Teapot Tempest

A BREATH OF AIR (280 pp.)--Rumer Godden--Viking ($3).

Plots to William Shakespeare were as pots to a busy wizard--any old tub, begged, borrowed or stolen, would do to mix the magic in. In The Tempest, for instance, the plot is the tired old story about a nobleman, bilked of his estates, who takes refuge on a distant island, and mild revenge on his enemies when they are shipwrecked there. Yet in this common vessel, Shakespeare stirred a wizard's brew of steaming language and the rich juice of 30 years' experience; the mixture mulled, at the last stir of the action, into a fine philosophical poem.

Taking the same old pot from Shakespeare's rack, British Novelist Rumer Godden has cooked up a fresh batch of literature in it. As readers of her earlier novels (Black Narcissus, A Candle for St. Jude) may expect, the Godden brew is not much more than cambric tea, and though its prose has a refreshing bouquet and its flavor of idyl is cut by lemon slices of irony, the book is still a Tempest in a teapot. Author Godden gracefully recognizes the fact by calling her novel not a Tempest but A Breath of Air.

True Love's Mating. The Prospero of Author Godden's piece is a Scot named van Loomis, the onetime Earl of Spey, who has been done out of his estates and perquisites by a younger brother; these 20 years he has been living as lord of a tiny Pacific isle, Terraqueous. He has his Ariel there too, the "tricksy spirit" of his bidding, a native boy named Filipino, for whom "freedom" would be a chance to explore the fascinating vistas he has glimpsed in old copies of LIFE and Vanity Fair. And the new Prospero has his Caliban, the "freckled whelp" of the island witch, a half-breed named Mario, for whom freedom would mean a chance to murder his master and rape the master's daughter.

Charis, the daughter, comes to a kindlier mating, though not exactly as she does in Shakespeare's version. Her true love does not wash ashore from a shipwreck, but paddles in from a seaplane that has run out of gas. He is not a prince but a successful British playwright, and they are not united by the wiles of sorcery but whammied by the power of sex.

Serving the Young. Since Author Godden has sifted out most of Shakespeare's minor personages and their minuscule schemes, and has even subtracted the leading motive of revenge from the main character, there is no large action in A Breath of Air. The story sits still as a Pacific island; yet it is almost as hard for the reader's eye to look away from it as for the sun to blink.

The fascination lies largely in Author Godden's Ariel-light prose, for her island is notably barren of ideas. The leading idea of the volume is, in fact, just an old coconut: youth will be served, and old age must do the serving. The Book-of-the-Month Club has decided to let its subscribers crack that one in February.

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