I was first introduced to the short stories of Saki in an anthology
in high school English class. It apparently had the desired
effect of broading my awareness of authors, and when I saw this book on
sale a few years later at the Ohio State book store, I picked it up
without hesitation. It took me a decade before I had the
discipline to read this anthology completely, as Saki has an acerbic
perspective that is great fun for a few stories, then tends to get a
bit tiresome. I found the best way to read them was a few per
day over dinner.
Saki's short stories are set in upper class England in the late 1800s.
This is a world of predictable tea parties and quiet life, a
world of order in which the possibility of training kids to be
non-violent seems an achievable reality. But as the back
cover of
the book asserts, "to the Saki hero, the world is on the edge of chaos,
needing only a nudge..." In most of the stories the ugly
nature of people or the world at large asserts itself. Sometimes the
chaos is instigated, as in the case of Clovis or Vera, who arrange
events or withhold information because they enjoy disruption.
Sometimes human nature is recognized and controlled, by the
man who had a large house he could not sell and instead rented it to
multiple families, but recognizing that the women would fight,
specifically hired one woman to act unfriendly and be a lightning rod
such that they all fought with her and not each other. Other
times the ugly nature of children surprised the adults who had not
imagined it possible. Occasionally a character plays on human
nature and suffers the consequences. Yet other times it is
nature itself, such as when a man moves to an area but does not believe the
stories about Pan, angers the god, and pays the penalty.
Like many short stories, Saki's stories end far from where they begin.
The woman and her daughter hoping to sneak into the tea party (to
which they were uninvited) are foiled by Vera, who plays on their fears
of the (quite docile) pet pig. The orderly vacation turns
chaotic. The quiet husband turns out to be hiding something.
The father's wish that his sons become someone is granted not
through the diligent son in the army, but the writer of comic verses
for the common theatre who strikes a chord with one verse, becomes
wildly popular, and is knighted because of it. The teller of
boring stories spices them up with lies, but after an initial
excitement, when a truly interesting story comes along, he is not
believed. The woman overly proud of her garden is put to
shame by
the garden of her host, who had only recently learned of a rental
garden service, specifically for such purposes.
Just as O'Henry
paints a vivid picture of early twentieth century America, so Saki
gives a detailed picture of the British upper class of his time period.
Both paint their images without that purpose in mind, but
because
they write about imaginary people in a real time period, and because
both are descriptive writers, they both act as time capsules of a sort.
It is unclear what Saki's view of life and human nature is. Judging
from his stories, nature is cruel, adults are boring, and children are
more capable of evil than adults assume. His stories have a
cynical feel to them, as if order is not possible, and something will
see to that. This is rather unlike O'Henry, where goodness,
justice, and love ultimately prevail (although not necessarily a happy
ending), where lovers sacrifice their best for each other, and a highly
successful but uncaught safe cracker reveals himself because he values
saving the life of a child trapped in a safe. For both
authors,
events conspire against the character, but for Saki, events usually
disrupt the characters' lives, while events for O'Henry tend to serve
as opportunities to reveal character.
Review: 8.5
This is a enjoyable
collection of short stories, particularly if you enjoy surprise endings.
Copyright © 2009 by Geoffrey Prewett