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A review by drewsstuff
In a German Pension: 13 Stories by Katherine Mansfield
4.0
And now I'm about to say something so banal and stupid I'm going to hate myself* forever**. Sorry***.
Katherine Mansfield isn't Dorothy Parker. Or Virginia Woolf. Or Jane Austen.
There just isn't the same level of understanding human character, there's not the same level of ascerbic wit, or ability to sum up a person in a few choice words.
And that's a bad thing because?
I shake my head. It's not a bad thing at all. This girl was, at her oldest, 22 when she wrote these stories. If anyone, including me, thinks you can imply and show in-depth characters in twenty words and be funny, with the life experience you've gained at 22 you are (I am) an idiot.
So what does she give you, dear reader?
She gives you writing (and, more importantly, stories) that in many aspects are as close to Austen, Parker or Woolf as you can get without actually being them. Splendid vignettes of high-born German characters, their nuances and idiosyncracies; stories where an action alters a character's outlook; a story of horror told so simply that it's not until you've read it and thought about it does the real horror reveal itself.
As with all good stories, there is something fundamentally timeless about each of these. Timeless and thoroughly enjoyable. It's a shame she died in her mid-thirties, she would, I believe, have become one of the great writers in English, if not the greatest. I could be wrong, I'm basing that little outburst on nothing more than these thirteen short stories.
And yes, I do mean greater than Austen, Parker and Woolf.
So there you have it. Read it if you like. Don't if you don't like. It's your loss. Me, I'm off to finish my current reads so that I can start on a new Katherine Mansfield. :)
*no, I'm not. Prolonged self-hate is the domain of the self-centred. And stupid.
** for never.
*** not sorry.
Thanks for reading this and sorry for keeping you from reading your own books.
Katherine Mansfield isn't Dorothy Parker. Or Virginia Woolf. Or Jane Austen.
There just isn't the same level of understanding human character, there's not the same level of ascerbic wit, or ability to sum up a person in a few choice words.
And that's a bad thing because?
I shake my head. It's not a bad thing at all. This girl was, at her oldest, 22 when she wrote these stories. If anyone, including me, thinks you can imply and show in-depth characters in twenty words and be funny, with the life experience you've gained at 22 you are (I am) an idiot.
So what does she give you, dear reader?
She gives you writing (and, more importantly, stories) that in many aspects are as close to Austen, Parker or Woolf as you can get without actually being them. Splendid vignettes of high-born German characters, their nuances and idiosyncracies; stories where an action alters a character's outlook; a story of horror told so simply that it's not until you've read it and thought about it does the real horror reveal itself.
As with all good stories, there is something fundamentally timeless about each of these. Timeless and thoroughly enjoyable. It's a shame she died in her mid-thirties, she would, I believe, have become one of the great writers in English, if not the greatest. I could be wrong, I'm basing that little outburst on nothing more than these thirteen short stories.
And yes, I do mean greater than Austen, Parker and Woolf.
So there you have it. Read it if you like. Don't if you don't like. It's your loss. Me, I'm off to finish my current reads so that I can start on a new Katherine Mansfield. :)
*no, I'm not. Prolonged self-hate is the domain of the self-centred. And stupid.
** for never.
*** not sorry.
Thanks for reading this and sorry for keeping you from reading your own books.