled quintessential Englishman escapes the heat of the plains to rediscover himself in Ooty, Tamil Nadu. Fortunately for him he is taken in by a local Padre in this hill station community. Gradually as his mind settles, he starts to experience joy in his life, that he has been lacking due to becoming disillusioned with his current employment as a librarian. He forms an unlikely friendship with the local taxi driver Jamshed who runs him around each day. Jamshed starts to build a relationship with Hilary and interprets his daily mood. Priscilla another rescued soul of the Padre also forms an attachment with Hilary though a pupil teacher relationship and not perhaps the romantic one he wishes for. Ravi, Jamshed’s erstwhile nephew also is a prominent character, as aspiring Country western singer with his old pony.

A worthwhile read, a little sad and melancholy in parts. Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for a copy of the novel in exchange for this honest review.

At the start of The Mission House, Carys Davies throws us into an Indian hilltown, as an Englishman, Byrd, arrives to meet with a small array of characters who we gradually come to work out in relation to each other. There is Byrd himself, fleeing his difficulties in England, the Padre and Priscilla his foster daughter, long-suffering rickshaw driver Jamshed and his nephew Ravi. All the characters are looking for some personal happiness but in ways that might inadvertently conflict with the happiness of others.

This book is really a joy it is so beautifully written conveying a powerful sense of place through vivid and careful detail. The characters are all incredibly poignant in their different ways, Byrd particularly., is such a tragic and believable figure. I loved it.

This is a beautiful book, which perfectly encapsulates the town of Ooty, Tamil Nadu. I would still have enjoyed the tale of the sad librarian if I hadn’t travelled to Ooty, the gentle characters are wonderfully drawn. I will look out for further books by Carys Davies.

This is a marvellous book. The colour, the noise, the chaos and the dialogue transport me directly to south India right from the first page. 'Incomprehensible, foreign and strange' are the author's words, echoing my first impressions of India, a place that cast its spell over me just as it does the main character of the book. There are so many little details that bring the scene vividly to life, whether in the bustling streets of the town or the quiet of the Mission House.

From the start I asked myself why Byrd was there, and what the mystery is that involves the police. All is revealed gently and steadily throughout the narrative.

The characters are all interesting and believable: Byrd the depressive ex-librarian learning to fend for himself; Jamshed the auto rickshaw driver who is an ever-open ear for Byrd's thoughts which find their way into his journal; the Padre with his sad life; orphan Priscilla who is the subject of so many people's schemes but who has plans of her own; Ravi the hairdresser with his dreams of greatness.

The book has an old'-fashioned feel, but is right up-to-date with the tensions in India on the one hand, and Byrd's discomfort with the modern world of libraries stripped of dictionaries to make way for technology on the other. There are so many subtle comments about today's society which are never blatant but always sit comfortably in the narrative.

Until now I was not aware of Carys Davies, but thanks to NetGalley I will certainly be reading more of her work.

I was attracted to "The Mission House" by a description which categorised the novel as post-colonial literature which I enjoy, especially when it is set in India.
In the afterword author Carys Davies explains that the setting is based on the former British hill station, Ootacamund in Tamil Nadu and, having looked at the map of "Ooty", I can see many of the places described so vividly in the novel which is fascinating. The novel's characters are sympathetically depicted and I think that most readers will recognise one or two who remind them of people they know. Also worth a mention is the weather, which is a character in itself and must have baffled many old colonial types. This pleasant setting and the (mainly) gentle community seem light years away from any religiously motivated unrest which is going on in the rest of this vast country ...
This is India at a time of immense change. Some people are clinging to the old colonial ways and culture, others are discovering the culture of the USA, others are living each day as it comes, and some want to forge a new - and nationalist - Hindu India. The reader experiences this mainly through the eyes and exploits of a socially inept English depressive travelling alone.
I really enjoyed this read until I neared the end which I think is a bit abrupt; I need to know what happened next on that final day. Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for giving me a copy of the novel in exchange for this honest review. 4.75 stars.

Oh this was such a beautifully written story. The characters were so vividly drawn, than I really didn’t want the story to end.
Librarian Hilary Byrd, has come to India to escape the anxieties of the modern world. A chance meeting on a train leads him to the Mission House in a small hill town, where he is offered a cheap room, space to heal and the freedom to explore his surroundings guided by a local auto rickshaw driver Jamshed. By day he visits the botanical gardens, shops for food, eats lunch at a local hotel, spends time reading at the library, before returning home, and eating with the Padre and his adopted daughter Priscilla.

Such a cast of characters... from Hilary who was forced to leave his job after many years because he didn’t like how ‘modern’ libraries were becoming, with rude people, noisy customers, and declining poetry sections.

Then we have Jamshed, who keeps a diary of the events of his day so that he can practice his English and whose nephew Ravi the hairdresser dreams of becoming a country and western singer Padre who has lost his wife, and dreams that one day his church and he will be attached by religious extremists.

And finally Priscilla, the girl who was abandoned by her mother, brought up in an orphanage and who discovers the music of Patsy Cline.

Ultimately Hilary finds confidence, and a sense of purpose, perhaps even love, and is able to sacrifice himself to ensure the happiness of someone else.