I loved, loved, loved this book! Rumer Godden was just such an amazing author. If only I could write like her!

This is my first Rumer Godden and it's a nostalgic journey to the kind of novels I was weaned onto in the seventies (although Dark Horse's maiden run was in 1981). Old-school, humorous characterization meets a brisk plot and a winning love for horses that even non-horsey people will enjoy. We share the Darkie's suffering at the hands of his arrogant first jockey, his determination to get his teeth into as much bread and salt and sugarcane in this life as possible and his affection for those of his human friends that understand him. Pampered and spoilt individuals in the story get either a gentle ribbing or a come-uppance in keeping with their follies and the harmony of the moral universe is maintained. There are also interesting observations on the culture of Indian animal care from the dedicated grooming practices of the syces who work at the stables to the less benevolent husbandry of those who drive carts in Calcutta. No wonder Jacqueline Wilson rates Godden as one of her favourite childhood authors.

Didnt enjoy this book - it felt too forced and somehow disorganised. I usually love Godden's writing but htis one left me cold.

Wow, wonderful read.

Very evocative of a time long gone.

I ended up reading this book twice. At first, I didn't find it as impressive as some of her other books, and I think Rumer Godden is a beautiful writer. This seemed, to me, to be just a little out of focus after such gems as "In this House of Brede" and "An Episode of Sparrows". It seemed a little too much a told story. But-

Then I reread it. It's a subtle, rather quiet story of what must be to many a very strange world: upper-class Calcutta in the 1930s, and the men who trained racehorses there. In just a few words, characters appear, complex and fully alive. The most notable of these are Ted Mullins, a middle-aged English horseboy; John Quillan, an Anglo-Irish ex army officer; his charming wife Dahlia; Mother Morag of the convent down the street; and the young horse, Dark Invader himself. He is a big, powerful, lazy and kind-hearted beast, and he naturally wins many fans. But there is trauma in his past. Can he overcome it?

A very satisfying story that left me wanting to know more about all the characters, perhaps especially the horse. That's no bad thing!

This was a sweet tale about a racehorse, reminding me somewhat of Black Beauty. Definitely rated G for general audiences, you could read it aloud to 10 year olds, I think. I thought it dragged a bit in the beginning, but it picked up, and although there were no real surprises, it held my interest to end. Still, a good to read during the triple crown season. I love a good horse race.

My "d" book. Wonderful, redemptive. Just a great story. I love Rumer Godden!

I love this book so much!
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Original review:

This charming book is like getting classic Rumer Godden storytelling in a condensed package. Although it might be condensed there is character, depth and atmosphere — you feel you know the people and you feel as if you've had a trip to India. There are also moments of light and inspiration. I really loved Mother Morag's horse-sense (literally) and her negotiation tactics at the end. Most of all I liked that main characters had complicated lives, even if we only saw some of the results of those complications. A minor classic that I just discovered.

This is a great book. Set in India in the 1930s it's about horse racing and better than any Dick Francis ever wrote. It is not a mystery. It is a story about the ups and downs, trials, failures, and in the end an interesting success. It is also a story about redemption without being sanctimonious.

Ms. Godden colors her setting with all the smells and colors and lives of Calcutta, whether you like what you smell or see or not. This is India just before separation but there was no mention of the politics except what you might infer by watching the surroundings.

The English reaction of India is probably not much different than other foreign reactions to India: good and bad. But those reactions are not a fundamental feature of the story but add to a complex set of feelings by people who lived, worked, and died there. Well worth reading almost just for that.
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20th-century novelist Rumer Godden (1907-1998) was born in England but raised in British India (actually in the part that's today Bangladesh), and spent much of her life there. This short gem of a novel is set in Calcutta's high-stakes horse-racing milieu, ca. 1932, and fictionalizes what is said to be a real-life incident, imaginatively recreated here with the flair of a master writer. Godden brings to her tale something of the feel of Kipling, a touch of Dickens, a palpable love and feel for horses, and a style that's all her own. Around her four-legged title character (and he's a character as realized as the humans) a perfectly crafted plot entwines the lives of a cast of characters: a wealthy horse owner, a trainer and his unconventional family, an ex-jockey with a dubious reputation --and a convent of nuns. (How did they get in there? Well, you'll just have to read the book and find out!)

A writer in the Realist tradition (which doesn't mean she's without emotional sensibility, or an openness to a touch of the miraculous!), Godden brings the Calcutta of that day --its beauty, its exotic quality, its extremes of wealth and poverty, its teeming polyglot masses (Brits, Indians and Chinese; Christians, Hindus and Moslems; the high and the lowly-- to vivid life, with just the right amount of description and sensory appeal to allow readers who haven't been there to experience it. Her characterizations are wonderfully real; all of the important characters and many of the minor ones could practically walk off the page. A noticeable feature of her style is the frequent incorporation of flashback vignettes directly into the "real-time" narrative to illuminate and clarify it. This is never done in a confusing way, however; some readers would probably dislike the technique, but for me it enriched and fleshed out the narrative. She incorporates a wealth of solid, textured detail about horse raising and racing, Indian culture and conventual life seamlessly into her story, with no info dumps. As the story unfolds, you first come to care for all of the sympathetic characters, and then experience very real tension and suspense as those characters face their challenges.

Godden has a sharp eye for social injustice and hypocrisy, and she draws, among other things, a starkly ugly picture of the racism, sexism and lechery of many (happily not all) of the British and other privileged whites, a world where Indian and mixed-race women supposedly exist to be sexually used by entitled British males, but where marrying one for love means much of your race and class will disown you and forever ostracize your wife and kids. (The author isn't endorsing that, just holding it up to the light of day so we can see how really nauseous it was, and is.) But she's aware of life's wonderful possibilities as well as its injustices. A strong point of the book is the sympathetic treatment of the faith, and the lives of dedicated service, of Mother Morag and the nuns here, which brings a note of Divine grace into a world that's in need of it. (Godden was herself an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.)

My wife is an avid horse lover, and fond of any books that are horse-related; that attracted her to this one in a Reader's Digest condensed edition back in 1981, when we read it together. A foray into general fiction isn't my most characteristic reading choice nowadays, but I'm eager to identify books like this one where I've forgotten the author or title (the latter, in this case); so when I suspected that this was the correct title, I wanted to confirm it. I'm glad I did, and that I finally got to read the book in full, as it was intended to be. I found it a wonderfully satisfying and rewarding read; its appeal as general fiction goes beyond the narrow confines of horse-fiction fans. (I'm not one of the latter; but here the human element intertwining with the horse element is what makes the book succeed.) And I'd definitely be open to reading more by this author!

I have always enjoyed Rumer Godden’s writing. This one was no exception. Her ability to describe characters, places, weather, buildings in such detail that you would recognize or feel the person, animal or location was superb. She had understanding and empathy and it came out in her writings.

Rumer Godden’s novels are so well crafted. It’s a pleasure to read her on the level of craftsmanship and to enjoy being in the hands of a master storyteller. Her characters have a way of taking on lives of their own and living alongside me as I read. John Quillan, Ted Mullins, and Mother Morag are especially this way in this novel. I loved all three of them so much. They’re each distinct and surprising and endearing and when one of them has a fall from grace, I was heartbroken. I love Godden’s India too. She knows it so intimately and the details paint a vivid picture. We get to see India from Ted’s perspective too and his horror and fascination as an Englishman are quite interesting. There is a spiritual depth to the story too that I loved. One of the characters has significant growth and has to confront his ways of thinking because of his rather unexpected meetings with the Sisters of Poverty. There is Good Samaritan language in the story that works so well.

I had never heard of this Godden until I saw the new Virago cover. I’m so glad they’ve republished it because it is well worth a read.