 First US edition | |
| Author | Rumer Godden |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Peter Davies (UK) Little, Brown (US) |
Publication date | 1939 (UK) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Black Narcissus is the third novel by English writer Rumer Godden and was published in 1939. [1] It was adapted into a 1947 film Black Narcissus .
A group of English nuns travel to Mopu [lower-alpha 1] (near Darjeeling) to set up a convent school. [4] They are situated in a palace at the top of an isolated mountain above a valley in the Himalayas. The palace has ancient and erotic artwork on the walls and was once a harem. Although the sisters' intentions are noble, they understand little of the area's people and culture.
Mr. Dean, a local agent, predicts the failure of their mission. Sister Clodagh, the Sister Superior of the group, is ambitious but questions her capabilities. She presses on, sometimes clashing with Mr. Dean. Sister Ruth becomes increasingly emotionally unwell.
The sisters often clash with Angu Ayah, the building's caretaker, as well as the local population. A young local girl called Kanchi becomes involved with "the Young General" who has begun to attend classes at the convent. He wishes to understand Western culture better and improve his English. As each sister begins to suffer emotionally due to her situation, Sister Ruth becomes jealous of Sister Clodagh and obsessed with Mr. Dean.
In her autobiography, A Time to Dance, a Time to Weep, Godden, who grew up in India, describes an event that became an inspiration for Black Narcissus. While exploring the Indian countryside with friends one day, they came across a gravestone, covered with brush. When they cleared it away, all that was on the stone was the name "Sister Ruth".
A 1939 book review by Kirkus Reviews called the book "Not a book for headline reviews and big sales, but a book whose popularity will spread by word of mouth publicity, a book that discerning readers will make their own. It is a strange and fascinating book." and summarized: "The sort of book that should be read to be sold; definitely a booksellers' find type of book. Don't miss it". [5] Reviewing Godden's India books in 2013 for The Guardian , Rosie Thomas wrote, "For all its convent setting, the novel thrums with sex, portrayed with a subtlety that seems only to intensify its power. The story is simple, but the narrative takes an unshakeable hold, building to a climax involving sexual obsession, insanity and tragic death, which, despite the gothic elements, is handled with masterful restraint." [6]
Black Narcissus is a 1947 British psychological drama film jointly written, directed and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and starring Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar, and Flora Robson, and featuring Esmond Knight, Jean Simmons, and Kathleen Byron.
Michael Latham Powell was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, they together wrote, produced and directed a series of classic British films, notably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Emeric Pressburger was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a collaboration partnership known as the Archers, and produced a series of films, including 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Margaret Rumer Godden was an English author of more than 60 fiction and non-fiction books. Nine of her works have been made into films, most notably Black Narcissus in 1947 and The River in 1951.
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)—together often known as The Archers, the name of their production company—made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. Their collaborations—24 films between 1939 and 1972—were mainly derived from original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger and Powell. Powell did most of the directing while Pressburger did most of the work of the producer and also assisted with the editing, especially the way the music was used. Unusually, the pair shared a writer-director-producer credit for most of their films. The best-known of these are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
The Spy in Black is a 1939 British film, and the first collaboration between the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They were brought together by Alexander Korda to make the World War I spy thriller novel of the same title by Joseph Storer Clouston into a film. Powell and Pressburger eventually made over 20 films during the course of their partnership.
Jack Cardiff was a British cinematographer, film and television director, and photographer. His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor, to filmmaking more than half a century later.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-born American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Her short story collection, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award in 1996. Two of her novels, as well as a short story were adapted into films.
Brian Easdale was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music, best known for his ballet film score The Red Shoes of 1948.
David Farrar was an English stage and film actor.
Kathleen Elizabeth Fell, known professionally as Kathleen Byron, was an English actress.
Reginald Mills was a British film editor and one-time film director with more than thirty feature film credits. Among his prominent films are The Red Shoes (1948), for which he received his only Academy Award nomination, The Servant (1963), and Romeo and Juliet (1968).
Anglican religious orders are communities of men or women in the Anglican Communion who live under a common rule of life. The members of religious orders take vows which often include the traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, or the ancient vow of stability, or sometimes a modern interpretation of some or all of these vows. Members may be laity or clergy, but most commonly include a mixture of both. They lead a common life of work and prayer, sometimes on a single site, sometimes spread over multiple locations. Though many Anglicans are members of religious orders recognized by the Anglican Communion, others may be members of ecumenical Protestant or Old Catholic religious orders while maintaining their Anglican identity and parochial membership in Anglican churches.
Judith Furse was an English actress.
Winsome Ruth Key Godden was an English novelist who wrote under the name Jon Godden. She was born in Assam, India. She was the elder sister of the better-known novelist Rumer Godden.
Clodagh is a female given name of Irish origin. Lady Clodagh Anson, daughter of John Beresford, 5th Marquess of Waterford, was named after the River Clodiagh, which flows through the Marquess's estate at Curraghmore at County Waterford. Lady Clodagh married Claud Anson, son of Thomas Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield, and had a daughter who later wrote, "She called me Clodagh too and hoped, in vain, that we'd be the only two." The name Clodagh is popular in Ireland but is little used elsewhere.
Black Narcissus is a 1947 film by Powell and Pressburger.
Amanda Coe is an English screenwriter and novelist.
Black Narcissus is a drama television serial, based on the 1939 novel by Rumer Godden. The series features one of the final performances of Diana Rigg, who died in September 2020. The drama premiered on November 23, 2020, on FX in the US, and on December 27, 2020, on BBC One in the UK.
Set in colonial India, Rumer Godden's Black Narcissus highlights the ambivalences characterizing the civilizing goals of Christian missionary activities... Thus placed in the interstices between British India and the princely state...
In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "Black Narcissus" (1947), the fictional Himalayan community of "Mopu" becomes central enough to impede assumptions projected onto it.