Several Deceptions

by Jane Stevenson

Acclaimed in England, these wicked and wonderfully entertaining novellas deal with the infinite human capacity for deception and self-deception. The four stories in this remarkably assured work are beautifully shaped and deftly plotted; each is narrated by a richly distinctive voice, and each ends with a genuine surprise. The themes are the mysteries of identity, the pitfalls of intellectual arrogance, the damage wrought by cleverness, the role of time in human affairs.
SEVERAL DECEPTIONS is a dazzling debut; it gleams with intelligence and wit.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Dr. Jane Stevenson (born 1959) is a UK author who was born in London and brought up in London, Beijing and Bonn. She has lectured in history at Sheffield University, and teaches literature and history at the University of Aberdeen. Her fiction books include Several Deceptions, a collection of four novellas; a novel, London Bridges; and the historical trilogy made up of the novels The Winter Queen, The Shadow King, and The Empress of the Last Days. Stevenson lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Her academic publications include Women Latin Poets (Oxford University Press), Early Modern Women Poets with Peter Davidson (Oxford University Press) and The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, co-edited with Peter Davidson (Prospect Books).

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a fair rating but there was a big chunk of the book missing after p56, and given I bought this in 1999 there's fuck-all I can do about it, so I had to stop there.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four novellas, all of which are literary, take place between 1970 and 1990, and involve a first person protagonist who is British and an academic. Weirdly niche, right?

Stevenson's strength is her complex and literary prose, her almost over-literate protagonists speaking in layers of reference. The first story delighted me with its unlikeable protagonist, a deeply snobby Italian professor of literature who invents whole cloth a fake history of his father's relations with a random woman, just to prove that he's smarter than the press. He was awful and yet also so snarky it was fun to read his point of view!

The second was the weakest in the collection, though my opinion may be biased by having Opinions About Twins. The main character is an identical twin who drifts apart from his brother while they are both studying law.

The third story was about an Irish Buddhist nun the protagonist (the only female protagonist in this collection of novellas by a woman!) is infatuated with, and has her listening to the story of that nun's early days in her nunnery in India, where she met a colonel who took her under his wing somewhat, and helped her. Towards the end of the story, she returns to India and discovers her Colonel dead, and moreover, the secret that he had been a woman. On the one hand, this could be a cheap pun, "The colonel's a lady and Judy O'Grady" but it's kinder than that, equating the Colonel's secret life with the way Judy O'Grady leaves behind her name and life to become Ananda the nun. (Though it bothered me terribly that characters called the colonel 'she' at times. Clearly, he had a preferred pronoun!) Anyway, it's one of those literary stories that is more than its parts.

The last story would probably be the most commercially successful, since it involves a heist, though I found its snobby male British academian protagonist not as purely sinister as the first novella's, but also not entirely likable, leaving me wondering as I read if I was supposed to feel sympathy for him or not? Still, the ending was nice, and moreover made me re-read the beginning of the story to cement its meaning. The female characters, though only two, are the best in this piece.

[Anne]

Four novellas dealing with, well, deception. Very stylishly and cleverly done. I enjoyed these very much, and am looking forward to this author's new novel.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of four novellas all with the theme of deception or self-deception. Each of the tales pokes a comedic poke at human vanity.

In the first story, Simone Strachey employs a plain secretary “Dreary Dora” to catalogue his father’s memorabilia to sell to the Sunday Times. He tries to deceive the paper by reinventing Dora into someone else and the deception backfires. In “Law and Order” twin brothers studying law fall under the spell of their tutor Professor van Aldegonde, and in "The Colonel and Judy O’Grady”, we hear the story of a young Irish woman in an exiled Tibetan Buddhist community in Northern Ireland. In the final story, Oliver an out of work artist full of cynicism and alcohol leads his friends on an excursion to steal a painting.

Just not my cup of tea!

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this collection of four novellas (Stevenson's first) a bit disappointing after enjoying Good Women so much.The first story is too similar to the first story in Good Women -- a snobbish, too-clever man fatally underestimates a woman he considers his social inferior. In the remaining stories, she dips into radically different milieus: aristocratic students in Amsterdam, an Irishwoman who becomes a Buddhist nun in India, a group of snobbish, unpleasant art historians in the Home Counties. To me, the stories seemed little more than sterile exercises in style, and the last one was particularly nasty.

[Robert Muller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deception, unpacked for the reader a bit at a time, is what these novellas are about. My personal favorite was The Colonel and Judy O'Grady, a beautiful story with a fascinating narrative structure and beautiful writing. The other three are quite engaging, if snarky as hell--a lesson in British idiom and language of the upper class for two, and a view of Dutch political/academic angst in the other. Very entertaining, and a very strong ear for dialect and dialog. Good surprises too.

[Ola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Several Deceptions is a book containing four stories, each one with a very distinctive voice.

I've never read a book like this one before. Though it's well written and everything, I couldn't bring myself to fully enjoy it for the fantastic work of literature that it is. Maybe I'll appreciate Deceptions more in a few years or so.

[Alesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as wonderful as her later book, Good Women. I loved the trickiness of her plots.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

didn;t finish this one either; put it down halfway and never picked it back up.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially loved the third story -- Judy O'Grady....