Books: Tale of India

THE SEVEN ISLANDS (157 pp.]—Jon Godden—Knopf ($3).

The literary precursor of the novel was the tale, originally an oral narrative. In the hands of such latter-day practitioners as Oscar Wilde and Max Beerbohm, the tale became a highly sophisticated means of telling a story that would not be believable if told in any other tone of voice. In The Seven Islands, Novelist Jon (The House by the Sea) Godden makes the unbelievable believable by spinning with quiet skill a stately little tale about India and hanging from its frail threads the weight of an ancient way of life.

The seven islands are holy...