Cromartie V. the God Shiva: Acting Through the Government of India

by Rumer Godden

Set in London and on south India's Coromandel Coast, a moving story about art, religion, love, class, race, and greed is based on a real case ten years ago, when an international incident over the ownership of a priceless bronze statue resulted in the God Shiva becoming the plaintiff in a lawsuit.

Genres: Fiction, India, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Literature

170 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

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.
A few of her works were co-written with her elder sister, novelist Jon Godden, including Two Under the Indian Sun, a memoir of the Goddens' childhood in a region of India now part of Bangladesh.

Reviews

[Eleanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

More enjoyable than the last one of Godden's books that I read (Pippa Passes) but not up to the standard I remember of her earlier books. However, I read them a long time ago and perhaps I wouldn't enjoy them so well now.

Pretty implausible plot, but hey, it was a quick read!

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had no other reason to read this book, I would have read it because it is a sort of flip-side to Godden's previous novel, Coromandel Sea Change. And I really do love Rumer Godden, whose books I have been reading since I learned to read (if you haven't read her children's novels, you should. Your life will become less joyless when you do.) Anyway. Same background, some of the same characters...but a very different book. This is a tightly-written, fast-moving, beautiful novel...and it made the Hindu faith breathe for me.

I'll say it again. A beautiful, beautiful novel.

[Mary Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rumer Godden is one of my favorite writers, so when I suddenly found myself having deja vu during parts of the book that involved the Patna Hotel and its staff, I thought I must have read it before. But the feeling didn't persist and I discovered a plot line that was very new. At the end of the book, the author explained that Cromartie vs the God Shiva is a Siamese twin with Coromandel Sea Change and that certain scenes in the book are exactly the same. Neat.

I enjoyed Cromartie but I didn't think it was written as well as Coromandel, or Godden's other books. Still, it is a decent mystery involving very well drawn characters. It is based on a true story about an Indian god that was stolen, sold and eventually sent to a museum.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not, perhaps, Godden's best work, but still excellent. Even her lesser works are light years better than the works of most authors. This was, I believe, the last book Godden wrote before she died. Knowing this, I found her loving description of India, where she was lived for so much of her childhood and young adulthood, quite moving. Surely this book was her farewell kiss for the country she loved so.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a strange phenomenon, but I find that writers of near historical fiction – as in, fiction set around the time of their own childhoods or slightly before – are often not great when they transpose the time and setting to a contemporary one. Maeve Binchy, Penelope Lively, and now Rumer Godden are writers whose work set in the early to mid-twentieth century I absolutely love, but on the stuff that’s later I’m cold.

Godden’s best era is the fading days of the Raj, which, flashing lights content warning for capital-C colonialism. She lived through a time when British rule/exploitation of India was an ongoing fact and not a poisonous past; the books written in or about this time are far more interesting than watching an old lady trying to juggle ‘being a good person who is also a white person fascinated with India but whose fascination probably has at least patronising if not outright racist roots’. In fairness, I’m not sure who could do this mindset justice.

‘‘Has it changed very much?’
‘Not really, except for all the plastic, plastic everything. Gharras, water pots, plates. They used to use banana leaves but now plastic tumblers, toys, even bangles.’’

Like, sure, but … why is that, exactly?

Anyway, the actual story is also … not great. An English lawyer is sent to a remote Indian beach resort to investigate the possible theft of a hugely valuable statue of the (titular) God Shiva, which wound up in the hands of the titular Cromartie through nefarious means. Again, Cromartie is depicted as the ‘wrong’ kind of Orientalist, unlike the sincere version exemplified through Michael, Professor Ellen, and (I guess) the murderous, thieving Artemis. Except, to my mind, there’s not actually much to choose between them. Artemis’ desire to keep the statue in a local temple is admirable, but it’s not like she actually asked any locals if that was what they wanted. The only local she involved in her scheme had to hide all the accrued advantages and ended up dead. I’m not sure what kind of message that sends, but it’s not a super positive one. I’m sorry for it, because Godden is one of my favourite authors.

[Carrie CJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was a bit of a let-down. I'll preface this review with a couple of disclaimers - this is by no means Rumer Godden's best work (I feel like I can state that fairly unequivocally although I've actually only read The Greengage Summer prior to this, but I ADORED it and I'm just going to overlook this one and carry on reading her earlier works, which sound fab); she's fairly open in a post-script to the story about the fact that whole passages are duplicated from some of her other novels. So from the outset you kind of know that the writer's heart isn't really in the story and my goodness it shows. The writing abounds with cringe-y cliches (there's an excruciatingly toe-curling, albeit mercifully very brief, sex scene, and in fact all of the passages dealing with seduction and romance feel so formulaic and predictable, with a lot of reliance on 'just feeling drawn to someone' and 'just feeling compelled' - I suspect to avoid having to produce any more detailed characterisation), To be honest everything feels a bit rushed - characters feel like jigsaw puzzles with some weirdly specific details included but other, more useful or pertinent pieces left out. That said, some of the descriptions of the Coromandel coast, in particular the references to the sea and to the Hotel where the protagonist stays, are beautiful and so evocative, and I'll be very excited to read Coromandel Sea Change and The Peacock Spring - I just think this book would have benefitted from being extended and developed more.

[Ideath · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked it up on a free shelf. I don't know why i was expecting something good, but i REALLY don't know why i read the whole thing when it was evident from the first chapter what i was getting into to wit: a regular old mystery with a dashing yet proper young hero, spiced with delicious exotic colonial-orientalism. Duh, the capable, entrancingly beautiful, well-dressed woman is the love interest and the mastermind thief. She had a bad childhood. And LOVE makes her confess. Blergh.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was introduced to this author through the stunning novel IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, which was a fascinating book. So, I had very high expectations, which were not met.

The strength of this story was its ability to transport the reader directly into the culture of a small hotel in India. I felt like a resident of the hotel, and a participant in its excursions and entertainments. But, beyond that, I was disappointed. I didn’t feel challenged as a reader, either intellectually or emotionally, and that was the gift of the previous book that I read. It made me think. It made me question things. This felt a bit like a BBC mini-series. ( nothing wrong with that, but not what I was looking for in this book.)

[Mirachil27 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing

While I always enjoy Rumer Godden's writing, I was disappointed in this her final book. I had just finished The Coromandel Coast - a marvelous piece of work. Instead of continuing the journey of familiar characters, it felt like treading a hard path through the same territory. I recognized entire phrases taken directly from Coromandel. It was a perfunctory job at best. The plot was convoluted and the ending came too abruptly. Stick to her other books written when she was younger. Then, you can't miss.

[Elliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, but it really felt like a shell of a book - a plan that never got finished. It could have been three times longer without any change to the plot and I would’ve enjoyed it more. The characters and story felt kind of caricature-ish, very single faceted and not cared about. Why, for instance, were the earrings Michael bought described in such detail and later exclaimed over by other characters, and then we never even find out if the recipient liked them or even got them? It just felt a bit sloppy. It would have been a wonderful book if it were up to scratch Rumer Godden writing.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a mystery of a sort. How did the real statue of Shiva get replaced by a replica that looked real but did not have the heft or aura of the real one? And then a tragic romance.

This book was the last one Godden wrote--at advanced years. I may read the companion volume set in the same exotic hotel in eastern India. I may reread Black Narcissus and In the House of Brede, the first book I read by Godden. Her own life is of novel quality.

I hesitate as always to rate a "classic." It was a bit strange and unsettling but I read to the end.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel about stolen art? Right up my alley. A twelfth-century bronze Nataraja lifted from a Coromandel Coast hotel is at the center of the plot. Godden based this on a true story she clipped from the newspaper. The author's descriptions of India are always lyrical, but here, alas, her characters seem paper thin. And not to spoil things, I'll just say that the denouement is unconvincing and somehow both melodramatic and wooden.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

We've all been told you can't judge a book but its cover, but can you judge it by its title? I was fascinated by the title but the book itself was less compelling. I was smitten with the idea of a government representing a living God, and had the book been more about the government's role in the whole todo, I'm sure I would have gotten more out of the book. As it was, Cromartie was a middling read for me, not good, not bad, and not quite alive enough to make the words dance.

[kp · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pleasant read, and lighter than the other things I've been reading, but a little disappointing, for it is a very slight story, sometimes almost pat, compromised by unsubtle characterization. I went in expecting to love this, as I have every other Godden novel I've read. She writes well, but this seemed to lack her usual magic.

[Kathryn Mattern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved t his book for her treatment of murtis (images) and temples in India. Enjoyed revisiting the hotel, although the Coromandel Sea Change was best read first, as it endears the hotel and its inhabitants to the reader.

[Lora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read, fun mystery, not too hard to decide who the suspect was, but still enjoyable.
Two main characters engage in a brief love affair and there is murder and theft and conspiracy.
Not Goddens strongest, but a good read at the beach or by the fireside.

[Chris Maska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully Written

Rumer Gordon's beautiful writing and keen observation are the reasons to read this book. Published soon before her death, the story reaches a too quick resolution.

[Nae · Rating 4 out of 5]

As any of Godden's books centered in India this was a great read!

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems to be Rumer Godden's last novel - contains her usual ability to provide deep description for every human sense without bogging the writing down.

[Eva B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 1/2.

[Kay Robart · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2021...

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Rumer Godden jewel, fiction based on a real case which declared that theft of an artifact could mean it should be returned to its original location. A lovely story.

[Richard Fursland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book idea, evocative atmosphere, fun characters implausible plotting

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rumer Godden is one of my all-time favorite authors so I was thrilled when I found a library with this volume which I hadn't read yet. I must say that I didn't enjoy much of this book as I had anticipated I would. I think that was mostly because it was a busy, busy season for me that left little time to read and catching only a page and a half before my eyes begin to cross at night didn't allow me to really delve into the book like I should have, especially one with setting like this one - at a resort on the Indian coast. When I finally had the opportunity to sit down and actually read more than a few paragraphs at a time as I was about 3/4 the way through, I began to enjoy it more. I don't feel this was a problem with the author as with me during that time. Rumer Godden can tell a beautiful tale of India with an incredible sense of place, rightly so since she grew up there. Her obvious love for the country and its people juxtaposed against the colonial class system always proves for interesting reading. I think I may have just picked the wrong time to read this one to get the most from it.

We were studying India at the time with my youngest and I always like to supplement our studies with my own reading to help me gain more perspective and this did that. This delved into the world of Indian politics and elections and the entire process was at the same time fascinating and unimaginable far-fetched from the westerner's perspective.

[Susan Oleksiw · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a light mystery/novel set mostly in South India at an old tourist hotel. The story is based on the incident of an ancient Hindu sculpture of Shiva being offered for sale in London. The image, a murti or religious icon, is a person under Hindu law and can sue just as a person can sue. The Indian Government sets out to find out who sold this image and smuggled it out of India. The story has little depth, though the characters, encountered before in another Godden novel, are richly drawn and interesting. Godden seems not to have found the intrigue she expected when she started writing the story. In the 1970s a famous Shiva Nataraja went to court requesting to be returned to India, and the court eventually agreed. This is a novel position perhaps unique to India, but it doesn't make the most arresting of novels.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rumer Godden tries her hand at a cozy in this small book with a long-winded title. She has most of the standard elements at hand - an exotic location, a house-party atmosphere (actually it's set in small inn peopled with a full house of longterm guests), an assortment of eccentric guests and obsequious staff, even an unlikely and surprisingly (for Godden) earthy love interest. But once these essential plot features are in place, her characterization leaves me mystified about the motivations driving several of the main characters, including both the barrister who unravels the mystery and the culprit behind it. Everything feels pat, and the resolution is telegraphed well in advance. Rumer Godden is a favorite author of mine from childhood, but this is not one of her more moving or spiritually revealing works.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reasonably enjoyable novel, mostly set at the Patna Hall Hotel in south India, where a valuable statue of the god Shiva has gone missing, turning up at a British auction house. Michael Dean is sent to the hotel to discover what has happened, but finds information hard to come by. A cast of colourful characters emerge to help and hinder him in his quest, and the mystery is slowly unravelled. Based on true events it is quite pacey, different in tone to more recent India-set books that I have read.

[Kataklicik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where have I been, that I've missed out on Rumer Godden?

I bought this book at a clearance sale - the title begs such curious wonderment! And to be so pleasantly amazed that the writing is so akin to my favoured PD James, Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie... :)

Where have I been, that I've missed out on Rumer Godden?

[Marija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Godden claims this book was an "alternative" to "Coromandel Sea Change," both taking place at Patna Hall and both including several of the same characters. This one, though the story was interesting, wasn't nearly as richly drawn as Coromandel Sea Change, which I highly recommend.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Rumer Goddens mysteries and probably her very last book published.