Coromandel Sea Change / Greengage Summer / The River

by Rumer Godden

In this anthology, three of Rumer Godden's best-loved novels include Coromandel Sea Change, (246 pages), her No 1 bestseller, a captivating love story set in Southern India at election time; The Greengage Summer, (187 pages), an evocative portrait of love and deceit in rural France which became a film starring Kenneth More and Susannah York; and The River, (111 pages), a beautiful tribute to India and childhood, made into a film by the great French director Jean Renoir.

Genres: India

544 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 1995

About the author

Margaret Rumer Godden was an English author of more than 60 fiction and non-fiction books. Nine of her works have been made into films, most notably Black Narcissus in 1947 and The River in 1951.
A few of her works were co-written with her elder sister, novelist Jon Godden, including Two Under the Indian Sun, a memoir of the Goddens' childhood in a region of India now part of Bangladesh.

Reviews

[Jan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have what could be construed as an odd occasional habit of reading books to prolong or enhance an atmosphere. For instance, around Christmas I like to read or re-read books that centre on or involve the subject of Christmas. Thus I turned to this beautiful, nay perfect, little book to help keep alive for just a little longer the wonderful mood of a recent tour of Northern France. But this book is also so much more than that; a book of many levels. Narrated from the perspective of Cecil Bullock, 5 Bullock children & their mother embark on a trip to a hotel in a little town on the Marne in France. When Mother becomes ill, & then also the eldest child Joss, it falls to 13 year old Cecil to negotiate the family's temporary existence in a hostile environment. A suave Englishman, Eliot, comes to their aid but he is not all he seems. In the course of the story, Cecil comes to learn that adulthood is a very precarious place, where along with love & loyalty there is deceit & disappointment, and to yearn to be able to return to blessed childhood, free of that knowledge. It's not a massive tome but so wonderfully written with such insight & tenderness that you will want to keep & re-read it time & time again.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

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/t...

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read Coromandel Sea Change, it was like reading Maeve Binchy set in India.