polyhy_14's review against another edition
4.0
Beautifully written collection of short stories - witty, quirky and sometimes downright bizarre. Often made me laugh out loud. Highly recommended.
slferg's review against another edition
4.0
Most of the stories were amusing, but there were several that are kind of creepy. But even the creepy are good stories - just creepy.
robin_go's review against another edition
2.0
A collection with a schoolboy-like appetite for the grisly, leading to stories with the most overly-macabre of endings. Often tasteless and shocking. Perhaps, most disturbingly, you darkly suspect the author is sniggering into his school jumper at our shock and discomfort (and that of his characters).
Lots of Wodehouse-type eccentrics but with interests in hunting and overt racism that makes the collection difficult to read. There are redeeming features - I liked some of the set-ups, Clovis' prankish impudence and the times it was being irreverent and not just downright grotesque for shocks.
Lots of Wodehouse-type eccentrics but with interests in hunting and overt racism that makes the collection difficult to read. There are redeeming features - I liked some of the set-ups, Clovis' prankish impudence and the times it was being irreverent and not just downright grotesque for shocks.
mlindner's review against another edition
5.0
Read ebook on Touch with Stanza from here: http://feedbooks.com/book/3401
Decidedly wicked and wickedly funny.
Decidedly wicked and wickedly funny.
shubhra19's review against another edition
5.0
Hilarious, Witty, Fun, Must read.
I want someone like Clovis in my life. Like seriously.
I want someone like Clovis in my life. Like seriously.
roshnara's review against another edition
3.0
Clovis is one the original trolls, created by Saki just to prank people, and how well he does it. Naughty doesn't begin to cover it.
The book is not as caustic or witty as Saki's usual, so I would recommend this for a quick light read, preferably as a filler between two books that will scramble your brain.
The book is not as caustic or witty as Saki's usual, so I would recommend this for a quick light read, preferably as a filler between two books that will scramble your brain.
declaired's review against another edition
5.0
Recommended by Olivia! We were chatting about books and she mentioned one of Saki's short stories was one of those Vital Pieces of Literature in her life, and I'm a sucker for vitality. (That one being "Sredni Vashtar," a delight.)
Saki's stories are mostly political or social satire of a certain era of British mainland concerns; they are Quite Funny, both in snarky dialogue and in the punchlines of the story, usually, and a typical narrator is the rather self-involved but clever and amusing Clovis. Milne puts it as "the cruelty of youth," which works as well as anything- absurdities and faith rewarded and skewerings of language and blowhards.
Sometimes, though, there are sprinkled within the typical fare of satiric social puncturings, a few far more straightforward horror stories. I quite enjoyed those creepy diversions, such as "Hounds of Fate" and "The Peace of Mowsle Barton."
The language, I keep hammering on about, but "the talking-out of tarrington" has the most luscious description of a peach and a summer afternoon as to make a winter-stranded woman weep.
A note: stories being a product of a people and a time, this collection (the one I have published by Xist, with an intro by AA Milne, and is available on hoopla) drops the n-word casually once (in The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope), and is as snarky about women's suffrage as it is about anything else; caveat lector, but I enjoyed the vast majority of the stories quite a bit.
Saki's stories are mostly political or social satire of a certain era of British mainland concerns; they are Quite Funny, both in snarky dialogue and in the punchlines of the story, usually, and a typical narrator is the rather self-involved but clever and amusing Clovis. Milne puts it as "the cruelty of youth," which works as well as anything- absurdities and faith rewarded and skewerings of language and blowhards.
Sometimes, though, there are sprinkled within the typical fare of satiric social puncturings, a few far more straightforward horror stories. I quite enjoyed those creepy diversions, such as "Hounds of Fate" and "The Peace of Mowsle Barton."
The language, I keep hammering on about, but "the talking-out of tarrington" has the most luscious description of a peach and a summer afternoon as to make a winter-stranded woman weep.
A note: stories being a product of a people and a time, this collection (the one I have published by Xist, with an intro by AA Milne, and is available on hoopla) drops the n-word casually once (in The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope), and is as snarky about women's suffrage as it is about anything else; caveat lector, but I enjoyed the vast majority of the stories quite a bit.
skolastic's review against another edition
4.0
Not going to lie - I have absolutely no memory of why I wanted to read this. It's not bad though! There are some genuinely darkly funny stories in here, although unfortunately I don't think all of them have aged that well (at least I had a hard time following some of them as someone who's not a student of the British upper class). Somewhere between a 3 and a 4, but I'll mark it 4.
kite's review
funny
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75