Mrs. Panopoulis by Jon Godden (Knopf, 1959)

 

A beautiful, devastating short novel by an author I increasingly admire.

Isa Panopoulis is a wealthy, beautiful, supremely elegant and twice-married (and twice-widowed) elderly Englishwoman traveling with her companion and heir, her niece Flora, in Africa.

The entire novel takes place on a single day when the ship they are cruising on stops at an island off the coast of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique).  Isa and Flora go ashore along with Martin, a kind but penniless English young man who is returning to his struggling farm in the interior, and Humphrey Arbuthnot, a middle-aged English gentleman who knew and admired Mrs. Panopoulis when they were both younger.

Mrs. Panopoulis' heart is failing; the heat onshore is debilitatingly and she grows progressively weaker during the long tiring day.  But she succeeds in her secret mission to arrange an engagement between Martin and Flora, thus guaranteeing Flora's happiness and future.  It's a generous act that concludes her mostly selfish and trivial life, and Godden's honest depiction of the flawed yet charming Mrs. Panopoulis is engaging and admirable.  It's unusual to encounter an elderly character who, though failing physically, is nevertheless bracingly autonomous.

A gentle, yet surprisingly prickly and affecting book, beautifully written.  And in a gorgeously-produced Knopf edition with a stunning jacket and design by George Salter.