Wednesday, August 16, 2017

RUMER GODDEN, A Candle for St Jude (1948) & Cromartie vs. the God Shiva (1997)


I only finally wrote about Rumer Godden here back in February (wow, time flies), when I finally got round to reading the wonderful China Court. I've read a good many of her other books before I ever started blogging, so she had never turned up here, despite being one of my favorite authors. But recently, I finally turned to two of her books that I had never felt compelled to sample before. The first of these was also the first of Godden's dance-themed books that I've experienced.

I love my vintage paperback edition
of this book, so can't help sharing it with you

I think I always imagined that, not being particularly interested in ballet, I would find her dance books less interesting or enjoyable than her other novels, but in fact I found Candle just as difficult to put down as any of her other books. If it's perhaps not, for me, absolutely in the top tier of Godden's novels, it's still very, very good. The aging Madame Holbein, once a great dancer herself, now a great teacher, can be added to the many inspiring women characters Godden created (I picture a film version, with a marvelous opportunity for an older actress—hmmmm, who should it be?), and the dynamic between her and the young dancers—her favorite, who is letting her ego get the best of her, and the brilliant student Madame resents, perhaps, for being too good—is fascinating.


Of course, as much as anything, it's Godden's unique and compelling style that makes the book succeed. I love her description of the poor theatre dressmaker:

Miss Porteus wore a little hard black velvet pincushion pinned to the left breast of her dress in the shape of a heart. To her niece, Lollie, it seemed that it was Miss Porteus' heart, withered and worn, stuck with sharp pins. Madame would have added, "Filled with sawdust instead of good red blood," but that was too old a thought for Lollie, who worried about her aunt.

And then there's this passage, which evokes the passage of time that Godden explored so eloquently in A Fugue in Time and would again in China Court:

Tomorrow Archie would dart, every nerve alive in a tumultuous effort to please, his eyes hot and dry, his cheeks burning, his heart beating like a clapper with excitement. It happened again, in every season, with every performance, with each entrance of each dance. Time passes, that is what they say, but that is what it doesn't do, said Madame. In each one, with each one, Madame lived through it again. It left her exhausted, but that was why she lived.

After Candle, I went on and read a couple of other books, but Godden's siren song soon proved too strong.


After enjoying Fugue and China Court so much, I had immediately placed an order for a couple more of the new-ish Virago editions of her work, so there was Cromartie vs. the God Shiva waiting patiently on my TBR shelf, seducing me into picking it up.

Cromartie was Godden's last book, published in 1997 (I hadn't quite registered that she published anything that late). It's set mostly in India where a young London attorney is investigating the background behind the theft of a valuable Hindu sculpture from a once-grand hotel, and is loosely based on a real case in which a similar sculpture was siezed by police as stolen as it was being examined in a museum. His resulting romance, and the details of his investigations, however, are pure fiction.



The book is enjoyable—it's hard for me to imagine anything by Godden not being that—and satisfying enough. It's just on a smaller, less complex scale than much of her earlier work, and therefore I suspect it won't linger in my memory for quite so long. But if you've exhausted most of Godden's work, and just can't bear not to have her humane, thoughtful authorial voice in your head yet again, Cromartie vs. the God Shiva may be just what the doctor ordered.

9 comments:

  1. The only one of her novels that I am SURE I have read is "In This House of Brede," where the high-powered business woman throws it all over and becomes a nun. Very powerful. Perhaps it meant more to me having been raised a Catholic, but it was so well crafted. Later there was a television movie starring Diana Riggs and it, too, was quite powerful. Of course, it had great source material!
    Tom

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    1. I think you might like The Greengage Summer and An Episode of Sparrows, Tom, for a start. And Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy revisits her interest in nuns' lives, though it's a bit grittier than Brede.

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  2. I love the RG books that I've read - I think my fave is "Five for Sorrow, Ten for joy" but also the children's book "The Kitchen Madonna". For some reason, I haven't searched out her other books though. I really should, I think!

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    1. If you enjoy her work for children, do try some of her adult fiction. She's one of those writers who writes about children extraordinarily well.

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  3. I bought China Court after your earlier post about Rumer Godden, having long been haunted by In This House of Brede and The Greengage Summer. What with all the other books I've collected after you recommended them, I have only just started it, but with that wonderful feeling of guaranteed delight. Now there's even more ahead - thank you!

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    1. I hope you like China Court as much as I did, Tanya! If you do, you have many more Goddens to look forward to.

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  4. I loved reading The Greengage Summer for the first time last year. I now have a couple more Godden's on my TBR pile - set in India this time. I'm looking outward to them

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    1. Enjoy! Kingfishers Catch Fire is my favorite of the Indian novels, but I also have The Peacock Spring on my TBR shelf right now.

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  5. I adore Rumer Godden, too. Such a great storyteller. In This House of Brede is stunning. Enjoyed reading your review.

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