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A review by amy_h_45
China Court by Rumer Godden
5.0
I don’t know how to adequately talk about Rumer Godden books. I fear that describing their plots make them seem boring. They are anything but boring, but they are not page turners. They are paced like life, sometimes fast sometimes slow, always moving forward. Rumer Godden examines living in her books. She always asks the question, what constitutes a good life? Her books explore different answers to this question.
China Court looks at the life of a house and the lives that are lived out under its roof. The story of the generations weave together sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, so that one might feel confused at first until you get a grasp on the members of the various generations. Everything is ordinary, everyday. Meals are made, flowers are arranged, people go riding and hunting, children play, marriages begin and end, hearts are broken, treasures are discovered, both of the spiritual and monetary kind—all of which makes up a life. Godden says that the good life is one that recognizes that life is a continuous thread that stitches the generations together into an ever expanding whole, and that preserves and honors that continuity by protecting it at any cost.
I just love Godden’s work. In her hands the ordinary becomes remarkable and beautiful, the ultimate to be aspired to.
China Court looks at the life of a house and the lives that are lived out under its roof. The story of the generations weave together sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, so that one might feel confused at first until you get a grasp on the members of the various generations. Everything is ordinary, everyday. Meals are made, flowers are arranged, people go riding and hunting, children play, marriages begin and end, hearts are broken, treasures are discovered, both of the spiritual and monetary kind—all of which makes up a life. Godden says that the good life is one that recognizes that life is a continuous thread that stitches the generations together into an ever expanding whole, and that preserves and honors that continuity by protecting it at any cost.
I just love Godden’s work. In her hands the ordinary becomes remarkable and beautiful, the ultimate to be aspired to.