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10. H.H. Munro, aka Saki (1904), Reginald
Friday, 17 August 2007 13:08Thanks to this site, I have taken to reading short stories by Saki while eating my lunch-time sandwiches. I've enjoyed the odd Saki story in the past (my favourite probably being The Stalled Ox), but the Square Eye site offers the opportunity to read them systematically, collection by collection, so I have now read the entirety of Reginald - his first collection, published in 1904.
Reginald is cynically effete, and enjoys shocking the staider members of Edwardian society. He's the natural successor to Dorian Gray, though also beginning to nod a little in the direction of Bertie Wooster. I think my favourite story was 'Reginald's Choir Treat', in which Reginald is persuaded by a well-meaning vicar's daughter to take a group of choir-boys on their annual outing. Having set them to bathe in a local stream and sat upon their clothes, he proceeds to organise the naked boys, plus a handy nearby goat, into a Bacchanalian procession which he then sends singing and piping back into the village. "Reginald said he had seen something like it in pictures; the villagers had seen nothing like it in their lives, and remarked as much freely."
They're all good, though. Many are in fact more snippets from Reginald's conversations than stories as such. His interlocutors serve simply as audience and foil – sometimes they get as much of an identity as 'the Duchess', but often they are simply 'the Other' – while the real focus is Reginald's declamations upon society. They're also all very short, making them ideal lunch-time reading, as there is always a natural break ready for whenever you have finished your sarnie. I suspect reading too many in one sitting would start to cause ennui – as can also be the case with Wilde or Wodehouse. But the odd lunch-time visit is much to be encouraged, and I shall certainly be working my way through more of them.
Reginald is cynically effete, and enjoys shocking the staider members of Edwardian society. He's the natural successor to Dorian Gray, though also beginning to nod a little in the direction of Bertie Wooster. I think my favourite story was 'Reginald's Choir Treat', in which Reginald is persuaded by a well-meaning vicar's daughter to take a group of choir-boys on their annual outing. Having set them to bathe in a local stream and sat upon their clothes, he proceeds to organise the naked boys, plus a handy nearby goat, into a Bacchanalian procession which he then sends singing and piping back into the village. "Reginald said he had seen something like it in pictures; the villagers had seen nothing like it in their lives, and remarked as much freely."
They're all good, though. Many are in fact more snippets from Reginald's conversations than stories as such. His interlocutors serve simply as audience and foil – sometimes they get as much of an identity as 'the Duchess', but often they are simply 'the Other' – while the real focus is Reginald's declamations upon society. They're also all very short, making them ideal lunch-time reading, as there is always a natural break ready for whenever you have finished your sarnie. I suspect reading too many in one sitting would start to cause ennui – as can also be the case with Wilde or Wodehouse. But the odd lunch-time visit is much to be encouraged, and I shall certainly be working my way through more of them.
