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Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories
From the author of The Great Fire, a collection of stories about love and acceptance, expectations and disappointment
Shirley Hazzard's stories are sharp, sensitive portrayals of moments of crisis. Whether they are set in the Italian countryside or suburban Connecticut, the stories deal with real people and real problems.
In the title piece, a young widow is surprised and ashamed by her lack of grief for her husband. In 'A Place in the Country', a young woman has a passionate, guilty affair with her cousin's husband. In 'Harold', a gawky, lonely young man finds acceptance and respect through his poetry.
Moving and evocative, these ten stories are written with subtlety, humor, and a keen understanding of the relationships between men and women.
Shirley Hazzard's stories are sharp, sensitive portrayals of moments of crisis. Whether they are set in the Italian countryside or suburban Connecticut, the stories deal with real people and real problems.
In the title piece, a young widow is surprised and ashamed by her lack of grief for her husband. In 'A Place in the Country', a young woman has a passionate, guilty affair with her cousin's husband. In 'Harold', a gawky, lonely young man finds acceptance and respect through his poetry.
Moving and evocative, these ten stories are written with subtlety, humor, and a keen understanding of the relationships between men and women.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1963
12 people are currently reading
161 people want to read
About the author
Shirley Hazzard
25 books311 followersShirley Hazzard was born in Australia, and as a child travelled the world due to her parents’ diplomatic postings. At age 16, she began working for British Combined Intelligence Services in Hong Kong, monitoring civil war in China. After her family moved to New York City, she worked for several years as a typist at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.
After leaving this post, she became a full-time writer and a passionate opponent of the United Nations, the subject of several of her nonfiction books.
Known for elegant and controlled writing, Hazzard’s works of fiction include five novels. Her last novel, The Great Fire, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
After leaving this post, she became a full-time writer and a passionate opponent of the United Nations, the subject of several of her nonfiction books.
Known for elegant and controlled writing, Hazzard’s works of fiction include five novels. Her last novel, The Great Fire, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
July 30, 2011
I liked these stories well enough, but not nearly as much as the Hazzard novels that I've read. They are very much stories of their time, though much of the emotions and conflicting thoughts of the characters can still seem universal. As with any collection, I liked some stories more than others. My favorites are the title story -- brilliant in its inner life of a young widow -- and "Vittorio" (the dialogue between the husband and wife is especially fine). However, I found "The Picnic" quite tedious, even in its brevity.
August 17, 2022
Most people have at least one cool aunt. The type that's wicked in the kitchen. Or can navigate an airport like they built the place. Maybe they're the person who taught you things that no one else could or was afraid to.
To say that the narrators and characters in most of these stories are like that cool aunt is an understatement. This collection of women are a level up. Posh but not stuffy. Assumed but not neglecting. Elegant but not arrogant. Well maybe a bit arrogant. But you'd be too if you were a disgruntled dame globetrotting through Europe with self-consumed men who didn't listen to your hot takes on 15th century Italian poetry.
It's easy to make food appealing through words. It's much tougher to transform food into a viable character, tone-setter, and propeller of a narrative. How much more without sacrificing your actual human characters. Hazzard's got it down. She makes tomatoes come to life. In her hands, a red wine has no competition. At her best, mid-afternoon picnics are worthy of GQ feature pieces.
The duo stories featuring a 10 year gap between a man and woman having an affair are breathtaking. Flawless doesn't work cause you still say the word flaw. "A Place in the Country" and "Picnic" Those are the titles. Marked by self-importance and love, her story is hushed when necessary and brash when expected.
There's so much New Yorker DNA in these stories that I'm half-curious if Hazzard would have been a more worthy fiction editor than her close? friend William Maxwell. At the very least, if she'd been deputy editor it would have given more oomph to female focussed stories.
To say that the narrators and characters in most of these stories are like that cool aunt is an understatement. This collection of women are a level up. Posh but not stuffy. Assumed but not neglecting. Elegant but not arrogant. Well maybe a bit arrogant. But you'd be too if you were a disgruntled dame globetrotting through Europe with self-consumed men who didn't listen to your hot takes on 15th century Italian poetry.
It's easy to make food appealing through words. It's much tougher to transform food into a viable character, tone-setter, and propeller of a narrative. How much more without sacrificing your actual human characters. Hazzard's got it down. She makes tomatoes come to life. In her hands, a red wine has no competition. At her best, mid-afternoon picnics are worthy of GQ feature pieces.
The duo stories featuring a 10 year gap between a man and woman having an affair are breathtaking. Flawless doesn't work cause you still say the word flaw. "A Place in the Country" and "Picnic" Those are the titles. Marked by self-importance and love, her story is hushed when necessary and brash when expected.
There's so much New Yorker DNA in these stories that I'm half-curious if Hazzard would have been a more worthy fiction editor than her close? friend William Maxwell. At the very least, if she'd been deputy editor it would have given more oomph to female focussed stories.
February 5, 2023
These stories are set in a particular time period, mostly the 1950s, and are about a certain class of people, similar, I think, to Hazzard, and her world then, high-brow, poetically inclined, romantics of various sorts. Her attention to detail, her scalpel through emotions is marvelous, the settings and the characters always coming to life.
June 7, 2023
These stories so beautifully trace the internal conflicts and contradictions people reckon with, and how, in these inner struggles between "poetry and reason," we reach for the comfort and predictability of the latter. The characters in these stories, faced with the idleness of long summer afternoons on vacation in country houses and villas in the Tuscan hills, are forced to confront themselves, and they respond by mobilising all of their intellect to guard against pain. But in the end their efforts are defeated; pain always wins.
January 3, 2017
I had not read any of Hazzard’s books before, so I thought that this short story collection which I found in my library would give me a great feel for her writing style. Ten tales in all make up Cliffs of Fall, and from the very first page, it is clear that Hazzard is an extremely perceptive writer. She brings little details to the forefront of each scene, thus allowing her readers to focus on the elements which they may have otherwise overlooked.
Each of the stories in Cliffs of Fall deals with human condition against a wealth of different, relatively ordinary settings and scenes – a party at a friend’s house, a couple sorting out a bookcase, an Italian man deciding to rent out rooms in his house, and so on. Throughout, I was reminded of Alice Munro’s short stories. Hazzard too is talented at presenting rather a quotidian occurrence and making it somehow immensely interesting. Her characters are set against very distinct backgrounds, and the relationships which they have with one another play out accordingly. Her descriptions, though sometimes a little few and far between, are sumptuous.
Hazzard is great at not stating the obvious; rather, she leaves some details up to the reader’s interpretation, and some of the stories are deliberately left ambiguous. As is often the case with short story collections, some of the tales here are more interesting than others, but I enjoyed them all. I am now very much looking forward to reading her novels to see how they compare.
Each of the stories in Cliffs of Fall deals with human condition against a wealth of different, relatively ordinary settings and scenes – a party at a friend’s house, a couple sorting out a bookcase, an Italian man deciding to rent out rooms in his house, and so on. Throughout, I was reminded of Alice Munro’s short stories. Hazzard too is talented at presenting rather a quotidian occurrence and making it somehow immensely interesting. Her characters are set against very distinct backgrounds, and the relationships which they have with one another play out accordingly. Her descriptions, though sometimes a little few and far between, are sumptuous.
Hazzard is great at not stating the obvious; rather, she leaves some details up to the reader’s interpretation, and some of the stories are deliberately left ambiguous. As is often the case with short story collections, some of the tales here are more interesting than others, but I enjoyed them all. I am now very much looking forward to reading her novels to see how they compare.
September 20, 2025
Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016), the award-winning author of four novels including The Transit of Venus (1980) and The Great Fire (2003), also published two short story collections:
Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories (1963)
People in Glass Houses (1967)
'A Place in the Country' in Cliffs of Fall, was originally published as two separate stories, but it seemed seamless to me. The copyright page provides the information that I wish all collections had, about where the stories were first published. It's even better when the stories are dated.
The settings in the collection are country houses or villas, with one or more characters who are visitors and do not quite belong. They are house guests, or tourists, or relations who are not entirely familiar with dress codes or rules of engagement. In 'A Place in the Country' Nettie has joined her cousin May at the country house for the summer. May and her husband Clem are obviously well off, but not so wealthy that the house is fully furnished with everything they need for a long stay. So the story begins with May about to make a start on unpacking her china while Nettie unpacks the books according to May's instructions, with assistance from Clem to fill the top shelves.
In just a couple of pages Hazzard has established the triangular relationship between these three: May is bossy, confident in her role as In Charge, and blithely unaware that Nettie and Clem are having an affair. Nettie is young, naïve and absolutely besotted by Clem even as she ponders whether she is in love with him or not, while Clem, twenty years older and a father as well as a husband, is mildly patronising, and perhaps not as invested in the affair as Nettie thinks he is.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/09/20/c...
Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories (1963)
People in Glass Houses (1967)
'A Place in the Country' in Cliffs of Fall, was originally published as two separate stories, but it seemed seamless to me. The copyright page provides the information that I wish all collections had, about where the stories were first published. It's even better when the stories are dated.
Nine of the stories in this collection appeared originally in The New Yorker. 'A Place in the Country' was first published in The New Yorker as two stories entitled 'A Place in the Country' and 'A Leave-Taking'. 'In One's Own House' appeared in Mademoiselle.
The settings in the collection are country houses or villas, with one or more characters who are visitors and do not quite belong. They are house guests, or tourists, or relations who are not entirely familiar with dress codes or rules of engagement. In 'A Place in the Country' Nettie has joined her cousin May at the country house for the summer. May and her husband Clem are obviously well off, but not so wealthy that the house is fully furnished with everything they need for a long stay. So the story begins with May about to make a start on unpacking her china while Nettie unpacks the books according to May's instructions, with assistance from Clem to fill the top shelves.
In just a couple of pages Hazzard has established the triangular relationship between these three: May is bossy, confident in her role as In Charge, and blithely unaware that Nettie and Clem are having an affair. Nettie is young, naïve and absolutely besotted by Clem even as she ponders whether she is in love with him or not, while Clem, twenty years older and a father as well as a husband, is mildly patronising, and perhaps not as invested in the affair as Nettie thinks he is.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/09/20/c...
November 9, 2025
I’m treading through the books of Hazards short stories. I will have to read Transit of Venus at some point as well. She is a very strong writer. I’m not being American she writes more in the European vein that we have come to know.
Not all stories work. Some are so light, as to be really too insignificant to put on paper. The two stories in this collection that tell of the triangle between Clem and the cousins May and Nettie are exemplary.
I wrote notes as I read
In “The Party” a couple attend a small party with friends and then return to the man’s apartment. It is apparent she is not happy with what she is getting from him, that the relationship is nearing its end. Interesting lines abound. Minna, speaking of the folks in their social circle, who Ted has criticized as being biased and haughty says “ I suppose they think anyone can be kind. “ Ted responds “ “That’s like saying ‘Anyone can be clean’ in a city where most houses don’t have running water. And in the end the well-meaning people seem to do more harm than the others, who make no pretensions. Don’t you think?”
Minna admits she stays with him because “ Only, starting over again in love is such a journey—like needing a holiday but not wanting to be bothered with packing bags and making reservations. So much trouble—being charming and artful, finding ways to pretend less affection than one feels, and in the end not succeeding, because one doesn’t really profit from experience; one merely learns to predict the next mistake. No, I just can’t be bothered at present.” She shifted her weight and, turning, laid her arm across his knees. He bent forward and smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “So there you are,” she told him. “It’s all a question of inertia. stay because leaving would require too much effort.”
As she departs for home she tries again to let him salvage her, correct the situation. He fails miserably: “You should be trying to build up my confidence,” she said, unblinking, “instead of doing everything to demolish it.” He helped her into her coat. “Confidence is one of those things we try to instill into others and then hasten to dispel as soon as it puts in an appearance.” “Like love,” she observed, turning to the door. “Like love,” he said. “Exactly.”
In “A Place In the Country “ Clem and May have moved to the country for the summer. Well, May and the children, Clem will visit on weekends ( think of The Seven Year Itch) only in this instance his affair is not in his imagination. It is with Nettie, his wife’s young cousin, twenty years his junior. This cannot end well. We can see Nettie’s heartbreak a million miles away. Some more strong phrasing in this.
Describing May walking “ She had a slow, deliberate way of walking—as if she had once been startled into precipitate action and had regretted it. It was the walk of a woman who dealt with men in a straightforward way and must suffer the consequences.”
When Clem explains to Nettie that he can’t leave his wife, his children, for her his reasoning is simple “You got born twenty years too late.” So immense and so complex did the gulf between them appear to her that it was a shock to have it simply stated as a matter of bad timing on her part. She had once been told that the earth, had it been slightly deflected on its axis, would have had no winter; and the possibility of a life shared with Clem appeared to her on the same scale of enormity and remote conjecture. Inexperienced, as he had pointed out, she had no means of knowing if his remarks were excessively unfeeling. She knew him in his daily life to be a reasonable man; from ignorance, she assumed that his conduct now would represent the same proportions of logic and compassion.
A young Nettie looks on her cousins mature marriage and vows to never be that person :
May and Sarah discussed their husbands as though they were precocious children—“Clem is very handy in the house,” as one might say “He hardly ever cries” or “He sleeps right through the night.” Let me go on believing, she asked, looking at his canvas shoe, that love isn’t merely getting along with someone. She thought that once she accepted such a compromised version of love she would never reach back again to this. (She had excessive confidence in the instructive power of experience.)
Once she realizes that he will not leave his wife for her she comes to a more rational conclusion about him, about men in general:
She thought that the digressions in the minds of men were endless. How many disguises were assumed before they could face themselves. How many justifications made in order that they might simply please themselves. How dangerous they were in their self-righteousness—infinitely more dangerous than women, who could never persuade themselves to the same degree of the nobility of their actions.
This is a well written story that could, still today, be handed out to young women before they become involved with older, married, men. The men might be well to read it too, although the relatively straight path of return to marital bliss might not be as easily replicated in today’s world.
In “Vittirio” the title character is a sixty year old Spanish man who has rented out a room to a British couple. The man is writing a travel log while his wife travels with him and helps with his logging of information. As the young woman has frequently time to herself during the day it becomes apparent that the older host has developed a gentlemanly crush on her. Her husband notes it but feels no threat, she knows it and feels for him in his widower status. What becomes a shock to her, to the courtly gentleman, to even us as the reader is to discover that facing the prospect of returning in a month she is overcome with tears.
“In One’s Own House” is a study in what is not said. Miranda and Russell are visiting his Mother Constance at her country house. His younger brother James, almost two decades younger is there too. James is infatuated with Miranda. Constance and Russell think Miranda should notice his mooning over her. She does, but she does let on that she does, to talk about it embarrasses her, even the thought of it. Still she feels comfort with James, a feeling she realizes is because she knows she has nothing to prove to him. Or as she thinks :
She thought that yes, she was being cruel. But it was the truth. She wanted Russell’s love, Constance’s approval, and her relations with each were pervaded with constraint and supplication. James’s reactions were of practically no interest to her—or was it, she wondered, more complicated than that: that she knew he would, for the present at least, go on caring for her no matter what she said to him.
Constance prefers her younger son to the elder. Russell is depressed:
Why must you say it, Miranda wondered. “Constance,” she said, carefully putting butter at the corners of the slice, “Russell is very sick.” Sick, Constance repeated to herself, now thoroughly exasperated. Sick. People seem quite incapable of using straightforward words these days. My son questions, as well he might, the very nature of our existence, and they discuss him as though he had German measles. Sick—that’s the word they use now when people become exercised over the human condition. Sick, indeed. “Do you have any idea, Miranda darling, how all this started?” Miranda put the toast on the tray and took the coffee off the stove. “It’s a long story,” she said. When one says that it’s always something fundamental that could be explained in a single sentence, Constance remarked to herself.
James explains his love to Miranda and is told that , in so many words, love is not for grown up’s:
“But I do love you. You must feel something.” “Why?” she asked coldly, addressing another envelope. “Why must I? I have been your age and in love—we all have. And had nothing from it.” “Then—what happens?” “What happens?” She looked up, again with large serious eyes. “Why … it just hurts and hurts until it wears out.”
“Villa Adrianna”is the first story that did not really seem to have much to say to me.
In “Cliffs of Fall” a woman visits friends in Switzerland in the late summer. Why she is doing so is the burden. Her husband has died. Only a month before. Of course separating herself from her life with him leads to a confusing time for her.
In “Weekend” a woman, Lillian, visits her brother and his wife in the country for the weekend. While the time spent is enjoyed by all an undercurrent exists. The married couple worries about and feels bad for their sister. Lillian imagines the conversation after she boards the train on Sunday. It will begin and end with “Poor old Lilian.” In this she is not wrong.
In “Harold” we have a tale of manners and mores about a varied group of guests at an Italian summer home. A late arrival, young Harold, appears with his Mother, who has seemingly beaten the young man’s co side cr to a nub.
In “The Picnic” we visit Clem and May and Nettie from the earlier story. Ten years have gone by and May ( after bumping into Nettie on the street) has invited her for a visit. All sides follow the proper course but none wish it to have happened. A fantastic story with some great writing, such as:
“Naturally, he had no intention of doing anything of the kind—why bring up something that happened at least ten years ago and made all three of them miserable enough, God knows, at the time?”The cool self centered of Clem has certainly not changed.
“He could hardly recall how it had developed, what had first been said between them, whether either of them resisted the idea. His memories of Nettie were like a pile of snapshots never arranged according to date.” Is not this so true. Some people, some memories, it seems to me are held so tightly, like a deck of cards. The memories explode upward like the exploding deck, never to be in complete order again.
Pondering the passions of his feelings for. Ether long ago he thinks “Whereas he could only look on a love affair, now, as a displacement, not just of his habits—though that, too—but of his intelligence. Of the mind itself. Being in love was, like pain, an indignity, a reducing thing. So nearly did it seem in retrospect a form of insanity, the odd thing to him was that it should be considered normal.”
Nettie herself, ten years older, feels little for the Clem in front of her but she realizes the affair set her life on its course, carved out her feelings on love.
“That was the trouble with experience; it taught you that most people were capable of anything, so that loyalty was never quite on the ground—or, rather, became a matter of pardoning offenses instead of denying their existence. She sympathized with his attitude. It was tempting to confine oneself to what one could cope with. And one couldn’t cope with love. (In her experience, at any rate, it had always got out of hand.) But, after all, it was the only state in which one could consider oneself normal; ……. One never realized how much was lacking until one fell in love again, because love—like pain, actually—couldn’t be properly remembered or conveyed.”
And May, ever the dutiful wife. She had accepted his transgression a decade ago, had two more children. Upon running into Nettie she followed form. Even now in this visit she stays in the garden with the children allowing her husband and her cousin a moment. Just the slightest hint of the anger she bottled up is depicted
“ Upright on her rock, May gave a short, exhausted sigh. She closed her eyes for a moment, to clear them, and Ivor called out to her that she must watch him, watch the game. She looked back at him without smiling. On either side, her palms were pressed hard against the stone.”
Note the author starts with “Upright”, a term May would be pleased to describe herself with. One suspects the stone will be worse for wear, however.
“The Worst Moment of the Day” follows the guests at a French summer home as they make their way through a sweltering afternoon.
Not all stories work. Some are so light, as to be really too insignificant to put on paper. The two stories in this collection that tell of the triangle between Clem and the cousins May and Nettie are exemplary.
I wrote notes as I read
In “The Party” a couple attend a small party with friends and then return to the man’s apartment. It is apparent she is not happy with what she is getting from him, that the relationship is nearing its end. Interesting lines abound. Minna, speaking of the folks in their social circle, who Ted has criticized as being biased and haughty says “ I suppose they think anyone can be kind. “ Ted responds “ “That’s like saying ‘Anyone can be clean’ in a city where most houses don’t have running water. And in the end the well-meaning people seem to do more harm than the others, who make no pretensions. Don’t you think?”
Minna admits she stays with him because “ Only, starting over again in love is such a journey—like needing a holiday but not wanting to be bothered with packing bags and making reservations. So much trouble—being charming and artful, finding ways to pretend less affection than one feels, and in the end not succeeding, because one doesn’t really profit from experience; one merely learns to predict the next mistake. No, I just can’t be bothered at present.” She shifted her weight and, turning, laid her arm across his knees. He bent forward and smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “So there you are,” she told him. “It’s all a question of inertia. stay because leaving would require too much effort.”
As she departs for home she tries again to let him salvage her, correct the situation. He fails miserably: “You should be trying to build up my confidence,” she said, unblinking, “instead of doing everything to demolish it.” He helped her into her coat. “Confidence is one of those things we try to instill into others and then hasten to dispel as soon as it puts in an appearance.” “Like love,” she observed, turning to the door. “Like love,” he said. “Exactly.”
In “A Place In the Country “ Clem and May have moved to the country for the summer. Well, May and the children, Clem will visit on weekends ( think of The Seven Year Itch) only in this instance his affair is not in his imagination. It is with Nettie, his wife’s young cousin, twenty years his junior. This cannot end well. We can see Nettie’s heartbreak a million miles away. Some more strong phrasing in this.
Describing May walking “ She had a slow, deliberate way of walking—as if she had once been startled into precipitate action and had regretted it. It was the walk of a woman who dealt with men in a straightforward way and must suffer the consequences.”
When Clem explains to Nettie that he can’t leave his wife, his children, for her his reasoning is simple “You got born twenty years too late.” So immense and so complex did the gulf between them appear to her that it was a shock to have it simply stated as a matter of bad timing on her part. She had once been told that the earth, had it been slightly deflected on its axis, would have had no winter; and the possibility of a life shared with Clem appeared to her on the same scale of enormity and remote conjecture. Inexperienced, as he had pointed out, she had no means of knowing if his remarks were excessively unfeeling. She knew him in his daily life to be a reasonable man; from ignorance, she assumed that his conduct now would represent the same proportions of logic and compassion.
A young Nettie looks on her cousins mature marriage and vows to never be that person :
May and Sarah discussed their husbands as though they were precocious children—“Clem is very handy in the house,” as one might say “He hardly ever cries” or “He sleeps right through the night.” Let me go on believing, she asked, looking at his canvas shoe, that love isn’t merely getting along with someone. She thought that once she accepted such a compromised version of love she would never reach back again to this. (She had excessive confidence in the instructive power of experience.)
Once she realizes that he will not leave his wife for her she comes to a more rational conclusion about him, about men in general:
She thought that the digressions in the minds of men were endless. How many disguises were assumed before they could face themselves. How many justifications made in order that they might simply please themselves. How dangerous they were in their self-righteousness—infinitely more dangerous than women, who could never persuade themselves to the same degree of the nobility of their actions.
This is a well written story that could, still today, be handed out to young women before they become involved with older, married, men. The men might be well to read it too, although the relatively straight path of return to marital bliss might not be as easily replicated in today’s world.
In “Vittirio” the title character is a sixty year old Spanish man who has rented out a room to a British couple. The man is writing a travel log while his wife travels with him and helps with his logging of information. As the young woman has frequently time to herself during the day it becomes apparent that the older host has developed a gentlemanly crush on her. Her husband notes it but feels no threat, she knows it and feels for him in his widower status. What becomes a shock to her, to the courtly gentleman, to even us as the reader is to discover that facing the prospect of returning in a month she is overcome with tears.
“In One’s Own House” is a study in what is not said. Miranda and Russell are visiting his Mother Constance at her country house. His younger brother James, almost two decades younger is there too. James is infatuated with Miranda. Constance and Russell think Miranda should notice his mooning over her. She does, but she does let on that she does, to talk about it embarrasses her, even the thought of it. Still she feels comfort with James, a feeling she realizes is because she knows she has nothing to prove to him. Or as she thinks :
She thought that yes, she was being cruel. But it was the truth. She wanted Russell’s love, Constance’s approval, and her relations with each were pervaded with constraint and supplication. James’s reactions were of practically no interest to her—or was it, she wondered, more complicated than that: that she knew he would, for the present at least, go on caring for her no matter what she said to him.
Constance prefers her younger son to the elder. Russell is depressed:
Why must you say it, Miranda wondered. “Constance,” she said, carefully putting butter at the corners of the slice, “Russell is very sick.” Sick, Constance repeated to herself, now thoroughly exasperated. Sick. People seem quite incapable of using straightforward words these days. My son questions, as well he might, the very nature of our existence, and they discuss him as though he had German measles. Sick—that’s the word they use now when people become exercised over the human condition. Sick, indeed. “Do you have any idea, Miranda darling, how all this started?” Miranda put the toast on the tray and took the coffee off the stove. “It’s a long story,” she said. When one says that it’s always something fundamental that could be explained in a single sentence, Constance remarked to herself.
James explains his love to Miranda and is told that , in so many words, love is not for grown up’s:
“But I do love you. You must feel something.” “Why?” she asked coldly, addressing another envelope. “Why must I? I have been your age and in love—we all have. And had nothing from it.” “Then—what happens?” “What happens?” She looked up, again with large serious eyes. “Why … it just hurts and hurts until it wears out.”
“Villa Adrianna”is the first story that did not really seem to have much to say to me.
In “Cliffs of Fall” a woman visits friends in Switzerland in the late summer. Why she is doing so is the burden. Her husband has died. Only a month before. Of course separating herself from her life with him leads to a confusing time for her.
In “Weekend” a woman, Lillian, visits her brother and his wife in the country for the weekend. While the time spent is enjoyed by all an undercurrent exists. The married couple worries about and feels bad for their sister. Lillian imagines the conversation after she boards the train on Sunday. It will begin and end with “Poor old Lilian.” In this she is not wrong.
In “Harold” we have a tale of manners and mores about a varied group of guests at an Italian summer home. A late arrival, young Harold, appears with his Mother, who has seemingly beaten the young man’s co side cr to a nub.
In “The Picnic” we visit Clem and May and Nettie from the earlier story. Ten years have gone by and May ( after bumping into Nettie on the street) has invited her for a visit. All sides follow the proper course but none wish it to have happened. A fantastic story with some great writing, such as:
“Naturally, he had no intention of doing anything of the kind—why bring up something that happened at least ten years ago and made all three of them miserable enough, God knows, at the time?”The cool self centered of Clem has certainly not changed.
“He could hardly recall how it had developed, what had first been said between them, whether either of them resisted the idea. His memories of Nettie were like a pile of snapshots never arranged according to date.” Is not this so true. Some people, some memories, it seems to me are held so tightly, like a deck of cards. The memories explode upward like the exploding deck, never to be in complete order again.
Pondering the passions of his feelings for. Ether long ago he thinks “Whereas he could only look on a love affair, now, as a displacement, not just of his habits—though that, too—but of his intelligence. Of the mind itself. Being in love was, like pain, an indignity, a reducing thing. So nearly did it seem in retrospect a form of insanity, the odd thing to him was that it should be considered normal.”
Nettie herself, ten years older, feels little for the Clem in front of her but she realizes the affair set her life on its course, carved out her feelings on love.
“That was the trouble with experience; it taught you that most people were capable of anything, so that loyalty was never quite on the ground—or, rather, became a matter of pardoning offenses instead of denying their existence. She sympathized with his attitude. It was tempting to confine oneself to what one could cope with. And one couldn’t cope with love. (In her experience, at any rate, it had always got out of hand.) But, after all, it was the only state in which one could consider oneself normal; ……. One never realized how much was lacking until one fell in love again, because love—like pain, actually—couldn’t be properly remembered or conveyed.”
And May, ever the dutiful wife. She had accepted his transgression a decade ago, had two more children. Upon running into Nettie she followed form. Even now in this visit she stays in the garden with the children allowing her husband and her cousin a moment. Just the slightest hint of the anger she bottled up is depicted
“ Upright on her rock, May gave a short, exhausted sigh. She closed her eyes for a moment, to clear them, and Ivor called out to her that she must watch him, watch the game. She looked back at him without smiling. On either side, her palms were pressed hard against the stone.”
Note the author starts with “Upright”, a term May would be pleased to describe herself with. One suspects the stone will be worse for wear, however.
“The Worst Moment of the Day” follows the guests at a French summer home as they make their way through a sweltering afternoon.
January 28, 2012
"Elizabeth got used to the sound of her own laughter, which she had at first found faintly improper."
(From "Cliffs of Fall".)
Ugh, I hate reviewing Shirley Hazzard's CLIFFS OF FALL. What words can be used to describe such beautiful, lyrical, bittersweet, intelligent writing? Better, surely, to just read the words themselves. And I think you should, you should really read CLIFFS OF FALL because it is sad and beautiful and bittersweet, and Shirley Hazzard *should be more read*. She even made me want to use phrases like 'our Shirley Hazzard' or 'one of Australia's best exports', taking refuge in cliche to hide from the dazzling brilliance of her writing. I'm so glad she's written this book, this collection of, well, not even short stories, but of *moments*, sparkling moments chipped from a colossal diamond that Hazzard probably keeps in her apartment. (I'm not sure which apartment, either the one in New York or the one in Capri. A citizen of the world, she was born in Australia.)
There are themes uniting Hazzard's works: yearning and sadness, maturity, society, femininity, duty. Relationships. What is said and what it means. What is not said.
None of which would have attracted me to the collection, I admit, unless someone I respected had told me, "Shirley Hazzard is one of the best short story writers working today." So I will just say to you: Shirley Hazzard is one of the best short story writers working today. But, again, be aware she's not dealing in narrative. She's dealing in moment. In emotion, finely expressed and exquisitely, attentively observed.
Some motifs return, such as the aloof male partner, the "meekly attentive" female partner (description quoted from "In One's Own House"), the social expectations surrounding them from his mother to the people they were at the party with. And there is so much careful detail, almost casually presented, that you have the sense you are there, I mean, really *there* in the 1950s/60s, in an elegant house wearing elegant clothes and swapping witticisms with dreadfully refined men and women at an exquisite 'do', while Hazzard's characters give controlled smiles to everyone they meet (while secretly harbouring complex emotions and reactions which would have them turfed from said party if they dared speak them out loud).
I thought at first Hazzard's greatest power was the remarkable balance and efficiency of her prose, the moments of sly wit. Lines like this:
"He linked across the lock a small gilt chain in which May had complete confidence."
(From "A Place in the Country".)
Doesn't that just say it all? A security chain on the back of the door, a slight measure in which most of us have 'complete confidence'. Except it doesn't. It doesn't say it all. Because then I realised that the real power of this sentence on its own isn't felt, that the true impact is not from the innate wryness of tone but relies on it's equally balanced and efficient context. Because the 'he' in that sentence is May's husband. And the reason May's confidence is so very ironic is because the true danger in the story doesn't come from without. It's already inside, as May's husband locks the door against social judgement and resumes the affair he's been having with May's young cousin.
*Now* read that sentence, & see how much power and meaning Hazzard has packed into it:
"He linked across the lock a small gilt chain in which May had complete confidence."
Are you thinking 'poor May'? Let me assure you, that's because you haven't met her. Or maybe it's because you read all the way to the end, because by then Hazzard has given you enough insight into every character that you will find yourself warming to the cold, methodical May in ways you hadn't anticipated. And she'll do that, again, in a sentence.
I admit that Hazzard's characters have a sameness of affect (or even effect), so much so it's occasionally hard to tell one long-suffering woman from another, or one intelligent-but-emotionall-distant man from another. But the pace of the pitch-perfect prose is enough to keep you reading, and the fact, again, that the stories are *moments* means in the end they feel as if they might even add up to one story, one set of circumstances for one set of characters - an observation that is only obvious when the stories are collected together in this one, slim volume.
Which I strongly urge you to read.
"For the fact was that they were not really suited to one another, which he would have discovered if he had ever tried to understand her properly."
(From "The Picnic".)
-----
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief'
This review is part of the AWWC2012 challenge & is cross posted on
(From "Cliffs of Fall".)
Ugh, I hate reviewing Shirley Hazzard's CLIFFS OF FALL. What words can be used to describe such beautiful, lyrical, bittersweet, intelligent writing? Better, surely, to just read the words themselves. And I think you should, you should really read CLIFFS OF FALL because it is sad and beautiful and bittersweet, and Shirley Hazzard *should be more read*. She even made me want to use phrases like 'our Shirley Hazzard' or 'one of Australia's best exports', taking refuge in cliche to hide from the dazzling brilliance of her writing. I'm so glad she's written this book, this collection of, well, not even short stories, but of *moments*, sparkling moments chipped from a colossal diamond that Hazzard probably keeps in her apartment. (I'm not sure which apartment, either the one in New York or the one in Capri. A citizen of the world, she was born in Australia.)
There are themes uniting Hazzard's works: yearning and sadness, maturity, society, femininity, duty. Relationships. What is said and what it means. What is not said.
None of which would have attracted me to the collection, I admit, unless someone I respected had told me, "Shirley Hazzard is one of the best short story writers working today." So I will just say to you: Shirley Hazzard is one of the best short story writers working today. But, again, be aware she's not dealing in narrative. She's dealing in moment. In emotion, finely expressed and exquisitely, attentively observed.
Some motifs return, such as the aloof male partner, the "meekly attentive" female partner (description quoted from "In One's Own House"), the social expectations surrounding them from his mother to the people they were at the party with. And there is so much careful detail, almost casually presented, that you have the sense you are there, I mean, really *there* in the 1950s/60s, in an elegant house wearing elegant clothes and swapping witticisms with dreadfully refined men and women at an exquisite 'do', while Hazzard's characters give controlled smiles to everyone they meet (while secretly harbouring complex emotions and reactions which would have them turfed from said party if they dared speak them out loud).
I thought at first Hazzard's greatest power was the remarkable balance and efficiency of her prose, the moments of sly wit. Lines like this:
"He linked across the lock a small gilt chain in which May had complete confidence."
(From "A Place in the Country".)
Doesn't that just say it all? A security chain on the back of the door, a slight measure in which most of us have 'complete confidence'. Except it doesn't. It doesn't say it all. Because then I realised that the real power of this sentence on its own isn't felt, that the true impact is not from the innate wryness of tone but relies on it's equally balanced and efficient context. Because the 'he' in that sentence is May's husband. And the reason May's confidence is so very ironic is because the true danger in the story doesn't come from without. It's already inside, as May's husband locks the door against social judgement and resumes the affair he's been having with May's young cousin.
*Now* read that sentence, & see how much power and meaning Hazzard has packed into it:
"He linked across the lock a small gilt chain in which May had complete confidence."
Are you thinking 'poor May'? Let me assure you, that's because you haven't met her. Or maybe it's because you read all the way to the end, because by then Hazzard has given you enough insight into every character that you will find yourself warming to the cold, methodical May in ways you hadn't anticipated. And she'll do that, again, in a sentence.
I admit that Hazzard's characters have a sameness of affect (or even effect), so much so it's occasionally hard to tell one long-suffering woman from another, or one intelligent-but-emotionall-distant man from another. But the pace of the pitch-perfect prose is enough to keep you reading, and the fact, again, that the stories are *moments* means in the end they feel as if they might even add up to one story, one set of circumstances for one set of characters - an observation that is only obvious when the stories are collected together in this one, slim volume.
Which I strongly urge you to read.
"For the fact was that they were not really suited to one another, which he would have discovered if he had ever tried to understand her properly."
(From "The Picnic".)
-----
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief'
This review is part of the AWWC2012 challenge & is cross posted on
July 13, 2019
Reads like a feature-length parody of New Yorker fiction.
April 26, 2013
Cliffs of Fall, and Other Stories explores the emotional relationships between women and men in a series of short stories set in various parts of the world. Every one of Hazzard's characters appears to have the same emotional maturity; they speak in similar voices; their introspection is identical irrespective of age. Every story deals with some sort of breakup, usually prompted by the (emotionally unavailable) men, sometimes by death. It's as though Hazzard feels that she can only extract nuances of human behaviour from unhappy people. Clearly she has taken Tolstoy to heart.
December 8, 2014
So brittle, these stories, as if both the author and the characters were made of mica. Hazzard is unmerciful as usual. As a lover of The Great Fire and The Transit of Venus, what surprised me was how shallow I found these stories, how similar the themes and characters; white, moneyed, and unhappy, often engaged in May-December romances. Again and again there is self-deception and pain and carefully masked disdain and all of it so carefully, precisely drawn that I enjoyed the stories less for hating the people so much.
September 16, 2014
Aside from the title story, this felt like a collection of short-form experiments, aborted drafts, and writerly exercises so while a Shirley Hazzard enthusiast might get excited by her O. Henry-esque "Harold" or the bilious "The Party," the rest of us are left hanging by tales that end abruptly and come up short. That most are unified by a theme of love gone wrong makes no difference. As to the centerpiece -- "Cliffs of Fall" -- it's good but what a lot of padding precedes and follows!
November 13, 2014
Cliffs of Fail
October 9, 2020
This was Shirley Hazzard's first book; most (maybe all) of the short stories were first published in the preceding couple of years in the New Yorker. I read Villa Adriana first, for a book group, but knew I had to read the whole collection. I wish I could recall when I read Bay of Naples. I think 1991-92, when I was living in Toronto. I read somewhere that William Maxwell remarked on her pieces requiring little editing by his team, known for their exacting attentions to writing. I am certainly a fan.
Hazzard excels at juxtaposing unspoken truth with what is said; juxtaposing characters' competing thoughts (usually about the other) in a seemingly obvious but not heavy-handed manner.
101 learned re love "must not forfeit advantage"
149 "Misty symmetry on the untidy events"
153 A Parisian couple spends years traveling every summer to a pensione ouside Siena, taking their car for daily excursions to Tuscan cities, the Chianti hills, or the seaside. Throw in libraries and museums and there's my ideal. But I can't envy the Tourner's in other ways.
159 "Do you know France, Miss Nicholson?" Miss Nicholson replied that she did not, adding that she had been there several times." [That made me laugh aloud on the subway.]
175 "Love--like pain, actually--couldn't be properly remembered or conveyed.
182 [Je vais te dire un grand secret] : Ferme les portes. Il est plus facile de mourir que d’aimer.
I'll tell you a big secret: Close the doors. It is easier to die than to love.
That's a line from Louis Aragon (Les Yeux d'Elsa, 1942), a poet whom she also quoted, for her husband, in the epigraph for The Great Fire. But here she omits the final line:
C’est pourquoi je me donne le mal de vivre, mon amour.
That's why I take the trouble to live, my love.
Her descriptions capture so much in a line or half a line, just one example:
186 "He followed her into the garden, feeling rather like a child with whom other children will not play, and who is allowed, for that reason, to trail about after the grownups."
Hazzard excels at juxtaposing unspoken truth with what is said; juxtaposing characters' competing thoughts (usually about the other) in a seemingly obvious but not heavy-handed manner.
101 learned re love "must not forfeit advantage"
149 "Misty symmetry on the untidy events"
153 A Parisian couple spends years traveling every summer to a pensione ouside Siena, taking their car for daily excursions to Tuscan cities, the Chianti hills, or the seaside. Throw in libraries and museums and there's my ideal. But I can't envy the Tourner's in other ways.
159 "Do you know France, Miss Nicholson?" Miss Nicholson replied that she did not, adding that she had been there several times." [That made me laugh aloud on the subway.]
175 "Love--like pain, actually--couldn't be properly remembered or conveyed.
182 [Je vais te dire un grand secret] : Ferme les portes. Il est plus facile de mourir que d’aimer.
I'll tell you a big secret: Close the doors. It is easier to die than to love.
That's a line from Louis Aragon (Les Yeux d'Elsa, 1942), a poet whom she also quoted, for her husband, in the epigraph for The Great Fire. But here she omits the final line:
C’est pourquoi je me donne le mal de vivre, mon amour.
That's why I take the trouble to live, my love.
Her descriptions capture so much in a line or half a line, just one example:
186 "He followed her into the garden, feeling rather like a child with whom other children will not play, and who is allowed, for that reason, to trail about after the grownups."
July 20, 2025
Exquisite, per usual. What is experience; what is it good for? External and internal pen portraits, mostly of thoughtful women drowning in intuition, and men stifled by erudition (and stifling others with it). + a dignified, aging Italian gentleman, and a surprisingly sympathetic poet with a Tory-coded horse of a mother.
-(110) 'Once... in Rome, they had seen an ancient inscription on the wall, and he had begun to translate it aloud when she, brushing aside the syntax, rendered the sense of it in half a dozen words and turned away, having temporarily deprived him of his reason for living.'
-(147) 'Julie was quietly interrogating the dog, now sitting at her feet. '"are you a good doggie?" Spot smiled, but kept his counsel.'
-(178): 'Through the slit that now parted the shutters, the old man stared despondently at the day. The scene, it was true, was of dimensions comparable to those of his own land--in fact, he had made the comparison al too frequently, as though Tuscany were remarkable only for this similarity--but then there was that sky. He had never experienced such a sky. In England, where heaven is a long-hung personal affair, thoroughly identified with the King James Version, a sky such as this would not have been tolerated for a moment. It was a high, pagan explosion of a sky, promising indulgence for all kinds of offenses to which he had not the slightest inclination. He felt, beneath it, exposed and ridiculed. And the light, too--a light that not only illuminated but was an element in itself, as distinct as rain...'
-(110) 'Once... in Rome, they had seen an ancient inscription on the wall, and he had begun to translate it aloud when she, brushing aside the syntax, rendered the sense of it in half a dozen words and turned away, having temporarily deprived him of his reason for living.'
-(147) 'Julie was quietly interrogating the dog, now sitting at her feet. '"are you a good doggie?" Spot smiled, but kept his counsel.'
-(178): 'Through the slit that now parted the shutters, the old man stared despondently at the day. The scene, it was true, was of dimensions comparable to those of his own land--in fact, he had made the comparison al too frequently, as though Tuscany were remarkable only for this similarity--but then there was that sky. He had never experienced such a sky. In England, where heaven is a long-hung personal affair, thoroughly identified with the King James Version, a sky such as this would not have been tolerated for a moment. It was a high, pagan explosion of a sky, promising indulgence for all kinds of offenses to which he had not the slightest inclination. He felt, beneath it, exposed and ridiculed. And the light, too--a light that not only illuminated but was an element in itself, as distinct as rain...'
June 20, 2017
I had read a glowing review of this book, and was glad I got a library copy rather than buying it as it was not what I was expecting. Written in the early 60's the collection of short stories were, for me, dated. I did not enjoy the writing style, and although Hazzard has won many writing awards, I struggled with the old fashioned dialogue and interplay between the protagonists.
August 4, 2022
While written a long time ago (1963) when expectations for women were different, existence measured through the lens of a spouse, each of these stories has a moment, an observation that is timeless. The writing is intelligent and incisive; she gets to the heart of human emotions--love, regret, guilt, impatience--with a well-placed sentence or two. It's impressive!
February 17, 2022
Since THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF SHIRLEY HAZZARD includes two of her books of short stories, I’m putting them in my count. Here we can see the artist develop. Some fantastic stories with some okay stories. Nowhere near THE TRANSIT OF VENUS…but then, what is?
June 27, 2017
An exceptional writer. The stories are quite understated, and I did not find myself particularly attached to any of them, though I did enjoy "Harold".
February 19, 2021
Great, memorable
March 30, 2021
I love these books where nothing much happens
January 23, 2023
Cute little anthology, short easy ready <3
May 22, 2023
[3.25] These were skillfully written slice-of-life stories, but mostly felt dated and bland to me.
November 7, 2024
Hazzard is a technician with character, setting, and the perfect ending. And nowhere is this demonstrated more concisely than in her collection Cliffs of Fall. In the course of 10 stories, Hazzard demonstrates a variety of relationships in all their complexities: good, bad, humorous, painful.
Hazzard is extremely intentional with how she uses detail to depict the differences of femininity and masculinity, particularly their expressions in the 1950s. The microaggressions of male ego stand out the most looking back, as with the first story of the collection, “The Party.” The protagonist and her spouse attend a party, which is admittedly a bit slow to get into, but once they break away and only speak to each other, the reader can see their history. Moments like when the spouse, Theodore, tells the protagonist she plays piano “terribly,” the protagonist reflects, “that the knowledge must now be with her permanently.” This line alone shows how we can internalize criticisms from others, particularly those with whom we are in relationships, and what that does to shape us for the rest of our lives. A single off-handed comment has changed the protagonist forever, causing her to question the relationship, confiding, “It’s all a question of inertia. I stay because leave would require too much effort.” In two lines, Hazzard is able to summarize the feeling of staying in a relationship that has gone on too long and become too comfortable to leave. Nothing egregious occurs, so you wait until years have come and gone. This leads into Hazzard’s first perfect ending when the couple compares confidence to love, stating they are both “those things we try to instill into others and then hasten to dispel as soon as it puts in an appearance.” Like her confidence in her piano skills, her physical appearance, and their relationship, the story ends with nothing but ambiguous doubt.
Hazzard has several moments through her male characters where they explicitly degrade they women with whom they are speaking. Like when Theodore is having his conversation with the protagonist in “The Party” or when Jonathan in “Vittorio” says to his wife, “That’s what I can’t bear about women. They always know everything first.” The differences described by Hazzard between men and women are delicate: usually the differences are born from the mouth of the men, outwardly shrugged off by the women, but always with an authorial tone that denounces the men’s behavior. Each of these instances is a masterclass in how to subtly include things you do not agree with in you writing, condemning the actions or speech with context, showing your readers through the rest of the story why the sexist ideologies are foolish.
However, this wit and humor is not reserved for misogyny, as when Hazzard’s narrative voice uses dry sarcasm to convey distaste for her characters. This can be seen with Miranda in “In One’s Own House” whose misery is described as “vicarious, almost parasitical; she knew its cause precisely. It might, in fact, be said of her that she stood continually at the brink of utter happiness. Why, she should count herself among the most fortunate of mortals—blessed art thou among women, Miranda Richmond.” The tone that Hazzard uses here is blatant foreshadowing for the cruelty Miranda will go on to be toward James, testing the limits to see how terrible she can be before he stops loving her, which doesn’t happen. Hazzard’s humor and tone are the first indicators of Miranda’s self-centeredness, ego, superiority complex, which goes on to be the foundation for a scathing condemnation of her throughout the rest of the story.
A technique discussed in Olmstead’s The Elements of the Writing Craft involves the blending of points of view to produce a desired effect. In the second, and longest, story of the collection, “A Place in the Country,” Hazzard uses this technique to help the readers understand Nettie as she carries on an affair with her cousin’s husband. An inherently dislikable thing to do, making Nettie feel like anything other than a villain is a task Hazzard breezes through. The story is told predominately through third-person point of view, though Hazzard capitalizes free indirect speech to transition into moments of first-person narration through Nettie. “Here she caught herself up--I am being an Incurable Romantic, she thought, and smiled. And yet, when I can be with him, just see him, I am happy. And I care more for him than for myself--I suppose that is enriching, I would literally die for him—only, no one wants that; they would rather you went on living and behaved reasonably.” Hazzard flows from narration, through free indirect speech, until the rest of the section is told solely in first-person point of view giving the reader more than necessary context, but an understanding of how someone could fall into a relationship that no one ever wants to be in.
Hazzard is extremely intentional with how she uses detail to depict the differences of femininity and masculinity, particularly their expressions in the 1950s. The microaggressions of male ego stand out the most looking back, as with the first story of the collection, “The Party.” The protagonist and her spouse attend a party, which is admittedly a bit slow to get into, but once they break away and only speak to each other, the reader can see their history. Moments like when the spouse, Theodore, tells the protagonist she plays piano “terribly,” the protagonist reflects, “that the knowledge must now be with her permanently.” This line alone shows how we can internalize criticisms from others, particularly those with whom we are in relationships, and what that does to shape us for the rest of our lives. A single off-handed comment has changed the protagonist forever, causing her to question the relationship, confiding, “It’s all a question of inertia. I stay because leave would require too much effort.” In two lines, Hazzard is able to summarize the feeling of staying in a relationship that has gone on too long and become too comfortable to leave. Nothing egregious occurs, so you wait until years have come and gone. This leads into Hazzard’s first perfect ending when the couple compares confidence to love, stating they are both “those things we try to instill into others and then hasten to dispel as soon as it puts in an appearance.” Like her confidence in her piano skills, her physical appearance, and their relationship, the story ends with nothing but ambiguous doubt.
Hazzard has several moments through her male characters where they explicitly degrade they women with whom they are speaking. Like when Theodore is having his conversation with the protagonist in “The Party” or when Jonathan in “Vittorio” says to his wife, “That’s what I can’t bear about women. They always know everything first.” The differences described by Hazzard between men and women are delicate: usually the differences are born from the mouth of the men, outwardly shrugged off by the women, but always with an authorial tone that denounces the men’s behavior. Each of these instances is a masterclass in how to subtly include things you do not agree with in you writing, condemning the actions or speech with context, showing your readers through the rest of the story why the sexist ideologies are foolish.
However, this wit and humor is not reserved for misogyny, as when Hazzard’s narrative voice uses dry sarcasm to convey distaste for her characters. This can be seen with Miranda in “In One’s Own House” whose misery is described as “vicarious, almost parasitical; she knew its cause precisely. It might, in fact, be said of her that she stood continually at the brink of utter happiness. Why, she should count herself among the most fortunate of mortals—blessed art thou among women, Miranda Richmond.” The tone that Hazzard uses here is blatant foreshadowing for the cruelty Miranda will go on to be toward James, testing the limits to see how terrible she can be before he stops loving her, which doesn’t happen. Hazzard’s humor and tone are the first indicators of Miranda’s self-centeredness, ego, superiority complex, which goes on to be the foundation for a scathing condemnation of her throughout the rest of the story.
A technique discussed in Olmstead’s The Elements of the Writing Craft involves the blending of points of view to produce a desired effect. In the second, and longest, story of the collection, “A Place in the Country,” Hazzard uses this technique to help the readers understand Nettie as she carries on an affair with her cousin’s husband. An inherently dislikable thing to do, making Nettie feel like anything other than a villain is a task Hazzard breezes through. The story is told predominately through third-person point of view, though Hazzard capitalizes free indirect speech to transition into moments of first-person narration through Nettie. “Here she caught herself up--I am being an Incurable Romantic, she thought, and smiled. And yet, when I can be with him, just see him, I am happy. And I care more for him than for myself--I suppose that is enriching, I would literally die for him—only, no one wants that; they would rather you went on living and behaved reasonably.” Hazzard flows from narration, through free indirect speech, until the rest of the section is told solely in first-person point of view giving the reader more than necessary context, but an understanding of how someone could fall into a relationship that no one ever wants to be in.
June 13, 2008
These stories are fine. I don't find that much to recommend them, though. She uses setting nicely, I suppose. They are almost all about married couples who are at some stage in the game of realizing that maybe they shouldn't be married anymore. Certainly a fine topic for short stories, but the characters lack a little something for me--they are a bit too average, maybe, or a little less odd than I would be interested in. Nonetheless I did read to the end.
Read
June 2, 2016First reading of this author. Will sign up for more.
August 25, 2011
Dreadful (can't remember anything).
April 24, 2017
I continued my re-reading of Hazard's work through this collection of short stories. As in her novel, 'The Evening of the Holiday', the loss of love is the main theme of these stories. Love may be lost through sudden death, through circumstances that make it impossible or simply because of the passing of time.
Hazzard creates a significance in ordinary events for ordinary people. She writes in an exquisitely nuanced style that captures each moment and translates it into something universal. There is a wistful, haunting quality to these stories and although many of her characters don't expect much of themselves or of life, they manage to treasure intimate and unexpected moments, even as they farewell love and hope.
I think the story I will remember best is the only one in the collection that is not about the loss of love. Titled 'Harold' it tells of an adolescent who visits a villa in Italy with his mother. He is diffident and awkward and the guests feel uncomfortable with his lack of social grace. When one of the kinder guests asks Harold to read poems he is writing: "The evening seemed to have lost its balance. They allowed him to fetch his poems, feeling the extent of their indulgence and a sense of imposition. They were already inventing to themselves noncommittal expressions of interest and wondering how soon they might stop him. Their manners preventing an exchange of glances, the three boys smiled down at their plates, comfortably appalled; they were all at once drawn together, dissociated from so flagrant a breach of regulations." This precise and perceptive prose sets the scene for an unexpected and affirming ending to the story.
Not long ago I read and really enjoyed some recently written short stories by Penelope Lively. These Hazzard stories were written more than fifty years ago and in some ways are of their time. But I loved them even more. They were insightful and elegantly written: after each was finished I let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.
Hazzard creates a significance in ordinary events for ordinary people. She writes in an exquisitely nuanced style that captures each moment and translates it into something universal. There is a wistful, haunting quality to these stories and although many of her characters don't expect much of themselves or of life, they manage to treasure intimate and unexpected moments, even as they farewell love and hope.
I think the story I will remember best is the only one in the collection that is not about the loss of love. Titled 'Harold' it tells of an adolescent who visits a villa in Italy with his mother. He is diffident and awkward and the guests feel uncomfortable with his lack of social grace. When one of the kinder guests asks Harold to read poems he is writing: "The evening seemed to have lost its balance. They allowed him to fetch his poems, feeling the extent of their indulgence and a sense of imposition. They were already inventing to themselves noncommittal expressions of interest and wondering how soon they might stop him. Their manners preventing an exchange of glances, the three boys smiled down at their plates, comfortably appalled; they were all at once drawn together, dissociated from so flagrant a breach of regulations." This precise and perceptive prose sets the scene for an unexpected and affirming ending to the story.
Not long ago I read and really enjoyed some recently written short stories by Penelope Lively. These Hazzard stories were written more than fifty years ago and in some ways are of their time. But I loved them even more. They were insightful and elegantly written: after each was finished I let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.
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