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oldenglishrose's review
4.0
This is one of the new range of Penguin Mini Modern Classics and contains seven of Saki's short stories: ‘Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped’, ‘Tobermory’, ‘Mrs Packletide’s Tiger’, ‘Sredni Vashtar’, ‘The Music on the Hill’, ‘The Recessional’ and ‘The Cobweb’.
Saki’s stories are absolutely marvellous. They remind me a bit of E. F. Benson in their tone and focus on the foibles of the upper middle class, but unlike Benson (who I always feel has a soft spot for his characters no matter how much he may mock them) Saki is merciless in his approach. The stories are dry, witty and biting and if they were long enough for the reader to get to know the characters at all it would be easy for them to seem rather cruel, but because they are only brief snapshots the reader is able to laugh without any accompanying feeling of guilt. They may be a little bizarre and dark at times (‘Sredni Vashtar’ for example is the story of a young boy who has a pet ferret that he turns into a god) but they always have a proper narrative arc and so they are very satisfying to read.
Although all the stories are entertaining, my two favourites are ‘Tobermory’ and ‘Mrs Packletide’s Tiger’. ‘Tobermory’ is about Mr Cornelius Appin, who announces at Lady Blemley’s weekend gathering that he has found a way to teach animals to talk and has successfully taught the cat, Tobermory, to talk. The guests however are less than impressed when it becomes apparent that Tobermory enjoys exercising his new linguistic talents to reveal all the secrets of the guests at the party to the assembled crowd:
"An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then finding that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement."
I think this comparison is just brilliant in its bathos. It conveys how ludicrous the guests’ objections are in the face of such an amazing discovery and how bound they are by social convention. It makes me chuckle every time I read it. Saki also gives Tobermory a wonderful voice and personality which conveys a sense of relish at embarrassing and shaming his listeners with the things they say and do behind closed doors. I only wish it had been a longer tale.
‘Mrs Packletide’s Tiger’ concerns a lady who decides that she wants to shoot a tiger in order to outdo Loona Bimberton who has just flown in a aircraft. Soon a suitable candidate is found:
"Circumstances proved propitious. Mrs Packletide had offered a thousand rupees for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without overmuch risk or exertion, and it so happened that a neighbouring village could boast of being the favoured rendezvous of an animal of respectable antecedents, which had been driven by the increasing infirmities of age to abandon gamekilling and confine its appetite to the smaller domestic animals. The prospect of earning the thousand rupees had stimulated the sporting and commercial instinct of the villagers; children were posted night and day on the outskirts of the local jungle to head the tiger back in the unlikely event of his attempting to roam away to fresh hunting-grounds, and the cheaper kinds of goats were left about with elaborate carelessness to keep him satisfied with his present quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age before the date appointed for the memsahib’s shoot. Mothers carrying their babies home through the jungle after the day’s work in the fields hushed their singing lest they might curtail the restful sleep of the venerable herd-robber."
It seems so ridiculous, and yet the task proves much trickier than Mrs Packletide anticipates with humorous results.
This little book provides an excellent taste of the author (as, no doubt, Penguin intended) and I'll be reading more Saki in the future.
Saki’s stories are absolutely marvellous. They remind me a bit of E. F. Benson in their tone and focus on the foibles of the upper middle class, but unlike Benson (who I always feel has a soft spot for his characters no matter how much he may mock them) Saki is merciless in his approach. The stories are dry, witty and biting and if they were long enough for the reader to get to know the characters at all it would be easy for them to seem rather cruel, but because they are only brief snapshots the reader is able to laugh without any accompanying feeling of guilt. They may be a little bizarre and dark at times (‘Sredni Vashtar’ for example is the story of a young boy who has a pet ferret that he turns into a god) but they always have a proper narrative arc and so they are very satisfying to read.
Although all the stories are entertaining, my two favourites are ‘Tobermory’ and ‘Mrs Packletide’s Tiger’. ‘Tobermory’ is about Mr Cornelius Appin, who announces at Lady Blemley’s weekend gathering that he has found a way to teach animals to talk and has successfully taught the cat, Tobermory, to talk. The guests however are less than impressed when it becomes apparent that Tobermory enjoys exercising his new linguistic talents to reveal all the secrets of the guests at the party to the assembled crowd:
"An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then finding that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement."
I think this comparison is just brilliant in its bathos. It conveys how ludicrous the guests’ objections are in the face of such an amazing discovery and how bound they are by social convention. It makes me chuckle every time I read it. Saki also gives Tobermory a wonderful voice and personality which conveys a sense of relish at embarrassing and shaming his listeners with the things they say and do behind closed doors. I only wish it had been a longer tale.
‘Mrs Packletide’s Tiger’ concerns a lady who decides that she wants to shoot a tiger in order to outdo Loona Bimberton who has just flown in a aircraft. Soon a suitable candidate is found:
"Circumstances proved propitious. Mrs Packletide had offered a thousand rupees for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without overmuch risk or exertion, and it so happened that a neighbouring village could boast of being the favoured rendezvous of an animal of respectable antecedents, which had been driven by the increasing infirmities of age to abandon gamekilling and confine its appetite to the smaller domestic animals. The prospect of earning the thousand rupees had stimulated the sporting and commercial instinct of the villagers; children were posted night and day on the outskirts of the local jungle to head the tiger back in the unlikely event of his attempting to roam away to fresh hunting-grounds, and the cheaper kinds of goats were left about with elaborate carelessness to keep him satisfied with his present quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age before the date appointed for the memsahib’s shoot. Mothers carrying their babies home through the jungle after the day’s work in the fields hushed their singing lest they might curtail the restful sleep of the venerable herd-robber."
It seems so ridiculous, and yet the task proves much trickier than Mrs Packletide anticipates with humorous results.
This little book provides an excellent taste of the author (as, no doubt, Penguin intended) and I'll be reading more Saki in the future.
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