Gleanings.
Wandering fascinated through Rumer Godden's childhood as she navigates two lives between India and England - perhaps the rather confusing life many British children had to navigate at that time - running free and rather wild in the small towns of India where they found themselves uninhibited by the many social structures and rules imposed upon the "young set" by the elders of their home country in England. And yet never quite being allowed to BE among the folk of India and to learn their ways. I would think it to be a strange middle land that had its loneliness.
She and her sister Jon are brought to England to be educated when they are in their early teens. This has its difficult learning curves. They do not fit in, they exasperate teachers by their direct and simple manner in speaking their minds. They are outcasts. But they have each other. Rumer depends on her older sister to do the talking. Jon readily complies. Jon is quite beautiful, very direct, very take charge, and excels at art. Rumer gets used to playing second fiddle to her and finds comfort and safety in the way things are, though she has her moments of real suffering when she sometimes hears her own father say almost to himself when looking at her: "where DOES that face come from?" Arghh! She wrote poems and many stories and they were dismissed as "only Rumer". And yet she kept writing. She mentions that she was the sort who was born to write whether anyone published it or not. She could not stop it if she tried.
It really is the way with the second and middle children for a while, I find. They are resigned to the fact that they are somewhat overshadowed - until they get their epiphany. Sometimes it comes early in life, sometimes later. But there is that moment when they KNOW they are NOT like the other and it is a moment of wonder for them. Rumer was to have that moment. And it was to be brought to her by a woman named Mona Swann.
Rumer and Jon were separated in their late teens, and Rumer was sent to a progressive school called Moira House, which had less rigid rules and was, to a modern home schooler's perspective, a place where the classes were all immersive unit studies. The food, the history, the literature, and the music of time periods were all studied together at the same time. Mona taught writing, choral speech and drama.
She was taken by the fifteen year old Rumer's style and sense of story telling. So taken in fact that she told her that there was no sense in her continuing to take math and science classes - which would be a waste at this point (WHERE WAS MONA in MY CHILDHOOD)! She wanted her to focus on learning how to write. She took her in hand and put her through some grueling assignments. Writing without adjectives, writing without adverbs, writing book reviews without using the pronoun 'I'. Comparing consonants in the poetry of Milton to show how he achieved, by mere changing of a letter, melancholy here, and gaiety there. Editing down to smaller paragraphs what she found in the newspaper stories. It was a huge task for a 15 year old, but Rumer began to understand that she was not invisible after all and someone cared enough to make her work hard at a talent she, and no other, owned! She began to appear little bit by little bit as the Rumer she was to become. Mona did that. Mona was hard. Mona was exacting. Mona chiseled away. Mona was her savior!
Every writer needs a Mona. She doesn't come by right, though. Sometimes she doesn't come at all and a writer is asked by providence to just “go to it” all by themselves. You can't force a Mona. You cannot go searching for her. She must find you, if you are meant to have one. I once tried to make someone a Mona. I asked for feedback, and thoughts, and reaction from a writer I knew. And he just wasn't a Mona, though he was a good writer. Every time I gave him something to read to tell me what he thought, he would just sort of shrug and say he just wasn't one for feedback. I admit disappointment. Sometimes, thinking that he just didn't want to tell me it was bad, I would ask if what I wrote was boring or tedious and he always looked surprised and said, "Oh no. It was good". (if it was good). I felt hurt for a while, but soon discovered that you can be a great writer, a very nice friend, and yet NOT a Mona. And that is okay.
The Monas of the world are sharp, decisive and intuitive. Rumer describes her Mona as "having the most precipient of eyes, expressive almost to eloquence". She wanted Rumer to succeed and she showed her how. She gave her publishing advice and brought her along slowly. She put her in drama and made her give speeches. Rumer was SEEN. And what a gift is that for any child (or grown up, for that matter) - to be SEEN, and seen as shining.
John Ruskin was a Mona for all the odd new painters called Pre-Raphaelites. He championed Turner. Ranier Rilke was a Mona. He helped a struggling, mystified young poet find his way with his direct and somewhat demanding letters - softened by his beautiful language. Norman Warne was a Mona for Beatrix Potter and her quirky little stories and drawings. He loved her and helped her to succeed with his whole heart. And he didn't seek to change her. None of these people did.
Mona did not change Rumer either. She gave her the confidence to stand up for her style even when it was not even Mona's favorite. Mona was more of a realist and did not see the wonder sometimes in Rumer's colorful reporting of everyday facts fascinating listeners with fictive interest while exasperating and alienating realists. But Mona did not interfere with that. She had her opinions, but she made Rumer defend her own style.
It was the glory of Mona's goodness that Rumer was to part from her with her own sense of certitude in who she was, her confidence very solid. It was because of Mona that Rumer could later write this:
"What even Mona did not understand - and what no so-called realist can understand (and is their 'seeing' more real than mine and my kind's?) is that, for us, life itself IS a story, its happenings fall into stories so that we can only tell of it in this way. This is our gift, and no-one, not even a 'guru' as Mona had become, should persuade us from it".
Sometimes we get Mona's, sometimes we do not. But somewhere along the line, we each decide to be who we are meant to be, through some unfolding and providential circumstances that help us to do the art we were meant to do. It can come early on in life, it can come far later. But it does come.
The take away for me in this little episode is this: let us be the Mona's we wish to see in the world. Let us encourage the beginning artists both young and old - with our understanding - and see their art even if it is so different than our own. If they ask, tell them your thoughts. If they shyly pull a tarp from their painting and courageously let you see it, then by heaven, tell them what you see and what you think. If they offer you that notebook full of poetry, read it and give them the happiness of both praise and criticism. Try not to shrug. Care. They are so waiting for it.
It's what Mona did. And thus, Mona in a real way gave us the Rumer Godden we have come to love.
I do not feel inclined at this time to have a paid substack. But if we were together in a cafe discussing all these thoughts, I would not be opposed to you buying me a cup of coffee - with cream, of course. In that spirit, if any of my posts resonate with you and you feel so inclined, you can donate here: buymeacoffee.com/denise_trull
"A woman's soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold." - St. Edith Stein
It is as though Mona provided this shelter for Rumer so that she could blossom fully into who she was. Beautiful.