A Breath Of Air: A Novel

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on: and our little life is rounded with a sleep,” shouts Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, from which Rumer Godden developed the plot for her novel, A Breath of Air. Parallels abound in the novel's cast of characters and plot structure—Mr. van Loomis is the novel's magician and king; Charis, his literate, island-bound daughter, is Miranda; the dramatist Valentine is Ferdinand; and the exiled, boorish Mario is Caliban. The work, however, transcends its own source of inspiration through its poignant—at times unsettling—development of themes such as the boundaries of civilization, the necessity for liturgy, and the inexorable facticity of the natural order.

A Breath of Air, an insightful combination of myth and parable, is a notable literary endeavour, suggestive of Rumer Godden's inventive talent and radiant artistry.

Paperback, 244 pages.