I have been in love with Saki’s short stories for many years. And I come back to them frequently because they are the perfect thing to dip into for a palate cleanser between other books.
Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916). Born in Burma, where his father was a senior police official, he was despatched home to the care of two strict maiden aunts in Devon from the age of two. These facts will surprise no one who has read the stories which are full of highly intelligent, logical children outwitting humourlessly dull, repressive adults.
Of the three I want to draw attention to here my favourite is The Lumber Room. Nicholas’s aunt is cross with him because he announced at breakfast that there was a frog in his porridge. There was. He’d put it there. He knew that the Aunt would punish him for “lying” by taking the other children out for a treat. In their absence he dupes Aunt into thinking he would disobey her by entering the gooseberry garden. In fact he escapes, as he’d planned, to the top of the house to the Lumber Room which is full of delights. It’s an immaculate depiction of a child who’s well ahead of his Aunt in every sense – and years later the author’s sister said that Aunt was a perfectly recognisable portrait of their Aunt Augusta. It’s the sardonic style which makes it zing.
The Open Window is almost as good. Framton Nuttall is a man with “nerves” visiting a family he’s been introduced to by mutual friends. In the absence of adults he is looked after by an unnamed “very self-possessed young lady of fifteen” who proceeds to spin him a tragic reason for the nearby open window. What transpires is classic situation comedy and the last seven words are one of the best sentences in 20th century literature. I’ve read the story dozens of times. And I still chuckle in admiration every time I reach that final summative statement.
The Story Teller is slightly different in that it presents the point of view of an adult who is sympathetic to the perspicacious children and exasperated by the hopeless aunt who ought to be entertaining them but isn’t. The setting is a railway carriage. He pipes up and in the end the aunt challenges him to tell the children a story. He immediately entrances them with a subversive yarn in which goodness is definitely not rewarded while the furious aunt gets impotently cross. As in The Lumber Room, there is no shred of affection for the Aunt. Perhaps Saki really did write out the miseries of his own childhood in his fiction.
Having made a living from journalism and other forms of writing including several volumes of short stories, Munro was 44 when war was declared in 1914. He was therefore well beyond conscription age but, of his own volition, enlisted as a private and refused a commission. He was killed in 1916.
If Saki is new to you, you’re in for treat. The Penguin edition includes all the stories so you can sample, dip and browse at your will.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: A Very Short Introduction to Nietzsche by Michael Tanner
