Paul gallico the snow goose

During recent “Me Before You” discussions, some of us wondered if most fictional romances between disabled and nondisabled characters were always cut short. I started thinking about a story I read a long time ago.

I don’t  remember how old I was when I first read The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. I’m pretty sure that it was between the ages of 10 and 13, because I was already familiar with the story when a made-for-tv version of it aired in 1971.  Here’s a good synopsis of the story from Wikipedia:

The Snow Goose is a simple, short written parable on the regenerative power of friendship and love, set against a backdrop of the horror of war. It documents the growth of a friendship between Philip Rhayader, an artist living a solitary life in an abandoned lighthouse in the marshlands of Essex because of his disabilities, and a young local girl, Fritha. The snow goose, symbolic of both Rhayader (Gallico) and the world itself, wounded by gunshot and many miles from home, is found by Fritha and, as the human friendship blossoms, the bird is nursed back to flight, and revisits the lighthouse in its migration for several years. As Fritha grows up, Rhayader and his small sailboat eventually are lost in the British retreat from Dunkirk, having saved several hundred men. The bird, which was with Rhayader, returns briefly to the grown Fritha on the marshes. She interprets this as Rhayader’s soul taking farewell of her (and realizes she had come to love him). Afterwards, a German pilot destroys Rhayader’s lighthouse and all of his work, except for one portrait Fritha saves after his death: a painting of her as Rhayader first saw her—a child, with the wounded snow goose in her arms.

This is the story that all of us read. It’s the story that’s told in the movie version.

But it’s not the version that Paul Gallico originally wrote.

Many years ago, measured in decades, I read an introduction written by Gallico in

REVIEW:  The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico (1947)

In 1940, The Saturday Evening Post carried a short story by Paul Gallico (1897-1976), who had begun his career as a sports reporter but who, in 1936, had moved to England and started writing fiction. In 1941, the story was published by Alfred A. Knopf as a slim novella of some fifty pages and was Gallico's first major success as a fiction writer, being reprinted several dozen times in succeeding years. It was also Gallico's only critical success, although he went on to write the hugely popular "Mrs. 'Arris" series, as well as The Poseidon Adventure. The Snow Goose was, in Gallico's words, "a once in a lifetime happening for a writer."

The story of The Snow Goose is a variation on the ageless myth of a man whose physical deformity prevents most people from seeing his underlying admirable character. It begins in 1930, and is set on the east coast of England. Philip Rhayader, an artist in his late twenties, is a hunchback with a crippled left arm. Rebuffed by society, he retreats to the desolate marshland by the sea, where he lives in an abandoned lighthouse. There he paints the marsh and the wildfowl that inhabit it, and provides a sanctuary for birds over the winter before they migrate north in the spring.

One day, three years after Rhayader had come to the lighthouse, a young girl named Frith, no more than twelve, comes to seek him out. Carrying an injured bird in her arms, she approaches the lighthouse timidly, for she is frightened of its strange inhabitant, but she has heard of his reputation for taking care of the marsh's wildlife. Rhayader tends to the bird, and tells Frith it is a Canadian snow goose, blown off course by a violent storm. Frith visits the lighthouse often to see the bird, but after it flies north in the spring, her visits stop. And Rhayader's loneliness returns.

In mid-October the snow goose returns, and Rhayader is overjoyed. He sends

Novella by Paul Gallico

The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk is a novella by the American author Paul Gallico. It was first published in 1940 as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post, after which he expanded it to create a short novella which was published on 7 April 1941.

Plot summary

The Snow Goose is a simple, short written parable on the regenerative power of friendship and love, set against a backdrop of the horror of war. It documents the growth of a friendship between Philip Rhayader, an artist living a solitary life in an abandoned lighthouse in the marshlands of Essex because of his disabilities, and a young local girl, Fritha.

The snow goose, symbolic of both Rhayader (Gallico) and the world itself, wounded by gunshot and many miles from home, is found by Fritha and, as the human friendship blossoms, the bird is nursed back to flight, and revisits the lighthouse in its migration for several years. As Fritha grows up, Rhayader and his small sailboat eventually are lost in the Dunkirk evacuation, having saved several hundred men. The bird, which was with Rhayader, returns briefly to the grown Fritha on the marshes. She interprets this as Rhayader's soul taking farewell of her (and realizes she had come to love him). Afterwards, a German pilot destroys Rhayader's lighthouse and all of his work, except for one portrait Fritha saved after his death: a painting of her as Rhayader first saw her – a child, with the injured snow goose in her arms.

Reception

The Snow Goose was one of the O. Henry Prize Winners in 1941.

Critic Robert van Gelder called it "perhaps the most sentimental story that ever has achieved the dignity of a Borzoi imprint [logo of publisher Alfred A. Knopf]. It is a timeless legend that makes use of every timeless appeal that could be crowded into it." A public library put it on a list of "tearjerkers". Gallico made no apologies, sa