⇒ [PDF] Free Best of Saki Picador Books Saki H H Munro Tom Sharpe 9780330247320 Books

Best of Saki Picador Books Saki H H Munro Tom Sharpe 9780330247320 Books

Download As PDF : Best of Saki Picador Books Saki H H Munro Tom Sharpe 9780330247320 Books

Best of Saki Picador Books Saki H H Munro Tom Sharpe 9780330247320 Books

The one thing I like about these stories is they usually involve a troublemaker, which makes them pretty good. And if that troublemaker's name is Clovis, that's usually an indication that the story will be even better. While I don't like these short stories as much as the ones about Sherlock Holmes, most of them are nice well-written quick reads.

The picture on the front of the version I got puzzled me, and I thought it was just completely generic art. Then I found out it represents story #36, The Stalled Ox.

Other than the troublemaking I discussed earlier, the stories don't really follow a pattern, so they're hard to describe. Some are easy to predict, and some have a twist. More than one of them focus on someone searching for relaxation, only to be stressed out by interesting fabrications told by the troublemaker. But the troublemaker usually has a reason for causing trouble, and doesn't cause the trouble out of pure malice. It's usually to teach a lesson of some sort. I guess that's the pattern most of the stories take.

It's hard to pick a favorite story, and I forgot the first half of the stories since I read them so long ago, but I really like "The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh" which involves someone paying a ransom to a kidnapper to keep her AWAY, not to bring her back home.


Tags : Best of Saki (Picador Books) [Saki, H. H. Munro, Tom Sharpe] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Saki's satirical, comic and macabre short stories of pre-war society.,Saki, H. H. Munro, Tom Sharpe,Best of Saki (Picador Books),Pan Books Ltd,0330247328,General,Fiction,Fiction General,Modern fiction,Short stories

Best of Saki Picador Books Saki H H Munro Tom Sharpe 9780330247320 Books Reviews

Lixou, the other day I was thinking of what you might like for your birthday and since we last spoke of ghastly aunts from the past and their lugubrious antics, the short stories by the late H.H. Munro, a British author writing under the pen name of 'Saki' sprang to mind. Whether he is still much read in America today, or England is debatable, but I think you might enjoy him as much as I have, and he can certainly make a person feel deviously chipper with the telling of his dark practical jokes. To quote Graham Green, his vignettes laced with trenchant and outrageous humor both 'dazzle and delight'. Here is some introductory background about him Born in Burma in 1870, Munro's father, a senior official in the Burma Police, left him as a toddler in the care of two awful maiden aunts residing in Devon, who loathed each other and everybody around them until he was retrieved by his father after a solid academic education, and went off on continental travels while being introduced to the ways of Edwardian Society. What had really proven to be Munro's saving grace when he was a lonely, sickly child in the care of his detestable female relatives was his great love and affinity for animals and fascination with history (he was a great one for Russia especially), and his stories later on were well received by the public when he poked fun at languishing Edwardians in the countryside at dull tea parties and the like. The introduction of his fictitious character 'Clovis Sangrail', an incorrigible and imaginative young prankster, some precocious diabolical children and a few eccentric ladies with a knack for breezily escaping, or addressing complex social situations by drumming-up wild absurdities, help to raise the ante. The above personalities often leave their pompous and bombastic victims speechless, in the lurch and in a state of chaos. He even hauls in the Boy Scouts on occasion to help confuse the parties at hand, causing me to laugh tremendously (check 'The Unrest-Cure'). In the middle of all this farcical and comic revenge on arbitrary authorities, convention, hypocrisies, petty-minded people and dullards, and with the usage of his wickedly elegant penmanship, there are slight notes of bitter irony and melancholy to be found in his literature. To sum it up, Saki has a sharp edge. He was by all accounts a quiet man with a serious side to him, and you might say that it was his sense of honor-bound duty that inevitably did him in at a moderately young age. In the meantime, here's a snippet of one of his stories about a marital tiff entitled 'The Reticence of Lady Anne', to give you an idea of his writing and the flavor of this author while leaving the conclusion for you to puzzle out

'Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little domestic quarrel over the luncheon-table had not been fought to a definite finish, and the question was how far Lady Anne was in a mood to renew or forgo hostilities...Don Tarquinio, their cat, lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight with superb indifference to the possible ill-humour of Lady Anne...The page-boy, who had Renaissance tendencies, had christened him Don Tarquinio. Left to themselves, Egbert and Lady Anne would unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they were not obstinate...Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of breaking on Lady Anne's initiative, he braced himself for another Yermak effort..."Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert cheerfully...To get the worst of an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a monologue was a humiliating novelty..."I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he intended some shade of sternness to creep...Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence...At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further appeal..."Aren't we being very silly?"..."A fool", was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on Egbert's retreat. Then he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch's cage. It was the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but he was carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the precision of mature deliberation. The bullfinch, who had fancied himself something of a despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his normal displacement; then he fell to a helpless wing-beating and shrill cheeping...'

And, here I shall cease on this note, adding that perhaps you will find Saki's stories slightly addicting. I finished one, and proceeded to polish off the rest with the avidity of a she-wolf. This mild and aloof man, hard to pin down and harboring a fierce temper under his gentle exterior, made a rare and original contribution to English literature. I do hope you will enjoy his writing and look forward to hearing what you have to say about this new literary acquaintance. Many happy returns on your special day, and have some 'Saki' on me on this celebratory occasion'.
It was around fifty years ago that I last read anything by Saki, or, to use his real name, H.H. Munro. Among the authors I encountered through the ensuing years were P.G. Wodehouse and Roald Dahl. Now, in reading this collection of Saki's best, I realize how much Wodehouse and Dahl have in common with Saki. Theirs is an art of the droll, the unexpected, and the absurd. Saki was the oldest of the three and arguably the best -- without question the best, if one uses pithiness as the chief criterion.

This volume contains thirty-seven stories by Saki. The longest is nine pages; a few are only three pages. They are uniformly clever. There is plenty of wordplay. In several of the stories the uncanny or supernatural assumes a leading role. In many of them there is a decidedly sinister or malevolent element. (Aunts, in particular, are to be viewed with deep suspicion.) But above all, for me the quality that most stands out is the creative virtuosity of Saki's imagination and plot-spinning.

This volume is blessed with a short, aptly Saki-esque Introduction by Graham Greene. (Greene also was the one who selected these stories as Saki's "best".) It was in Greene's Introduction that I learned that Saki/Munro's contribution to the Last Words Department was especially poignant at age 45, in a shallow crater near Beaumont-Hamel in 1916, he was killed by a German sniper after yelling, "Put out that bloody cigarette!"
Wonderful; witty and entertaining
One of the funniest writers in the English language.
Sharpest, wittiest, break-down-into-tears-with-laughter, Munro (a.k.a., Saki) has undeniably preserved himself in my heart forever as my favorite Edwardian humorist. We all know at least someone, perhaps a small town, who needs AN UNREST CURE. Or maybe you know a young couple "In the Family Way." This little tome has lots of lovely, sentimental names they might like! My special fave was Esme. I named my next cat Esme, as I wasn't in a family way, don't you know!

Written in Edwardian England pre-WWI, Saki's short macabre comedies are twisted, wicked fun!
The one thing I like about these stories is they usually involve a troublemaker, which makes them pretty good. And if that troublemaker's name is Clovis, that's usually an indication that the story will be even better. While I don't like these short stories as much as the ones about Sherlock Holmes, most of them are nice well-written quick reads.

The picture on the front of the version I got puzzled me, and I thought it was just completely generic art. Then I found out it represents story #36, The Stalled Ox.

Other than the troublemaking I discussed earlier, the stories don't really follow a pattern, so they're hard to describe. Some are easy to predict, and some have a twist. More than one of them focus on someone searching for relaxation, only to be stressed out by interesting fabrications told by the troublemaker. But the troublemaker usually has a reason for causing trouble, and doesn't cause the trouble out of pure malice. It's usually to teach a lesson of some sort. I guess that's the pattern most of the stories take.

It's hard to pick a favorite story, and I forgot the first half of the stories since I read them so long ago, but I really like "The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh" which involves someone paying a ransom to a kidnapper to keep her AWAY, not to bring her back home.