Reviews

"What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly by a feeling of bliss-absolute bliss!-as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?...

marionlebras's review against another edition

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5.0

"Bliss" was an incredibly well thought-out short story. I felt almost blinded by the intensity of the emotions of Bertha, the main character. The way Mansfield described how she saw the world was so pure and naive, but also with a sense of urgency, where so many emotions happen in only 12 pages (human emotions do have a tendency to superpose themselves, coming by and leaving again very fast) and it made me as a reader oblivious to what was really going on, which is why the ending surprised me. Although she did sound as if she wanted to reassure herself on the normality of her life, the extreme towards which she took her feelings and the moment they share outside of the kitchen are beautiful, but you can tell that she is almost wearing blinkers (the glasses horses wear to obstruct their peripheral vision), in the sense that she takes into account the things that confirm her opinion on current events — which is a trait that is very human, although here taken to a new level. The introduction of implied homosexuality is subversive and shocking for its time (1918) — for both the poet and Bertha —, but it is also in line with Bertha’s wish to be “modern”, although she consciously focuses on superficial and shallow aspects of this modernity. To me, this theme reminded me of Boris Vian’s writing — it is flowery, excessive, absurd, satiric, and almost simplistic and superficial to cover up the deep signification that might be too hard to face. I liked the symbolism of the pear tree as the leitmotiv of this piece, it stands for blissful ignorance, for Bertha — “its wide open blossoms [are] as symbol of her own life”; how Pearl Fulton is a personified version of it — dressed in silver and emitting a shimmery glow, but actually her rival; the masculine identity it takes on for both women — “it seemed, like the flame of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow taller and taller”, with the tree reaching for the moon, also a representation of Pearl, rather than for Bertha.

notagreatreader's review

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5.0

I usually don't read the introductory/biographic section at the beginning of classic books, but for some reason I decided to read a couple pages of the one about Mansfield and then I just couldn't stop because it was so fascinating. And then the stories. This my first time reading Katherine Mansfield's stories and OMG. They're so good.

The stories appear so simple, just every day, 'slice of life' stories, yet the emotional punch each of them pack is extraordinary. I'm haunted by The Little Governess days after reading it, although I guess arguably that one is not such an every day story.

Also, I feel like a sort of general sadness, or perhaps a state of the blues, permeates most of the stories, which is distinct yet reminds me of the general existential sadness characteristic of stories by Russian authors.

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