Well, I jumped the gun a bit with my previous post about Rumer Godden's The River, but this time I'm on schedule for #RumerGoddenReadingWeek at Brona's This Reading Life...

Breakfast with the Nikolides is, according to Rosie Thomas who wrote the Introduction for this Virago edition, one of three early novels that reflect the themes and settings that are central to [Godden's] works.

Godden was a writer who continually drew on her own life experiences, frugally mixing and recasting the elements to give them fresh significance, but always relating her work back to the the people, places, human passions and frailties that she knew and understood best. Here, the place is Northern India, the people are pre-Partition British and the Indians they governed, and the themes are sexual desire, treachery, the conflict of cultures and the loss of innocence. (p.vii)

The central character of Breakfast with the Nikolides is Emily Pool, taken by her mother from India when young but brought back in panic because of the Nazi invasion of France. Her mother hates India and everything about it, and although there are hints that Emily glimpsed something of her mother's trauma, the novel is an uncompromising depiction of a child who feels torn between her warring parents, and who judges her mother harshly. Louise's faults are many, and Emily is aware of them all, especially Louise's blatant preference for the younger child, Binnie, who is pretty and biddable (and surprisingly, given Louise's preference for this child) the product of marital rape). The characterisation of Louise, from the child's point of view—even when Louise is the narrator—is vivid and entirely unsympathetic.

Emily's father treats his problematic wife with indifference, salted by occasional acts of spite. Louise has two Pekingese lap dogs, but he gives Emily a dog of her own called, Don.

I asked Charles not to give the children a dog. I asked him not to give them Don. He gave them Don...

He gave him to Emily.

'Why Emily? Why not Binnie? Why Emily?'

'I think,' he said, 'that that little girl needs love.'

In her surprise Louise had stared. 'Emily! Why, Emily won't have love. That shows how little you know of her. She is hard. She is completely oblivious of everyone but herself. She doesn't care an atom for anyone. She is almost unnatural.'

'You don't like her, do you?'

She answered icily, 'I love Emily more than you could begin to understand.'

'You may love her, you don't like her.'

'I love her and I know her better than she knows herself.' And she said, 'I must ask you not to interfere with the children.' (p.63)

There is an authenticity about this dialogue that suggests auto-fiction, from Godden's own disastrous marriage.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/12/04/breakfast-with-the-nikolides-by-rumer-godden... ( )

Emily Pool, her mother Louise, and sister Binnie are recently arrived in India to join her father Charles. He has been working in India for several years; the family only decides to join him when war seizes Europe (hmm, what’s that about? why the separation? keep reading …) Emily and Binnie are fascinated by the Nikolides, the only other European family in town, and it’s a treat to be given an opportunity to visit them for the day. But while they are away something awful happens at home, which has a huge emotional impact on Emily. Louise glosses over the details of this event and fails to admit her own part in it. Things between Emily and Louise begin to unravel, and the nature of Louise & Charles’ relationship is also exposed. The family’s interactions with Indian nationals reveal their ignorance and arrogance, and this, too, has its consequences. This is a dark but compelling novel of emotions and relationships. ( )

Reminiscent of Virginia Woolf and Molly Keane, and very akin to Forster's A Passage to India. Deep, dark; with a gossamer plot that slowly tightens around you like a spiderweb; packs an emotional wallop. Touches on all the best empire-builders-among-the-natives themes. ( )

Started: Winter 2002

I read the first 50 pages over and over I still couldn't figure out what was happening and where it was going. Maybe I'll try again someday.

Breakfast with the Nikolides is a peculiar little story – but it is one that packs something of a punch. The setting is East Bengal in a small agricultural town by a river. Charles Poole is in charge of the government farm of Amorra, on the same site is the agricultural college, where students work under the principle Sir Monmatha Ghose. Having lived in Amorra alone for eight years – Charles stuns the community with the sudden and inexplicable appearance of a wife and two daughters who have fled the war in Paris. Louise, Charles’s wife, is a complex damaged woman, she hates India, and she hates everything about it – is suspicious of it, and dislikes the people. Their eldest daughter is Emily an angry dreamer on the brink of adolescence has a very difficult relationship with her mother, but instantly adores the father she barely knows. Emily’s younger sister, Binnie, is the child born after the parents separated. Emily quickly falls in love with India, for her it is an exotic exciting place that she loves to explore. Emily and Binnie are enchanted by their glamorous neighbours the Nikolides, with whose children they occasionally play. Charles gives Emily a spaniel, that she names Don, he becomes a constant companion. One day Don is killed, and it is the deceit that surrounds this one incident that serves to unravel the fragile truths of their family life, and culminates in drawing in the whole community in violent uprising.

“Mother was clever. She knew how I felt about the Nikolides, she knew I would forget everything for them… And it seemed to Emily sheer treachery that Louise should have used them against her. One thing – said Emily – I shall never go blind like that again. I shall never be blind…And even to so young a girl as Emily there was something pitiable in the loss of heedlessness. Breakfast with the Nikolides was always to be the last hour of her childhood.”

We also meet young vet Narayan Das struggling to reconcile his young wife’s Hindu traditions with the modern westernised world he is trying to fit into. Narayan’s friend and student Anil working towards his final exams is also drawn into the drama that unfolds.

Breakfast with the Nikolides explores the dark and complex relationship between Charles and Louise – the truth of which is slowly revealed. Charles is something of an enigma, Louise a cold beauty who constantly misunderstands her eldest daughter – she is using Charles as an escape from German occupied France and can’t wait to return to Paris. The novel also examines loss of innocence and betrayal. Rumer Godden’s sense of place is excellent, a small Indian town on the banks of a river, young idealised students and modern thinking men juxtaposed with traditional beliefs and suspicions. ( )