I meant to read The River for Brona's #RumerGoddenReadingWeek in December and had set it aside on the bedside table so that I wouldn't forget, but nostalgia overtook me last night and I read it early. At only 111 pages long, however, it turned out to be ideal for #NovNov (Novellas in November)...

Rumer Godden (1907-1998) is one of my best-loved authors from an earlier stage in my reading life: I read her novels compulsively each time they came my way. She was a consummate storyteller, and although she can be criticised for her uncritical gaze on British India, she was an astute observer of human nature and her stories are incisive portraits of people.

The River is a coming-of-age story and an elegy for childhood. The main character is Harriet, on the cusp of adolescence and troubled by the complexities of life. Her ambitions to be a writer and her first success with a piece published to family acclaim in the local newspaper might be based on Rumer Godden herself. It was too long ago to remember the details, but I've read Anne Chisholm's Rumer Godden, a Storyteller's Life. So though I know that Godden took up writing professionally to support herself after a failed marriage to a feckless, possibly dishonest man, I recognise Harriet's childhood desire to write that emerges in the pages of The River.

Harriet is between two worlds in more senses than one. Born in India and familiar with the sights, sounds and smells of Bengal where her father manages a jute factory, she knows and loves its festivals and music. But she is not Indian and her privileged status as an English child in an expat family means that she will always be separate and apart from the culture that surrounds her, though she is too young to understand why.

Being European in India, the flavour of Harriet's home was naturally different from most; it was not entirely European, it was not entirely Indian; it was a mixture of both. (p.56)

But Harriet is also neither one thing or another in the family.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/11/06/the-river-by-rumer-godden/