Saki is definitely someone who should continue to be read and taught. It's been over a hundred years since most of his work has been written, yet his humor and insight are more than relevant now. I laughed out loud several times while I read through this 900+ page collection. His novel, The Unbearable Bassington, is one of my favorite books of all time.
I can't say much else about why I loved this collection as much as I did, not coherently anyway, so I'm going to finish this review with the collection of quotes I highlighted and compiled as I read.
Awesome Insights
"Time is always something of a narcotic you know. Things seem absolutely unbearable, and then bit by bit we find out that we are bearing them."
- When William Came
"It is one thing to face the music, it is another thing to dance to it."
- When William Came
"Whom the gods wish to render harmless they first afflict with sanity."
- When William Came
"One likes to escape from oneself occasionally."
- Reginald on the Academy
"To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failed in life."
- Reginald on the Academy
"Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at any moment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit - once you start it you've got to keep it up."
- Reginald at the Carlton
"The English have a proverb, 'Conscience makes cowboys of us all.'"
"I didn't know [SPOILER] had a conscience."
"My dear Sophie, he hasn't. It's other people's consciences that send one abroad in a hurry."
- Wratislav
"Each feels that she has nursed a viper in her bosom. Nothing fans the flame of human resentment so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been utilised as a snake sanatorium."
- The Hen
It was, of course, deplorable that any one should treat the truth as an article temporarily and excusably out of stock...
- Quail Seed
"Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow older; they merely know more."
- Hyacinth
Brilliant Character Descriptions
"Comus," she said quietly and wearily, "you are an exact reversal of the legend of Pandora's Box. You have all the charm and advantages that a boy could want to help him in the world, and behind it all there is the fatal damning gift of utter hopelessness."
"I think," said Comus, "that is the best description that anyone has ever given of me."
- The Unbearable Bassington
[Reginald] was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages.
- Reginald
In a world that is supposed to be chiefly swayed by hunger and by love Mrs. Packletide was an exception; her movements and motives were largely governed by dislike of Loona Bimberton.
- Mrs. Packletide's Tiger
"I suppose we are in some danger?" said Miss Mebbin.
She was not actually nervous about the wild beast, but she had a morbid dread of performing an atom more service than she had been paid for.
- Mrs. Packletide's Tiger
Whatever good qualities Lester Slaggby may have possessed, and he was in some respects charming, courage could certainly never be imputed to him. ... He was frankly afraid of animals, nervous with firearms, and never crossed the Channel without mentally comparing the numerical proportion of lifebelts to passengers. On horseback he seemed to require as many hands as a Hindu god, at least four for clutching the reins, and two more for patting the horse soothingly on the neck.
- The Easter Egg
Most of the aunt's remarks seemed to begin with "Don't," and nearly all of the children's remarks began with "Why?"
- The Story-Teller
The artistic groups that foregathered at the little restaurant contained so many young women with short hair and so many young men with long hair, who supposed themselves to be abnormally gifted in the domain of music, poetry, painting, or stagecraft, with little or nothing to support the supposition, that a self-announced genius of any sort in their midst was inevitably suspect.
- On Approval
Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and quite penniless.
- Fate
"It's like everything else that belongs to her - her car, her dinner-parties, even her headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had anything like them."
- The Occasional Garden
In an age when it has become increasingly difficult to accomplish anything new or original, Bavton Bidderdale interested his generation by dying of a new disease. 'We always knew he would do something remarkable one of these days,' observed his aunts; 'he has justified our belief in him.'
- The Infernal Parliament
Wicked Insults / Sick Burns
"There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort. For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden."
"The restraint must be dreadfully irksome to you. When I was younger, boys of your age used to be nice and innocent."
- Reginald at the Theatre
Until tea-time that day she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his cleverness lay.
- Tobermory
"When your inclusion in this house-party was suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that you were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded."
- Tobermory
"Is he anywhere to be heard?" asked Clovis; "if not, he must be at least two miles away."
- The Quest
"My poor Elsa would be miserable with him."
"A little misery wouldn't matter very much with her; it would go so well with the way she does her hair..."
- Wratislav
"Why let her wear saffron colour?"
"I always think it goes with her complexion."
"Unfortunately it doesn't. It stays with it. Ugh."
- Wratislav
Witty Miscellaneous Saki-sms
"...glory hasn't come very much my way lately."
- When William Came
By the time one has educated [aunts] to an appreciation of the fact that one does not wear red woollen mittens in the West End, they die, or quarrel with the family, or do something equally inconsiderate.
- Mas Presents
"If you're going to be rude," said Reginald, "I shall dine with you to-morrow night as well."
- Reginald on the Academy
"Cats have nine lives, you know," said Sir Wilfrid heartily.
"Possibly," answered Tobermory; "but only one liver."
- Tobermory
"We've got some Boy-scouts helping us as auxiliaries."
"Boy-scouts!"
"Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be done they were even keener than the men."
- The Unrest-Cure
"I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English."
- Adrian
"We've lost Baby," she screamed.
"Do you mean that it's dead, or stampeded, or that you staked it at cards and lost it that way?" asked Clovis lazily.
- The Quest
Eshley had painted a successful and acceptable picture of cattle drowsing picturesquely under walnut trees, and as he had begun, so, of necessity, he went on. His "Noontide Peace," a study of two dun cows under a walnut tree, was followed by "A Mid-day Sanctuary," a study of a walnut tree, with two dun cows under it.
- The Stalled Ox
'There seems to be a very great public interest in the debate,' exlaimed Bidderdale.
'Members are excused from attending the debates if they so desire,' the Fiend proceeded to explain; 'it is one of their most highly valued privileges. On the other hand, constituents are compelled to listen throughout to all the speeches. After all, you must remember, we are in Hell.'
- The Infernal Parliament
Some of my favorite stories were Reginald's Peace Poem, Gabriel-Ernest, Tobermory, The Talking-Out of Tarrington, The Recessional, The Boar-Pig, The Mappined Life, and The Pond...
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A well worth blast from the past.
Reviewed in Australia on December 10, 2017