Other editions of book The River: A Novel

Large Print Edition. "The River" is Rumer Godden's beautiful tribute to India and childhood, made into a film by Jean Renoir. Godden captures the bittersweetness of a girl's approach toward womanhood, and tackles the biggest issues humans face - birth, death, identity, loss, and faith. With a concise, poetic hand, the author illuminates the spiritual and intellectual journey of a child who is beginning to piece together an understanding of the world around her, and to identify her place in it. The river is a simple, beautiful metaphor for the events that flow through the girl's life.

Harriet is between two worlds. Her sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a child. The comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood - the noise of the jute works, the colourful festivals that accompany each season and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Benghal - is about to be shattered. She must learn how to reconcile the jagged edges of beginnings and ends ..."The River" is Rumer Godden's beautiful tribute to India and childhood, made into a film by Jean Renoir. And in a preface for this novel she explains how the classic tale came to be written. "So intense, so quietly demanding of attention, that at the time there will be nothing in your thoughts but a small girl in India, and the people and places that were her world" - "Saturday Review". "Compassionate wisdom and serence understanding ...with each book she writes Miss Godden's position as one of the finest of English novelists becomes more secure" - Orville Prescott.