GoddenJ

Earlier in the year, I read and really loved the odd, cold, psychologically fascinating novel Told in Winter by Jon Godden (sister of the more famous Rumer). So I was keen to try more of her things, and I’m a sucker for novels about older women – so Mrs Panopoulis (1959) winged its way to me. Isn’t the cover gorgeous?

(I should say, at the outset, that I read this in the peak of my eyes getting back to working, and with quite a lot of dizziness, so it wasn’t the ideal time to take it all in. But it has a big font and it’s quite a simple story, so I thought it would be a good place to try reading again. And clearly that was a few months ago, so here goes nothing with this post! For those asking so kindly, health continues to be up and down but eyes have largely been fine, praise the Lord.)

Mrs Panopoulis woke early, as the old do, but even earlier than she usually did because the ship’s engines had stopped. To her it was the stopping of an enormous heart. She lay on her back on the berth, and before she opened her eyes she moved her hand cautiously up to her breast. Her heart was beating unevenly, as it always did, but it was still beating.

Waves of light were running across the white-painted ceiling; she knew that they were reflections from the sea outside, but for a moment she could not remember where she was. The sound she heard in her sleep came again, a high, shrill mewing. “Seagulls!” she said, still half asleep, and then, “We have arrived.”

Typing that out now, I really like Godden’s writing. Maybe I wasn’t in the right state to appreciate it when I read it. Anyway, Mrs P and the people on her cruise have arrived at an island off the coast of ‘Portuguese East Africa’, whatever that is or was. Among the group are a pair of young things who have yet to acknowledge that they love each other, Martin and Flora (Mrs P’s great-niece) – Martin has travelled to meet a business partner whom he idolises. And Mrs Panopoulis has determined that she will shape their destiny.

The depiction of the island hovers on that line between interesting travel literature and not-very-sensitive cultural hierarchies. It isn’t out-and-out racist, but it also isn’t the most comfortable read. I’m felt that Godden was on safer ground when she was talking about the tourists who’d travelled there and the ex-pats who lived there. Mrs Panopoulis herself is a little sharp and rude, but driven by a thirst for adventure and an impatience with her own increasing age.

There were a lot of things to like in Mrs Panopoulis, not least the fully realised depiction of an old woman who doesn’t fall into any of the old-woman stereotypes. But, overall, I wish the novel had a bit more depth, a little more cultural sensitivity, and, without giving anything away, an entirely different ending.

So, this Godden isn’t in the same league as Told in Winter, but it might be one to revisit at some point, to see if I missed anything the first time around.

Each Christmas, the Thomas family take it in turn to open the parcels under the tree – most of which have come from each other, or family and friends that we all know. And every year there’s a little pile of parcels to me from somebody none of the others know. And that person changes each year. It’s the LibraryThing Virago Modern Classics Secret Santa! [The group is devoted to VMCs – the Secret Santa books don’t have to be VMCs.]

This year, I was lucky enough to get Dee as my Santa, and chose a lovely selection of books. Among them was Told In Winter (1961) by Jon Godden – Rumer Godden’s sister. Since I wanted to read it in winter, and because that gorgeous cover was calling to me, I polished it off in January. I didn’t quite have the snow depicted on the cover and in the book, but it definitely felt suitably wintery.

Snow had fallen all night and the house in the woods was already cut off from the road and the village by a four-foot drift at the bottom of the lane. Snow lay along the branches of the firs that made a dark ring round the house, and the lawn was a smooth white lake.

As the sun came up behind the hills, the back door opened and closed again. One of the house’s three inhabitants was now abroad in the morning; the cold air filled her lungs and cleared the last mists of sleep from her eyes. She shook her head, as if in amazement at the white world which confronted her, and moved cautiously round the side of the house keeping close to the walls. Every few steps she paused to look suspiciously across the untouched expanse of snow into the recesses between the trees. Nothing moved. Nothing threatened.

This is the opening to the novel – and I don’t know about you, but I already felt a really strong sense of place. Not just the snow, but the stillness, the isolation, the vastness. I love a novel that can make me feel like I dived into it – and because descriptions of landscapes etc usually don’t work for me, I want the bare bones of the physical environment to be filled with how it makes the observer feel. Not many authors can do it in a way that works for me, but I felt cold and isolated as I read the opening of Told In Winter – isolated in a positive sense. With a secure centre.

And have you worked out what’s unusual about the first character we meet? We learn, after a few more paragraphs, that this is Sylvie – and she is a dog.

In this isolated house are only three characters: Jerome, a writer who has had success with plays and less success with the novels he considers his true art. Peter, who was Jerome’s batman in the war and is now a sort of housekeeper. And Sylvie, the Alsatian who lives with Peter when Jerome isn’t there, but worships Jerome.

Godden builds this house so perfectly. Focalising through a dog might sound twee or annoying, but it is not that. She never treats Sylvie like a pet or a piece of whimsy – she gives us Sylvie’s viewpoint, with honesty and accuracy, and without ever slipping into the first person. That would have made it too fey.

If their little world seems almost idyllic, then the moods in it aren’t. Peter is recalcitrant and so loyal that he can’t help pointing out his master’s errors. Jerome is frustrated and cross, and grudgingly fond of Peter. Only Sylvie is content, and she is content only when Jerome is around.

Into this world, though, stumbles Una. She has lost her car in the snow and turns up, bedraggled and desperate. Peter is sickened by the thought of her. Jerome is shocked and tries to send her away – but lets her in. They have had a relationship of sorts, and she believes herself to be in love with him. She has come to this distant place to convince him to reciprocate that love.

Into a settled household comes a great disturbance. I don’t love a big age gap in a novel, particularly of the kind where the man is always saying things like ”You silly little thing”, and the girl is weeping and flinging herself on him. It would read like a middle-aged man’s fantasy if it weren’t written by a woman. Well, it might anyway.

But if we put that aside, there is something very interesting at the heart of Told in Winter. It’s the most intriguing take on a love triangle that I’ve read. A love triangle between a man, a woman… and a dog. Sylvie is deeply, openly jealous. And Peter is constantly trying to get her to behave with dignity and restraint, as he feels too pained at watching her undisguised jealousy.

In terms of plot, this is it. Godden’s writing is so beautiful that it doesn’t need more. We see Jerome use his control over the girl and the dog, ebbing too and fro between them. We share Peter’s growing rage and unhappiness. And we know there can’t be a happy ending for this disturbed trio.

I don’t know much about dogs, so I’m guessing about how accurate Godden is – but it certainly chimed with everything I do know. It reminded me of May Sarton’s excellent The Fur Person, about a cat, in the depth of its attempt to explore the psyche of the animal – putting aside any of the romanticised versions that humans might put on top of that. Are dogs really this possessive of humans? I’m going to assume so.

Told in Winter will stay with me a long time, and makes me wonder how a writer of Godden’s calibre ever faded away.