Brilliant short stories from a master!
I recently decided to stretch my literary horizons by exploring the short story genre, so I began by looking up some lists of classics of the genre. The obvious candidates included well-known favourites from big names like Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, H.G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, and more. But there was one name I had not come across before, and I found myself delighted with the short stories I subsequently discovered. That author is Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), who wrote under the pseudonym Saki.
Saki was a British writer who proved himself a master of the short story genre, and whose work is rightly compared favourably alongside O. Henry, another of my favourite short story authors. He was in part inspired by writers like Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Rudyard Kipling, and in turn influenced others such as P.G. Wodehouse. Many reviewers make frequent comparisons between Saki, Wilde, and Wodehouse.
Typical of Saki's short stories is a biting satire of the stuffy Edwardian emphasis on etiquette and appearances, which was often given priority above morality. Animals and children frequently outwit adults, and are used to expose the Edwardian hypocrisy that lurked beneath the outward layers of respectability. His vocabulary is expansive, and his writing is crisp and stylish.
Many of Saki's stories have comic elements, and returning buffoon characters like Reginald and Clovis are often used as tools to create points of humour, and to provide witty dialogue and mischief. Some stories also feature an ironic twist at the end, reminiscent of O. Henry. Saki accomplishes all this with a real economy of words, because it's rare for one of his stories to stretch beyond 2000 words, and most can easily be read in under 10 minutes.
Saki's short stories can easily be found online on a number of websites, so you don't need to buy a book to check out his work. Of all the Saki stories I've read so far, these are my personal favourites that I highly recommend: Bertie's Christmas Eve, Clovis on Parental Responsibilities, Cousin Teresa, Esme, Laura, Mrs Packletide's Tiger, Sredni Vashtar, The Baker's Dozen, The Boar Pig, The Feast of Nemesis, The Feast of Nemesis, The Interlopers, The Lumber Room, The Mouse, The Open Window, The Reticence of Lady Anne, The Schartz-Metterklume Method, The Seven Cream Jugs, The Stalled Ox, The Unrest-Cure, The Way to the Dairy, and Tobermory. Brilliant all round!
by EndersGame_Reviewer