Word: godden
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BREAKFAST WITH THE NIKOLIDES-Rumer Godden-Little, Brown...
...Rumer Godden is one of the most interesting of bad writers, or else one of the most unsatisfying of good ones. Breakfast With the Nikolides is much sharper and more mature than Gypsy, Gypsy (TIME, Aug. 12, 1940), yet as a whole the book is like an overcomplicated omelet prepared by an amateur chef too late at night for those who must digest...
...course of the telling, Miss Godden gets in some beautiful local color and some sharp child psychologizing. She shows a sensitivity to moods that is almost reminiscent of Virginia Woolf. But there is so much mystification, soft-focus symbolism and feminine theatricality that an almost fine novel becomes too dreamlike and sinister for words. Extreme sensitiveness breeds a type of melodrama, even...
...Rumer Godden is an Englishwoman who lives in India. Last year her Black Narcissus (TIME, July 17, 1939) spun out the struggling efforts of a group of Anglican nuns to do good against the handicaps of their new convent (a quondam seraglio) and the tremendous face of Kinchinjunga which confronted their small and gentle souls. Reviewers' adjective for Black Narcissus was "enchanting." It will do for Gypsy, Gypsy...
...telling of this lurid, rather hopped-up tale Rumer Godden brings three saving graces: an acute sense of psychological tension and overtone, a coolly notable skill at prose, a peculiar ability in atmospheres (she seems particularly to be obsessed with the look of pale things in darkness). These talents alone may not make a first-rate novel: but they have a snaky power to hypnotize, and a certain distinction...