The 1955 book An Episode of Sparrows (Bookshop|Amazon) tells the story of life on a small street in post-war London, largely through the eyes of children. Author Rumer Godden grew up in India and what later became Bangladesh, and her writing reflects the rich, careful vocabulary she acquired there. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “An Episode of Sparrows”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, this show about language and how we use it.
I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett.
Martha, my taste in fiction ranges widely, but I’m currently reading a lot of science fiction that involves universe-spanning space battles and aliens and artificial intelligence, books by Neil Asher and John Scousey.
But, you know, the book that I’ve really enjoyed most this year is an episode of Sparrows by Rumor Godden, and it’s very different than space battles and aliens. There are no spacecraft, and all the mischief is on a much smaller scale. I really like the title, An Episode of Sparrows?
Yeah, by Rumor Godden, and her first name is spelled R-U-M-E-R. Published in 1955, the book centers mainly around the life of children on a small street in post-war London. It’s largely seen through their eyes and it’s about their difficulties in that time and in that place and everything is filtered through their concerns. There’s a girl named Lovejoy who decides that she wants to start a garden and through her successes and her failures in gardening and through the allies and friends that she makes, the lives of the children and the adults in that area become transformed. And this whole book is such a snapshot of a time and a place. And it’s a sweet book. And it’s not saccharine, though. And its victories are small ones. And they’re the kind of wins that I wouldn’t call jackpots, but more like birthday money, if that makes sense.
You know? It does make sense. Yeah. And Rumer Godin herself is such a fascinating writer. She’s got this catalog of something 50 or 60 books. And she spent much of her life in India, grew up there partly as a child in India and what later became Bangladesh. And so she has this rich and careful vocabulary that reflects her childhood in that rich and varied culture where she spanned these different worlds of the United Kingdom and the subcontinent. This book, an episode of Sparrows, is probably my favorite book of the year, even though it’s from 1955.
Oh, wow. It’s from 55.
Yeah.
I will look forward to digging into that.
And I have a couple of books to recommend, and I’ll do that later in the show.
And in the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts about language.
So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your stories about words to words@waywordradio.org.
