Spectacular Nunnery

BLACK NARCISSUS--Rumer Godden-- Little, Brown ($2.50).

No place for a nunnery was General Toda Rai's palace at Mopu. The soaring bulk of Kanchenjunga opposite, surrounded by lesser peaks of the Himalayas, gave it far too spectacular an outlook, and no alterations could remove the memories of the women for whom it had been built. Nevertheless, the squat little general's offer was gratefully accepted by an Anglican sisterhood. Why the nuns left before the rains came, Rumer Godden tells in Black Narcissus.

Sister Clodagh, the Superior, found no trouble in keeping herself and the other four nuns busy. Anxious to help, the general bribed the suspicious natives to visit school and dispensary. His peacock of an heir, 17-year-old General Dilip Rai, came to special lessons redolent with perfume. Soon the nuns found their work too absorbing. Sister Phillippa's request for transfer, because she had put her garden before her religious life, gave the first warning. But it took the twin tragedy of death in convent and village before Sister Clodagh admitted her mistake, asked for recall.

Novelist Godden is 31, has spent most of her life in India, knows her hill country. Little happens in Black Narcissus, but the charm of the characters, and their talk, keep the story moving. U. S. readers will find few better novels for hammock reading this summer.

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