Simon Thomas (5)

‘’Remember me to them all,’’ cried Mrs.Alladale. ‘’Remember everything. Remember that the jasmine is in flower and how bright the stars are over Florence.’’

From France to Lake Como, from Florence to London, these are stories in which some of the most important women writers of the 20th century communicate feelings, thoughts and deeds heightened by the summer ambience. Many see summer as a time of beginnings. I’ve always thought that summer is a time for beginnings that end show more abruptly, at times bitterly, leaving their marks on your heart. Most of the stories included dealing with loss, sadness, regret and the burden of a love that may not flourish for various reasons.

Summer is not a time for reading silly romances and ‘’ever-afters’’ to…cleanse your palate. If you need to do that, you’re not a true reader in the first place and this is God’s honest truth, so don’t even bother with true Literature. For the rest of us, collections like this one are treasures.

Carnation (Katherine Mansfield): Can you really focus on a lesson when the glory of Nature envelops you in its arms?

Kew Gardens (Virginia Woolf): Kew Gardens is an enticing place to be. A place where relationships unfold, where secrets are being whispered.

‘’Three weeks afterwards found him in the prow of a motor-boat, furrowing Lake Como as he sped towards the villa. The sky was cloudless, the hills to the right rose sheer above him, casting the lengthening shadows of the afternoon across the luminous and oily water; to the left were brilliant and rugged above the clustered villages. The boat shot closely under Cadenabbia and set the orange-hooded craft bobbing; the reflected houses rocked and quivered in her wake, colours flecked the broken water.’’

I had the immense happiness to read this collection while vacationing in the Norther Italian Lakes, in Como and Maggiore, and just HOW PERFECT WAS THAT?

Requiescat (Elizabeth Bowen): The loss of a husband and the appearance of an old friend brings repressed feelings to surface in a story set in beautiful Como.

‘’George Bingham looked down across the valley at Florence, across the smoke of grey olive-tress and the black geometrical shapes of the cypresses, black triangular cypresses, smoke-vague olives - and the white-walled houses with their flat roofs, golden in the evening light. The vine-wreathed canopy of the terrace made a dark frame for the landscape. Just below, steeply and deeply below, was a little garden, paved with grey flagstones. There were stone bowls containing little pools of water, dark-leaved tropical plants in grey stone vases, and thin pale grey cats prowling about softly as smoke among them. Mist covered the distant Arno. The copper-red dome of the cathedral glowed above it.

Exile (Sylvia Lynd): Florence, the land of Art, Love and Loneliness…

‘’London in early June hints that this is going to be the loveliest summer, the only summer, the summer of gay adventures and desires come true.
You can catch these subtle whispers in the very way the awnings flap in the light breeze; in the brilliance of the window-boxes, scarlet and pink geraniums, on the facades in Mayfair; in the hydrangeas and rhododendrons massed bushily about the parks, and seen through the railings of demure private gardens; in the flutter of light chiffon dresses, in the very cadence of a passing voice, in the glimpse of a cool hall through a doorway left open.’’

Black Cat For Luck (G.B.Stern): Summer London sets the stage for a story of a lovestruck, superstitious youth and a flight girl.

The Sand Castle (Mary Lavin): Three children discover that building a castle is the surest way to overcome all differences in a story of that unique innocence that comes with being a child on a beautiful summer day.

‘’Most people get what they live for, but as they do not know what they are living for, they do not always like it.’’

The Shark’s Fin (Phyllis Bottome): Set in the Caribbean, this is the story of a newly married couple who is already facing cracks in the heaven of their honeymoon, as the woman’s whim reveals multitudes about the way they view the world and each other.

‘’Sarah laughed: she had wanted ‘’Italy’’ to be like this. It wasn’t always. There had been windy nights when the tablecloths flew up and napkins slithered away into the shadows: when the gay Campari umbrellas, threshing a little, swayed from their moorings and suddenly took wing; there had been nights of mist - the lake ‘perspiring’: and nights of sudden thunder storms, which blew up without warning - crashing about between the peaks. On such occasions, one ate upstairs in a white-washed dining room, hung with last year’s calendars.’’

The Lovely Evening (Mary Norton): A night somewhere in a lakeside Italian town hides surprises for three women. Norton got the unique ‘feeling’ and the atmosphere of my favourite country to a tee.

The Pool (Daphne du Maurier): A young girl tries to cope with loss resenting her family and begging to be accepted in an imaginary world. A masterpiece by du Maurier, a tale that is the epitome of the psychological study of lost innocence.

In a Different Light (Elizabeth Taylor): Barbara’s visit to support her sister following the death of her husband prompts her to see her life back in England in a different light. The Greek aura wins her heart and an encounter with a compatriot married to a horrible woman uncovers thoughts she didn’t know she’d been nurturing. A story that contains a plethora of layers with a beautifully tender ending.

In and Out of Never-Never Land (Maeve Brennan): Excuse me for my shameless self-promotion but Maeve Brennan must have met me in another life. Mary-Ann is the most ‘me’ character I’ve ever encountered in the millions of books I’ve read. She is perfectly content to stay in her lovely house with her books, her cats and her dog and the hullaballoo of the 4th of July doesn’t really do anything for her. On an all-too-conspicuous night, though, she realises that we may not enjoy the company of adults, but children are a different matter.

Afternoon In Summer (Sylvia Townsend Warner): A serene snippet of a young married couple’s afternoon spent at a funeral. It sounds strange and morbid but the tranquility of the story reflects the calmness of a late summer afternoon.

The Fortune Teller (Muriel Spark): A young woman travels with her friends to France. They decide to stay in a lovely chateau, guests of a strange hostess. Thus starts a peculiar interaction between a clairvoyant and a fortune teller in a terrific story by Spark.

Men Friends (Angela Huth): The string of lovers of a deceased woman attend her funeral, I must confess I can’t fully grasp why this story was included in this collection…

‘’You have got your wish [...] However, it is a wish that you should not have made.’’

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‘’When the sun goes down, it is very cold and then I easily start crying because the winter moon presses my heart. The winter moon is surrounded by an extraordinary darkness, the logical antithesis of the supernal clarity of the day. In this darkness, the dogs in every household howl together at the sight of a star, as if the stars were unnatural things. But from morning until evening, a hallucinatory light floods the shore and a cool, glittering sun transfigures everything so show more brilliantly that the beach looks like a desert and the ocean like a mirage.’’

The Reckoning (Edith Wharton): A woman who used to believe in certain unconventional ideas regarding marriage, finds herself a victim of her ideology due to her scoundrel of a husband. So, before we jump on the bandwagon of dubious motos, we’d better take a step back and think twice. Written in Wharton’s unmistakable, haunting, bittersweet voice, a momentary ode to the dark streets of New York.

‘’You think you know what it is to be cold, Frances,’’ she said. ‘’You don’t. You had better pray that you never may! It is to feel yourself gradually losing all human sensation; to feel that where there should be glowing moving blood there is motionless ice; to feel that the very atmosphere about you is not the atmosphere of every day, warm with the breath of your fellow creatures, but something rarified until its chill is agony.’’

My Fellow Travellers (Mary Angela Dickens): Written by Dickens’s eldest grandchild, this is the story of a teacher who becomes witness to an uncanny scene on a train. A haunting ghost story told in moving detail.

‘’New York must be full of suffering of one kind or another on a day like this. Just go out and spend it looking for the coldest woman in New York, or the saddest woman, or the most overworked woman, or the most anything woman in New York, and come back and write a story about her.’’

The Woman Who Was So Tired (Elizabeth Banks): Some piece of mission, right? In a deeply tender, profound story, a young reporter has to wander in wintery New York to find the woman with the ‘’best’’ story.

‘’She was outside on the step, gazing at the winter afternoon. Rain was falling, and with the rain it seemed the dark came too, spinning down like ashes. There was a cold bitter taste in the air, and the new-lighted lamps looked sad. Sad were the lights in the houses opposite. Dimly they burned as if regretting something. And people hurried by, hidden under their hateful umbrellas.’’

Doesn’t this passage bring tears to your eyes with its beauty?

A Cup of Tea (Katherine Mansfield): A wealthy young woman believes she has stumbled upon a scene out of Dostoevsky’s stories. But it is arrogance, not kindness that leads her to an act of empty ‘’mercy’’ Written in Mansfield’s superbly haunting, acidic tone.

‘’There is a special quality about a December sunset. The ruffles of red-gold gradually untightening, the congested mauve islands on a transparent sea of green, the ultimate luminous primrose dissolving into violet powder and the cold, biting night, lit up by strange patches of colour that have somehow been forgotten in the sky.’’

A Motor (Elizabeth Bibesco): Two people enjoying the cold December weather find themselves facing broken love affairs. Two motors become the metaphor for the feelings that haunt our steps.

Ann Lee’s (Elizabeth Bowen): A shopping experience turns mysteriously sinister when a man enters a hat shop igniting a strange interaction. One of the finest and most cryptic stories by Bowen.

‘’One has to face most things alone,’’ said Elizabeth, ‘’but it’s worth it.’’

The Snowstorm (Violet M. MacDonald): A snowy day provides the setting for the elopement of a peculiar ‘’illicit’’ couple in a haunting, reflective, and eerie story.

November Fair/ Ffair Gaeaf (Kate Roberts, translated from Welsh by Joseph P. Clancy): The aches and joys of a lively group of people within a single day, the day of the November Fair.

My Life With R.H.Macy (Shirley Jackson): An endless sequence of numbers, memos and a protagonist that has six numbers instead of a name. It’s her first time as a shop assistant at Macy’s, but will she return for her third day?

The Cold (Sylvia Townsend Warner): Mrs Ryder - one of the most exhausting characters you’ll ever meet in the pages of a book - manages to turn the annual common cold into an outrageous social criticism, based on her prejudices.

The Prisoner (Elizabeth Berridge): I’m sorry, but am I supposed to be moved by the wet dream of an idiotic middle-aged virgin who decides to fancy a young German POW? Really, girl? Tell your dramatic story about wanting a dick between your fat legs to the ones who were massacred in the concentration camps by the Nazi monsters. And she thinks that the Russians are monsters? Guess again, ‘’lady’’...

This story should NOT have been included in this collection. It is disrespectful, out of place, and frankly? Extremely badly written!

‘’But the roads were grey, the houses were grey, the rocks were grey. The wind was grey; and salty grey - like a licked seashore pebble- tasted the cold air in one’s mouth.
Judith loved everything deeply.

The Cut Finger ( Frances Bellery): Young Judith believes that a trip to the seaside in the heart of winter is going to be an exciting adventure. The truth, though, will break her heart.

The Thames Spread Out (Elizabeth Taylor): A middle-aged woman waits for her lover across a flooded landscape. Father Thames has risen, prompting her to contemplate her failures, leading a life of affairs with married men, living on the expenses provided for her…services. Strangely enough, Taylor manages to create a story of haunting beauty, built on a character that you can’t help but like.

The Smile of Winter (Angela Carter): Naturally, the last word belongs to the one and only Angela Carter and her achingly beautiful musings on winter.

A collection marvellously edited and introduced by Simon Thomas. I can assure you a man does know how to compose an anthology of stories written by women. Perhaps if some of you weren't so absorbed by the latest pseudo-feministic cries and dying your hair green, purple or pink, you'd have the chance to sit down and read a proper book…But I guess that would require an immense effort on your part…And if you can’t ‘’find’’ the connection between these stories and winter, you need to have your brains checked.

‘’Do not think I don’t realise what I am doing. I am making composition using the following elements: the winter beach; the winter moon; the ocean; the women; the pine trees; the riders; the driftwood; the shells; the shapes of darkness and the shapes of water; and the refuse. these are all inimical to my loneliness because of their indifference to it. Out of these pieces of inimical indifference, I intend to represent the desolate smile of winter which, as you must have gathered, is the smile I wear.’’

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''To me, it's the one time you are really a child at heart, however old you may be. It's a time of lovely, darling surprises, of, for once, reaping the benefit of having saved up - of being happy just simply...One walks lots at Christmas, have you noticed? And one plays games, and is not only a child at heart, but pure of heart; just for a little while.''

The Turkey Season (Alice Munro): A satirical -yet poignant- look at the interactions between the workers of the Turkey Barn during the days show more leading up to Christmas.

This Year It Will Be Different (Maeve Binchey): This story demonstrates that a) the greatest expectation-busters are our own families, and b) it will take millennia for all to understand that a woman's natural habitat is NOT the bloody kitchen! Christmas or no Christmas!

General Impression of a Christmas Shopping Centre (E.M. Delafield): A hilarious insight into the frenzy of a shopping centre during Christmas.

The Christmas Pageant (Barbara Robinson): One of the jewels in the collection. Meet the ''nightmarish'' children who taught everyone what Christmas is all about. And read the novel that followed the story. You'll roll with laughter and, simultaneously, find yourself moved to tears.

Ticket for a Carol Concert (Audrey Burton): The village gossipers are touched by the Christmas spirit and a carol concert becomes unexpectedly successful in a story that exposes all the burdens that can't be concealed by the bright Christmas lights.

Snow (Olive Wadsley): A tender story about the ordeals of love, misunderstandings and secrets. And footsteps in the snow...

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Kate Nivison): A mouse does its best to avoid a mother who tries to prepare the stockings as she contemplates the ways her teenage daughters are about to change.

Christmas Fugue (Muriel Spark): Love is in the air when Christmas comes to town. Just be careful who you fall for...

The Little Christmas Tree (Stella Gibbons): The unexpected arrival of three charming children causes our heroine to take a different course in life. Personally speaking, I'd prefer my solitude, thank you very much.

The Christmas Present (Richmal Crompton): I've always said that when I become an elderly lady, I will pass everyone off by pretending to be deaf. This story reinforced my future plan.

Christmas Bread (Kathleen Norris): I'm afraid this one left me cold despite the beautiful Christmassy scenes. A rather melodramatic family reunion isn't really my cup of tea. However, the vast majority of readers will adore it.

Christmas in a Bavarian Village (Elizabeth von Arnim): Christmas in a Bavarian village two years before the Nazi terror of the Final Solution.

Freedom (Nancy Morrison): Sylvia is in love and eager to earn her freedom from a tyrant. A charming story set in Switzerland.

On Skating (Cornelia Otis Skinner): Unfortunately, this story was overloaded with questionable (to put it mildly...) remarks about races and religions. In my humble opinion, it shouldn't have been included in this collection.

Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (Beryl Bainbridge): Again, I found myself appalled and wondering who thought it would be a good idea to choose this abominable story with an even more abominable ending to be included in this volume. Not to mention the fact that it is actually traumatic for a person whose father has experienced a heart attack. The editor dropped the ball with a serious thud here.

The Pantomime (Stella Margetson): This story gives a lively snippet of the fever behind the scenes of a pantomime and the difficulty of leaving something (and someone) behind...

On Leavin' Notes (Alice Childress): New Year's resolutions cannot alter the position of the ones who have been deemed as the ''weakest'' by society.

''Then there was scurrying and laughter in the streets, bundles dampened, boys shouting and running, merry faces, rouged by the pure, soft cold. The shabby, leather-sheathed doors of St. Martin's, opposite Merle's window, creaked and swung under the touch of wet, gloved hands. Merle could see the Christmas - trees and the boxed oranges outside the State Street groceries coated with eider-down; naked gardens and fences and bare trees everywhere grew muffle and feathered and lovely. In the early twilight the whole happy town echoed with bells and horns and the clanking of snow- shovels.''

Marvellously introduced by Simon Thomas, this is a memorable anthology of festive stories with a healthy dose of hope and nostalgia, despite my serious (subjective) objection over 3 -4 of the works included.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

A nice collection of Christmas-themed stories from authors such as Maeve Binchey, Muriel Spark, Stella Gibbons, Richmal Crompton and Elizabeth Von Arnim. My favorites were The Christmas Pageant by Barbara Robinson and Cornelia Otis Skinner's piece on ice skating. I'm embarrassed to say that I've never read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Robinson; this story led to that book. I think the short story is perfect, and I'm leery that making it longer would make it better. Someday I'll read show more "Best" and find out. By the way, the introduction for this collection is written by Simon Thomas, who writes the Stuck In a Book blog. If you don't read his blog, you should. show less