December 2011: Rumer Godden

Rumer Godden (10 December 1907, Sussex, England (legal name Margaret Rumer Godden) – 8 November 1998). She grew up in Narayanganj, colonial India. Trained as a dancer, running a dancing school in Calcutta for 20 years. Converted to Catholicism in 1968 which changed the tone in some of her later works.

(Jon Godden is her sister - yeah, the name threw me off as well)

Books for Adults

Fiction

* 1936 Chinese Puzzle
* 1937 The Lady and the Unicorn
* 1939 Black Narcissus
* 1940 Gypsy, Gypsy
* 1942 Breakfast with the Nikolides
* 1945 Take Three Tenses: A Fugue in Time
* 1946 The River
* 1947 A Candle for St. Jude
* 1950 A Breath of Air
* 1953 Kingfishers Catch Fire
* 1956 An Episode of Sparrows
* 1957 Mooltiki, and other stories and poems of India
* 1958 The Greengage Summer
* 1961 China Court: The Hours of a Country House
* 1963 The Battle of the Villa Fiorita
* 1968 Gone: A Thread of Stories (written with Jon Godden)
* 1968 Swans and Turtles (short stories)
* 1969 In This House of Brede
* 1975 The Peacock Spring
* 1979 Five For Sorrow, Ten For Joy
* 1981 The Dark Horse
* 1984 Thursday's Children
* 1989 Indian Dust (written with Jon Godden)
* 1990 Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love: Stories (written with Jon Godden)
* 1991 Coromandel Sea Change
* 1994 Pippa Passes
* 1997 Cromartie vs. the God Shiva

Non-fiction

* 1943 Rungli-Rungliot – republished in 1961 as Thus Far and No Further
* 1955 Hans Christian Andersen
* 1966 Two Under the Indian Sun (childhood memories – written with Jon Godden)
* 1968 Mrs. Manders' Cook Book
* 1971 The Tale of the Tales: Beatrix Potter Ballet
* 1972 Shiva's Pigeons (written with Jon Godden)
* 1977 The Butterfly Lions: The Story of the Pekingese in History Legend and Art
* 1980 Gulbadan: Portrait of a Rose Princess At the Mughal Court
* 1987 A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep, an autobiography
* 1989 A House with Four Rooms, an autobiography

Children's Books

* 1947 The Doll's House
* 1951 The Mousewife
* 1952 Mouse House
* 1954 Impunity Jane: The Story of a Pocket Doll
* 1956 The Fairy Doll
* 1958 The Story of Holly and Ivy
* 1960 Candy Floss
* 1961 Saint Jerome and the Lion (retelling of the legend in verse)
* 1961 Miss Happiness and Miss Flower
* 1963 Little Plum, the sequel to Miss Happiness and Miss Flower
* 1964 Home is the Sailor
* 1967 The Kitchen Madonna
* 1969 Operation Sippacik
* 1972 The Diddakoi (also published as Gypsy Girl), winner of the Whitbread Award. (review in the Guardian here
* 1972 The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle
* 1975 Mr. McFadden's Hallowe'en
* 1977 The Rocking Horse Secret
* 1978 A Kindle of Kittens
* 1981 The Dragon of Og
* 1983 Four Dolls
* 1983 The Valiant Chatti-Maker
* 1984 Mouse Time: Two Stories
* 1990 Fu-Dog
* 1992 Great Grandfather's House
* 1992 Listen to the Nightingale
* 1996 The Little Chair
* 1996 Premlata and the Festival of Lights

Poetry

* 1949 In Noah's Ark
* 1968 A Letter to the World (written with Emily Dickinson)
* 1996 Cockcrow to Starlight: A Day Full of Poetry (Anthology for Children)
* 1996 A Pocket Book of Spiritual Poems

Books about her:
* 1998 Rumer Godden: A Storyteller's Life by Anne Chisholm
? 2010 Rumer Godden by Phyllis B. Lassner and Lucy Le-Guilcher (info about the book http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754668282 )

(not authorized? Not sure about this one at all)
? 1996 Rumer Godden Revisited by Lynne Meryl Rosenthal

Sites:
http://www.rumergodden.com/
http://www.lunaea.com/words/rumer/
Obituary: http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Obits/Godden/Telegraph.html
An article about her: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3670310/Rumer-Goddens-life-is-a-story-i...
Interview: http://youtu.be/GIJHbydQmU0

PS: Relying on Wikipedia (and verified on the site and a few more resources) for the lists so mistakes are possible. Will be fixing them on the fly.

So what are you reading in December? :)

I will either read Listen to the Nightingale or The Episode of Sparrows. Probably the first.

There was a book sale at the library for ex-library books that I went to yesterday - to actually pick up library books not buy any. A friend told me about it a few days ago so I didn't expect to find anything amazing left... well I did find quite a few books including The Peacock Spring so I definitely got that one! I also borrowed China Court: The Hours of a Country House and have bought The Greengage Summer.

I will be reading one or more of the following: The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, China Court, An Episode of Sparrows and/or Black Narcissus.

I'll read Two Under The Indian Sun.

Wow; so many to chose from. I am being chintzy of a sudden and trying to save my pennies for Christmas with the grandkiddies & the great also. So I hit PBS & BookMooch and was able to find quite a few of Rumer Godden's books. I really wanted to read In This House of Brede as I have long wished to, but couldn't find it on either one so I settled on An Episode of Sparrows. It sounds like it might be very good. Now I just hope it gets here in a timely manner.
I have only read her The Greengage Summer for a blog group read and I enjoyed it so I am really looking forward to this read.

>6 rainpebble:

I am getting In This House of Brede -- if you want it after that, I can list it for you at BM.

The one I would really like a copy of is Thursday's Children. It seems to be out of print so I will 'make do' with In This House of Brede. Both are old favourites of mine.

>@#7:
AnnieMod;
If you are serious, I would love to take you up on that. Thank you so much. But are you certain that you won't be wishing to read it again? I often read my books numerous times. If, after you have read it you still feel the same way, I would love to mooch it from you.

>9 rainpebble:

:) Not something that goes in my permanent collection -- and that is why I am grabbing a not-so-perfect copy (missing dustjacket and all that). If you want it, it is yours.

Oh my goodness, I didn't realise how prolific Godden was! I'll be reading In This House of Brede.

Rumer godden: A storyteller's life by Anne Chisholm is a book I have from the library at the moment and would love to read it. I also have The Greengage Summer on my wishlist. Anyone else reading the Anne Chisholm book?

>12 juliette07:

If it makes it here on time...

12, 13 I've told the library I want it, so it will be held for me. By next week I should be over this cold and able to go pick it up.

I've ordered In this House of Brede from BD.

I got the Greengage Summer in the post from BD yesterday :)

I've been a Rumer Godden fan for many years and through my teens and twenties read my way through virtually all her books - though there are still some touchstone works without my ticks beside them. Since it's December when my reading tends to be re-reading (all those Christmas books!) I'm going for nostalgia in a big way.

Last month I listened to an audiobook of Greengage Summer and loved it. The reader was Nicola Paget. For December I shall go ever further back to my childhood and re-read Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and Little Plum. These were read to me in story time when I was at Primary School - about 45 years ago now. I've recently finally got my own copy of The Dolls' House, so that will go on the list and I often look through A Kindle of Kittens. I think my favourite of all her works is China Court and In this House of Brede is a good one for Christmas time.

That should keep me busy.

A bit over halfway through In This House of Brede and I love it. Slow, patient and out of another era. :) More when I finish it but it actually surprises me that I like it that much - I cannot stand most of the contemporary non-genre novels that people seem to love... so I was worried for that one - it is not old enough to fall with Dickens and so on... but it does work beautifully.

I finished Black Narcissus at the weekend and enjoyed it. There were aspects of the plot which I felt uncomfortable with but I loved the nuns and I loved the gentle humour and the wisdom underlying Godden's writing. I will definitely be reading more Godden.

I would love to read The House of Brede (more nuns!) though it doesn't seem easily available in the UK. Apparently Virago will be publishing a lot of her books in 2013 so hopefully that will be one of them.

I just bought it through Book Depository, which is UK.

But maybe they will republish Thursday's Children which alternates with Brede as my favourite. (Thursday's Children is ballet school, so very different.)

#17 I agree. Who thought that a book set in a convent could be so full of life?

Yesterday I finished reading The Greengage Summer. It was based (but embellished) on a family holiday Godden remembered from from childhood.

The story begins with a British family of Greys, 5 siblings, Joss is the eldest at 16, Cecil the narrator is next at 13, then there is Frances, Willmouse, and Vicky the youngest at 5. Willmouse the only boy is effeminate and even at a young age is consumed by fashion and design. Their mother, it is assumed, is not satisfied with her life but is trying to make the best of it. Her husband, the childrens father, is almost permanently absent travelling the world to distant lands as a botanist. He doesn't earn even nearly enough to provide for his wife and children and so their mother's brother, Uncle William, provides for them. This is very generous but it means living in a small, nosy and critical, English town and he is very proper and normal and so he comes across as being this abnormal family's keeper and almost their jailor.

With two of her children entering the difficult, sullen, selfish, teenagehood, she looses her temper one day and declares that she is taking the family to France, to the battlefields so the children can see for themselves the sacrifices others made for their freedom, and to see where Joan of Arc died (a role model it seems). In actuality this sudden flight to France is really an escape from the every day struggle and boredom, an unconscious decision to do something different and exciting.

So they never go near the battlefields etc however disastor strikes almost as soon as they leave. Their mother is bitten by a horsefly and becomes terribly ill. The children just manage to get to their hotel in France before she collapses and ends up in hospital. The hotel owners andd patrons decide to allow the children to stay.

The children are thrown into a new world; the Hotel Les Oeillets is foreign and not used to children underfoot. Normal boundaries that would usually be set for children by their parents are absent - they must make do and fend for themselves. This is a coming of age story. Cecil catches on to the undercurrent dramas in the hotel amongst the adults and is naturally curious. This is a summer holiday they will never forget.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's a young adult novel but I found it just as interesting reading it as an adult. The narrator (Cecil who would have been Rumer in real life), wasn't as self absorbed as YA books/narrators tend to be these days. So I was fully immersed in the life at the Hotel Les Oeillets, in the french countryside, the unique characters, both French and British, both present and not (Uncle William). I highly recommend this as a summer holiday read, for on the beach or under a tree type of book. The lyrical prose is fantastic...

First Sentence:
"On and off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages."

Breaking into song ...... doooo do do dooo do 'A few of my favourite things'

Ah, la belle France, les reines claudes - greengages - my favourite fruit. This was one of my dear Mummy's beloved books as well. One of our most memorable walks in the Pyrenees involved exactly that .... gorging oneself on greengages off the tree!

21: Great review of The Greengage Summer, Kiwiflowa. I really like the sound of that. My review of Black Narcissus is on the book's main page.

22: Julie, what wonderful memories!

So sorry Kiwiflowa - your review was what inspired me to write of my memories so thank you!!
~23 Have we seen the film?

24: Of Black Narcissus? No, do you recommend it?

Oh yes - there is more info here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039192/
Does anyone else know the film as well?

I read The Mousewife last night. Very cute.

Which reminds me. Any recommendations on her Children's books? Planning in picking up a few... The Story Holly and Ivy for sure (it's this time of the year after all) but might as well pick a few more.

The Dark Horse and The Diddakoi are among my favourites. Both of them are for somewhat older children - books that preteens and adults can both enjoy on different levels.

#28 I've chosen mostly children's books for this month. I've read Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and Little Plum - both lovely. I also read The story of Holly and Ivy and enjoyed it very much. Next on my list is The Dolls' House. I can remember reading them when I was a child - or rather having them read to me and reading them again when my daughter was ready for them. She is now 23 and remembers them fondly. They all make me cry (so do some of her adult books - there are large chunks of In this House of Brede that I read with hanky in hand) but I cry fairly easily at familiar books so it may just be nostalgia.

I gave one of her children's books a go, but decided that it wasn't for me. Listen to the Nightingale was published in 1992, but feels more like it was written in 1952. I wasn't all that interested in the premise--sounds like a young ballerina has to choose between dance or a puppy. I made it to page 22 (the first two chapters), and I found it packed with cliches and improbable events. This has been in Mnt TBR for over 10 years and I'm happy to move it along to the charity shop now.

I read Greengage Summer last year and thought it was really lovely. I will read more Godden in the future, but perhaps I'll stick with the books written for older readers.

I also enjoyed Miss happiness and Miss Flower.

#31> I'd choose the puppy, personally.

I'm about halfway through The Battle of the Villa Fiorita and I don't think I'm a fan. The story is interesting enough (two children travel to Italy to see their mother, who has run off with another man), but I'm finding it somewhat dated. The writing style is reminding me mostly of Enid Blyton, which is making me feel patronised. This isn't a children's book, I should note! I'll probably stick with it until the end, but at the moment I'm not feeling the love.

I should say that the mother is very sympathetically portrayed, and I do like that.

And the preface (written by Godden) was interesting: 1) she didn't mean to have any parallels between her story and Ingrid Bergman running off with Roberto Rossellini, but there are a lot of surface similarities, and she dryly notes that it was her least popular book in America; 2) she writes first and researches last.

I've now also read The Dragon of Og and am reading Rumer Godden: A Storyteller's Life. Dragon is cute, but not one of her better children's books.

I am really enjoying the biography. Long time since I read her autobiography, but between that and the many of her books I have read (and a little of my own connection to India) there are a lot of resonances.

I recently read the very short Henry James and Lamb House, which was quite interesting. Rumer Godden was one of the tenants in the house, years after James's death. I hope to visit it on my next trip to England--it's a National Trust property, and I think it's cool that I'll be hitting two famous author's homes in one swoop. I wonder if the house gives off good writing vibes?

#35 E. F. Benson and one of his brothers also lived there for several years and Lamb House is the model for Mallards in his Mapp & Lucia novels. I love to visit it every time I go to Rye. The whole town and the surrounding marsh has literary connections - Malcolm Saville and Monica Edwards lived in the area and used it for many of their YA/children's books.

I have just read An Episode of Sparrows. A very charming read that also looks at charity, poverty and parental neglect in post-war London.

If/when there's a discussion of "In this house of Bede" I'd like to join in.

Well - we can start any time you want - separate thread or here :) I am writing my review at the moment -- I can as well talk about it.

I've finished The Battle of the Villa Fiorita and I do have to say it improved for me in the last third or so. The tension ratcheted up, it stopped feeling so condescending, and it was (always) an interesting story.

I'd like to read some of her others now, but will have to wait until one falls into my lap, I think! :)

Had been reading Anne Chisholm's book over the long weekend.

I will be writing a review before the month is over but... why cannot someone write a biography that does not contain spoilers about how books finish? I understand looking at the works to find the author (especially in this case), I understand following some books but spoiling the end and the main strength of some books is just... bad.

Now - that won't stop me from reading the books. And I really enjoyed the biography. But....

While waiting for a few of her books to arrive, decided to check what is available on kindle... and found two of her children stories.

The Doll's House is charming. I start to find out that I quite like the children fiction of that era -- I never read most of it in my childhood and I quite like the simple stories that manage to sound interesting even to adults. Who would have thought that I would be worried about what will happen to a doll? And explaining the big words in the story was... a nice touch.

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower Was surprising as well. Even if all the information about Japan was not in the book, i would have been a charmer of a story. With all of it - I wish I had read it as a child.

I am not entirely sure that the style will work for a child these days. It works for me - but then I am a bit past their target age :)

Now the biggest issue I have is that I really enjoyed her writing in any of the books I read... so I am tracking down the rest of her books...

In this house of Brede
This waited for January because I was busy with shorter books finishing up my challenges for 2011. Still as good as ever, but I am really glad to have my own copy now.

Coming in late to say thank you for reminding me about Rumer Godden! I loved her children's books when I was younger, and read several of her adult novels, but didn't know she was so prolific. I read An Episode of Sparrows last week, and loved it--such a sweet and charming story. I also read Kingfishers Catch Fire, which is one of the best books I've read in a long time (and I've had no shortage of good reads lately). It was amazing and wonderful how Godden managed to make every single one of the characters sympathetic and true, while all possessing such opposing viewpoints. She portrayed each different perspective so perfectly and so lovingly, and gave me much food for thought. I highly recommend this one.