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May 10, 2007
Thursday
 
 
Samizdata quote of the day
Johnathan Pearce (London)  Slogans/quotations

There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets.

- Saki (aka H. Munro).

If you have not read any Saki, well you should repair that omission immediately. Many people, including PG Wodehouse, Noel Coward, Evelyn Waugh and others were inspired by the brilliant, cruel wit of Saki. I have my old friend and intellectual mentor, the late Chris R. Tame, to thank for encouraging me to read Saki. If you are ever in need of cheering up, read any one of Saki's short stories. Absolute magic.

Comments

Go read anything from the Guardian, and then sit down with The Toys of Peace.


Posted by Ian at May 9, 2007 11:51 PM

Believe it or not The Open Window was in my fifth grade reader in Canada, eh! We all used the punchline - Romance at short notice was her specialty - as a catch phrase. Again believe it or not we were ten and eleven years old. The Open Window led me to Tobermory and other Saki masterpieces some sad and bittersweet. Alas post war Canada became too affluent to have real lit in its readers so the poor beknighted kiddies of today are subjected to low quality pap


Posted by Millie Woods at May 10, 2007 03:17 AM

Johnathan,
You are absolutely right. Saki was a genius.
Did you read my appreciation of the great man in the Daily Telegraph?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/11/18/bosaki18.xml
best w,
neil clark


Posted by Neil Clark at May 10, 2007 10:26 AM

Saki is pure genius and Sredni Vashtar is the strangest and most amazing short story I have ever read. Rebellions come in many forms.


Posted by Perry de Havilland at May 10, 2007 11:25 AM

One of my favourite authors -- I think his works are all available on Project Gutenberg now (which is how I came to them years ago). They're like Wodehouse, but with Waugh's nastiness.


Posted by Taeyoung at May 10, 2007 08:35 PM

Clovis is bored and amused at your risible attempt to amuse him. He will have his revenge at tea with your aunt in SW1...


Posted by bob at May 10, 2007 08:57 PM

I had never read any Saki before now. Certainly fun to read 'A Young Turkish Catastrophe' then, almost 100 years on, read about the current goings-on in Turkey.


Posted by Rob at May 11, 2007 12:33 AM

She was a good cook, as cooks go, and as good cooks go, she went.


Posted by triticale at May 11, 2007 12:37 AM
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