The Best of Saki [37 stories]

What a delightful find. Saki is clearly the heir of Oscar Wilde, with similar acerbic wit honed with fine psychological observations. One wonders what kind of writer he could have become had WWI not put a premature end to his life. The quality of these short vignettes varies somehow, as can be expected from a writer his age, but some are downright delightful, and every story has at least one brilliant sentence or aforism that one rereads and savours, hoping one could be just as brilliant at witty repartee or withering comments.

There may not be a greater master of the English short story. Saki (H.H. Munro) writes from a period that is recent enough to be somewhat familiar, but remote enough to provide a bit of an exotic feel to the settings. These short short stories (typically 5 or 6 pages) are an uninterrupted series of gems. In a storytelling style full of grace, charm, and wit, Saki is unstinting in his criticism of the selfish, the self-centered, and the self-absorbed. About the only humans who are spared his sharp utensil are children, who frequently consort with Saki in piercing his victims. Delicious fun.

I read this entire collection over about two weeks. I would not recommend reading Saki's short stories this way. Before reaching the midpoint, one is show more so familiar with his style, approach, and aim that the element of surprise is somewhat dulled. These should be dipped into perhaps two or three at a time and then set aside for a month or two. Don't worry...they'll keep.

Os. show less

As ever with short stories (and these are very short) the collection has some ups and downs. For me the ups were the ones featuring children. The inventive way that the young lad got into the lumber room, and the delights he found there was fabulous. Accompanied by the sensation of getting one up on a slightly dense authority figure. And that is the overriding feel of the book, that authority should be pricked. There is, at times, a slightly cruel edge to the tone; the twist to the story of the gentleman with a frog in his clothing who has to disrobe in a railway carriage being the example that springs to mind. At times they are dated, but at times they feel a lot more recent than the first decade of the century. There is a flapper feel show more to them, and, with little to actually date them, they could be set almost anywhere in peace in the first half of the 20th century.
This was a good collection and I'm pleased to have read it. The best of them were very good. show less

Saki is the best! This is a fantastic collection of (very) short stories, all with a wicked edge and sharp wit. Saki is like Wodehouse, Wilde and Dorothy Parker rolled into one, but worse ... or better, depending on your view of cruelty and viciousness. I'm pro. Clovis Sangrail is a character who features in a about half of the stories contained here; he's like Jeeves only cruel - which, in my opinion, is a great improvement.

I'm sure you've read some of Saki's best-known words before:

He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

You needn’t tell me that a man who doesn’t love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul...

All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't show more respectable live beyond other peoples. A few gifted individuals manage to do both.

My favourite story in this collection is Esme, the story of a hungry hyena who meets up with a baroness on a walk in the country. The hyena proceeds to catch and eat a small gypsy child:

Constance shuddered. "Do you think the poor little thing suffered much?" came another of her futile questions. "The indications were all that way,' I said; 'on the other hand, of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children sometimes do."

I recommend this brilliant collection to anyone with an appreciation for satire and black humour. show less

These are all mostly short short stories—even in this very small Penguin edition, they average no more than about five or six pages each—but they are bitingly, blackly funny. All very Edwardian now, but still rather like an unholy union of Wodehouse and Wilde.

A collection of short stories for and about the rich Edwardian British classes, filled with dark humor and unbearably thin and trivial characters. Like Wilde without the genius. However, a few of the stories do bite beautifully and painfully.

Somewhat macabre stories taking place in the peaceful and comfortable atmosphere of Edwardian England. My favorites include the Schartz-Metterclume Method, The Story-Teller and the Open Window.