Odd - But Even So: Stories Strangers Than Fiction

by P.C. Wren

Contents

Called
Not Seeing But Believing
Bruised Head and Tainted Heel
White Ants
The Pahwang
Ordeal By Water
As In A Glass Clearly
Simple
The Pious Weakling
A Fool And His Money
The Perfect Crime
Mrs. Norleigh's Night Out
Telepathy Extraordinary
Rencontre
Cafard

337 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 1875 – 22 November 1941) was a British writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much-filmed book of 1924 involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa, and its sequels, Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal.

Born as plain Percy Wren, in Deptford, South London, England, Percy was the son of a schoolmaster. After graduation with a Master of Arts degree from St. Catherine's College, Oxford, a non-collegiate college for poorer students, Percy worked as a boarding school teacher for a few years, during which he married Alice Shovelier, and had a daughter (Estelle, born 1901). In 1903 he joined the Indian Education Service as headmaster of Karachi High School (now Pakistan). While in India, he joined the Poona Volunteer Rifles with the rank of Captain, before his service was terminated in October 1915 after sick leave. He resigned from the Indian Education Service in November 1917. It is presumed that his wife died in India, for no record of her return to Britain has been found; his daughter having died in England in 1910. From there it is claimed that he joined the French Foreign Legion for a single tour of five years though he would have been 42 years of age on enlistment, somewhat older that the usual recruit. He lived out the remainder of his life in England concentrating on his literary career. One of the few photographs of Wren known shows a typical British officer of the Edwardian era with clipped moustache, wearing plain dark blue regimental dress.

Wren was a highly secretive man, and his membership of the Legion has never been confirmed. When his novels became famous, there was a mysterious absence of authenticating photographs of him as a legionnaire or of the usual press-articles by old comrades wanting to cash in on their memories of a celebrated figure. It is now thought more likely that he encountered legionnaires during his extensive travels in Algeria and Morocco, and skillfully blended their stories with his own memories of a short spell as a cavalry trooper in England. While his fictional accounts of life in the pre-1914 Foreign Legion are highly romanticised, his details of Legion uniforms, training, equipment and barrack room layout are generally accurate. This may however simply reflect careful research on his part - the descriptions of Legion garrison life given in his work The Wages of Virtue written in 1914 closely match those contained in the autobiographical In the Foreign Legion by ex legionnaire Edwin Rosen, published Duckworth London 1910.

Reviews

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only have read The Perfect Crime (in a different collection, Murder Most Foul volume 2) which was hilarious, for personal reasons.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read one story in this book, "Ordeal By Water" as it is on my reading list as a supernatural story. It's a fable set in Malay involving a rivalry in a small village and the belief that one man involved is a sorcerer and were-leopard. It's reasonably interesting as a jungle setting for that classic folklore trope "the telltale sign" - an animal or evil creature is wounded in a struggle and the wound is later evidenced by an individual, proving they had changed shape. It ends in a romantically heroic feat of strength wherein the title derives and Wren pulls a neat little trick of merging fact and fiction by reproducing a newspaper article at the end that records the same heroic feat - it's just that we have to take his word that the story preceding such a situation involved a were-leopard (specifically, and even worse according to the one native, a were panther!) and a noble Sikh who injures the creature with his "chukra", a quoit or throwing ring with a sharpened outer edge which is hurled like whirling saw blade to quite injurious results.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating form. "Even So" is a collected with additional new poems. The prose poems resemble short snippets similar to journal entries but take opportunities to include fantasy. As I read page after page of Young's poems I found myself observing everything around me more closely. It is very stimulating. I came away feeling like I knew Gary Young well but-but-but I wasn't sure! He incorporates observations on the natural world around him and includes his family along with little surprises.