Coromandel Sea Change
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Blaise and Mary arrive at Patna Hall, a hotel on India's shimmering Coromandel coast, to spend part of their honeymoon. Patna Hall is as beautiful and timeless as India itself, ruled over firmly and wise by proprietor Auntie Sanni. For Mary it feels strangely like home.
In a week that will change the young couple's destiny, election fever grips the Southern Indian state and Mary falls under the spell of the people, the country - and Krishnan, godlike candidate for the Root and Flower party...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although the plot of the celebrated English novelist ( Black Narcissus ) and memoirist's ( A House with Four Rooms ) latest effort is sadly stale, it is worth reading for its profusion of atmospheric delights. Godden invokes her beloved India in all its colors, creating a hotel by the Coromandel Sea and peopling it with staff and guests, mostly British and American, who enact some nefarious dramas. The benevolent Auntie Sanni, proprietor, watches knowingly as a diplomatic couple on their honeymoon comes to grief, rent by disparate visions of India: what stuffy Blaise sees as sordid, the incandescent Mary finds moving and even transfigurative. To Blaise's chagrin, Mary gets swept up in the local elections, dazzled by a politician whose spirituality changes her forever. Meanwhile, the aloof Olga Manning attends to mysterious proceedings in Calcutta, and a pseudonymous journalist dispatches his spies throughout the area. Adultery, blackmail and mortal tragedy further foment the story line. If the characters conform to stereotypes, they nonetheless quicken through Godden's lightning-fast portraiture and the consummate charm of her setting.
