Rumer Godden’s spellbinding novel, Kingfishers Catch Fire, has somehow escaped the attention of twenty-first-century readers. 

Published in 1953, this pre-hippie masterpiece is set in a village in Kashmir. Sophie, a single mother, decides to move there with her two children in order to live cheaply. 

Sophie is impulsive. When she gets an idea, she sticks to it. No one thinks this move is a good idea:  not Doctor Lachinval at the Mission Hospital, who has nursed her through a serious illness; not Profit David, a merchant who has sold her antiques and is owed money;  and certainly not Sophie’s daughter, Theresa, who is tired of adventure and wants an ordinary life in England. 

Sophie is a dreamer: she imagines living simply near the beautiful lakes and mountains and making friends with the other inhabitants, who, she is sure, live simply and healthily. In reality, the villagers live not only simply but in abject poverty. 

But it’s not just Godden’s fascinating plot that makes this a classic:  it’s her linguistic acrobatics, her glorious descriptions, and her mastery of the fluctuations of time.  Her flights from one time to another embellish the richness of her style.  On page 4, Sophie of the near future looks back on her life in Kashmir when she was 35 with amazement.

…afterwards she often wondered how she had managed to reach that age and remain as insouciant as she was.  “Insouciant is the right word,” said Sophie.  “Careless and indifferent.”  It was not that things did not go wrong.  They did, very often, though she could never see why.  “But what did I do?” she would ask when they had.  “I didn’t mean it to turn out like that.”

In the village, things do not go well at first. She has hired carpenters to fix the roof and do some renovations and is astonished to learn that they are cheating her: they substitute bent nails for the new ones she has bought. 

And then there are the two battling factions in the village: the rule is that she must have business dealings with one group and not the other.   When she decides she wants to live in peace and be friendly with both groups, she unwittingly puts her children in danger.  Even Theresa has a greater understanding of village politics.

There are problems, but there is much humor, too.  In the summer Sophie organizes an herbal medicine business, with no real idea as to whether or not the concoctions heal.  But the women of the village have come to her for medical help, and benefited from the herbal tea, they think, and they enjoy growing the herbs, gathering wild flowers, and packaging them. It’s fun for all of them.

But it’s odd, isn’t it, how easy it is to make enemies when one doesn’t understand the rules?  Sophie is blithe but oblivious to social cues in a foreign culture. The villagers have minimal contact with the outside world.

Godden’s autobiographical novel could easily be set in the ’60s or ’70s, but Kingfishers Catch Fire, based on Godden’s life with her two daughters in Kashmir in the early 1940s, smashes our belief in the clear demarcations between eras.

Time is… shall we say fluid?  It also flies.

N.B. This book is difficult to find, but the Virago edition (pictured above) is in print and is available at Amazon and Abebooks.