Kingfishers Catch Fire

Last updated on: October 11, 2012 at 7:37 pm by willduquette

Kingfishers Catch Fire 2012-10-11T19:37:33-05:00 willduquette

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Kingfishers Catch Fire, by Rumer Godden, is another of the books by Godden that my wife got me from Paperback Swap.

So, OK. I loved In This House of Brede. I loved Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy. I loved An Episode of Sparrows. I even liked Pippa Passes, even though I had some problems with it.

Kingfishers Catch Fire, on the other hand, is completely failing to interest me.

I’m not sure why; it certainly ought to. The setting is interesting enough. It takes place in Kashmir after WWII, and concerns the wife of a minor British commercial functionary in the India trade. He dies; she’s got no money, having always lived beyond her means; she can’t afford to go home to England, not that she wants to; and she ends up renting a small house out in the country, out where Europeans simply don’t live, and fondly imagines that she’s living simply, and doing with very little, and becoming just another one of the countryfolk. In fact she’s living better than anyone else in the village, all of whom cheat her unmercifully, and she’s far more of an outsider than she realizes.

She’s a tiresome woman, in fact, who lives far more in her romantic thoughts than in any place resembling reality, and I care so little about what happens to her that even after having read almost half the book I can’t remember what her name is. The book’s been sitting by my comfy chair, and I’ve been scrupulously not opening it.

So consider this either a warning, or a cry of the heart. If you’ve read the book, and you find it worthwhile, and worth finishing, please tell me so, and whether you liked the first half. Otherwise, be warned.

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