Gypsy, Gypsy

RUMER GODDEN has a preoccupation with the effect of places on people. In Black Narcissus the mountains won against the nuns. At the end of Gypsy, Gypsy the reader is left a little in doubt whether the small French town or the devil-ridden Aunt Barbe will triumph in the end, but the odds are on the town. The book is readable, and descriptively charming, but it has not the peculiarly controlled power of implication and understatement which distinguished Miss Godden’s first novel. Though it makes for entertainment on a wet evening, it doesn’t quite succeed in convincing you that any of the characters are probable, let alone possible. If you want to be really shaken by adumbration of human evil you must still count on Grahame Green, and not on Rumer Godden.