Rumer Godden

Rumer Godden was an English novelist who spent a long time in India, which became a locale for many of her novels. She was born in Eastbourne but her parents took her to India because her father had a job there. She was sent home to school later on. She was born in 1907, and spent part of the World War One years in India. She then trained as a dance teacher and in 1925 she opened a dance school in Calcutta. She married in 1934 because she was pregnant, but the marriage was not happy. She and her children lived in Kashmir when her husband joined the army. At the end of the war, she moved back to England and lived in London. Her time in London inspired her novel about a garden, and the London children. She got a divorce and a few years later married James Dixon, a civil servant. She became interested in the Roman Catholic church and many of her novels had nuns and a religious setting. Her first big novel, Black Narcissus was set in an Anglican convent. However due to her divorce, it took some time before she converted to Roman Catholicism I hope to write some more about Rumer Godden soon. Rumer wrote many stories for children and she also wrote very well about children and adolescents. Some of her works are about young girls coming of age. One novel is called An Offering of Sparrows, which is set in a poor area of London, and is about the local children who try to make their life brighter, particularly a little girl called Lovejoy whose mother neglects her.. Godden also wrote a novel about a Catholic convent, called In this House of Brede, about a middle aged woman, Philippa who goes into the convent after her husband dies, and has to adjust to life in a cloistered community. Philippa has lived abroad a good deal but loves the English country where Brede is located. Philippa is a career woman, which was unusual in the 1950s. She was a senior civil servant... after she lost her husband. She joins the House of Brede, and finds it hard, at 40, to adjust to the hard life of an enclosed nun. The nuns find that the Abbess who has just died, got the abbey into financial difficulties. Philippa with her background in worldly things, makes a helpful suggestion. She finds after a few years that a new postulant, a girl from a working class background, is known to her. She tells the senior nuns that although she is down as having no children - she DID have a son, years ago. But he died. It was in America. She was on holiday and her nanny was looking after him. He ran away because of a fight with one of the other children..and fell down a chasm... They were unable to rescue him and he died. This new young nun is the daughter of the nanny. Philippa gets to know the girl and finds that she can overlook her connextion with the nanny, who had not done anything wrong. The abbey has taken on some Japanese postulants, who are to go back to Japan and found a new house there. Philippa speaks Japanese so she is given the job of training them. After their training, plans are made to found the new house, and another senior nun is to go with the young ones and be in charge. But she suddenly dies. So, there is only Philippa who could do the job. She wrestles with herself. She loves Brede, she has been happy there, and now, she is going to have to leave it. She realises that as a nun, she vowed to give herself to God and do what He wished. And now she's been asked to give herself away and go to Japan...so she agrees to go.