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"La scrittura di Katherine Mansfield restituisce, a cento anni di distanza, la sensibilità di una donna che coglieva le assurdità della borghesia e della vita femminile e non aveva paura di raccontarne episodi divertenti e struggenti, tremendamente veri" (Giulia Caminito)
Illusi, grotteschi, patetici, disperati, i protagonisti dei racconti di Katherine Mansfield sono ognuno un frammento della personalità dell'autrice, riflesso di un'esistenza intensa e poco incline al compromesso. Neozelandese d'origine, libera e avida di vita, in Inghilterra Mansfield cerca la sua dimensione al di fuori dalla sfera domestica, in contatto con l'ambiente letterario della Londra di Joyce e Woolf. La sua scrittura anti ottocentesca ha il carattere della donna a cui si serve di strutture inedite e di un linguaggio quasi cinematografico, da cui prendono forma storie acute, affilate, lampi di quotidianità appena tratteggiati eppure iconici, venati di un umorismo agrodolce che fotografa con acume il ritmo monotono delle giornate. Questo volume raccoglie i racconti composti tra il 1911 e il 1923, tra cui Una pensione tedesca, Felicità, e diversi altri testi della maturità artistica, testimoni della vivacità di questa maestra dell'indagine psicologica, che è riuscita a fissare la propria immagine sulla carta, in un'eterna competizione con la morte.
Illusi, grotteschi, patetici, disperati, i protagonisti dei racconti di Katherine Mansfield sono ognuno un frammento della personalità dell'autrice, riflesso di un'esistenza intensa e poco incline al compromesso. Neozelandese d'origine, libera e avida di vita, in Inghilterra Mansfield cerca la sua dimensione al di fuori dalla sfera domestica, in contatto con l'ambiente letterario della Londra di Joyce e Woolf. La sua scrittura anti ottocentesca ha il carattere della donna a cui si serve di strutture inedite e di un linguaggio quasi cinematografico, da cui prendono forma storie acute, affilate, lampi di quotidianità appena tratteggiati eppure iconici, venati di un umorismo agrodolce che fotografa con acume il ritmo monotono delle giornate. Questo volume raccoglie i racconti composti tra il 1911 e il 1923, tra cui Una pensione tedesca, Felicità, e diversi altri testi della maturità artistica, testimoni della vivacità di questa maestra dell'indagine psicologica, che è riuscita a fissare la propria immagine sulla carta, in un'eterna competizione con la morte.
510 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1920
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About the author
Katherine Mansfield
998 books1,216 followersKathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp) was a prominent New Zealand modernist writer of short fiction who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
April 12, 2025
I review her collected stories elsewhere under the titles of the collections. I truly enjoy her fiction and short stories. She and Virginia Woolf are two of the authors I wish I could have met 🌿
November 10, 2021
These stories! They are full of delicate moments, silences, differences, that you cannot believe the way they are described. She is incredible with all sorts of relationships, with parents and daughters, with families, couples, and her language is just a dream, lovely and painful, the differences in class, the loss of love, insecurities, she transmits this with such beautiful moments. I don´t think I had appreciated her, I had only read one book, but she is an amazing, beautiful, she must be read much more. I had read comments by Clarice Lispector, by Rosario Castellanos, authors I have loved for such a long tine, and they appreciated and respected her very much, and that just makes reading her another way to connect with them. I loved her!!
October 5, 2024
In 2005, when I was in college, I read "The Garden Party" for my 20th Century British Literature course during my undergraduate years. Then I later taught the story to high school and college students. I am revising this Goodreads review, with both my 2011 and then 2023 musings below:
My 2011 Review:
Every story is crafted to perfection, but stories such as "I Don't Speak French Well", and "The Garden Party" or even "Prelude" are all well executed and disturbing depictions of human cruelty among the frail and weak. Her style is reminiscent of peers such as DH Lawrence and Elizabeth Bowen, of that high Modernist style in which narratives are rather fragmented and distorted rather than straightforward. But the irony is that Ms. Mansfield chooses to be more straightforward in her narrative, yet the thought processes of her characters are indeed fragmented.
My 2023 Review:
I had the hankering to read some of the books I had on my shelf that I hadn't read in a while, deciding if some book were worth keeping or giving away. Every book lover I believe experiences this bit of privileged conflict, and rereading this collection took my breath away, especially with this sentence, "it is the loneliness which is so appalling, we whirl along like caves, and nobody knows, nobody cares where we fall, in what black river we float away" (Mansfield 216).
The stories in this collection are absolutely outstanding: Not only the immortal "The Garden Party" that remains the masterpiece that is; but the novellas that link female charactes, Kezia and Aunt Beryl, women trapped in their gendered roles: "Prelude", "At the Bay", "The Doll's House"; "Life of Ma Parker", and "The Stranger" are some of the most unforgettable ones.
"Je Ne Parle Pas Francais" was a story that really blew me away. The point of view is in the first person, a rarity for the other stories; told by bachelor Raoul Duquette, Parisian who spent time in Africa, who reminiscences about a possible sexual encounter with an African woman.
The lines of whether this was consensual are blurred, which makes for a chilling confession that he might have been complicit in hurting her- but its left unclear, "I suppose I was in a state of more or less physical excitement, and that was what appealed to them" (Mansfield 163).
In "The Daughters of the Late Colonel", I found a sentence such as "Nurse Andrews was simply fearful about butter" (Mansfield 240). This random sentence was both wicked satire, and an observation about the fallibility of the human psyche.
The language in which Mansfield crafts sentences is indeed both ordinary and innovative- she writes for as long as she wants in her novellas, and doesn't follow a specific form, highly indicative of the stylings of her contemporaries, Woolf, Joyce, TS Eliot, Forster, and later, one of my favorite writers, Elizabeth Bowen.
The Modernist approach is definitely what stands out, and she writes eloquently about the struggles of gender roles, women trapped in compromising situations and the dangers of unexpected daily cruelty.
"The Garden Party" stunned me at this third or fourth reading because it's such a canonical coming of age story about Laura coming to terms her family is vapid and shallow as hell. When an accident kills Mr. Scott outside the party's gate, Laura's family is so apathetic about how someone has died, whereas only caring about the optics of what the party looks like.
Jose and Laura's mother are two of the most vapid characters I've encountered in a while, and later when they try to make nice and send some of the leftover food to the Scott family, Laura's coming of age and perhaps later desire to help those in need, come into light, "here she was going down the hill somewhere where a man lay dead, and she couldn't realize it...it seemed to her that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, and the smell of crushed grass were somehow inside her...how strange!" (Mansfield 294).
After she sees the body of the unfortunate Mr. Scott, her conscience gets to the best of her, the realization her family simply turns away from those in need, "but all the same you had to cry, and she couldn't go out of the room without saying something to him. Laura gave a loud childish sob. Forgive my hat" (Mansfield 296).
It was marvelous to rediscover Ms. Mansfield's work anew. She deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest writers. Period.
My 2011 Review:
Every story is crafted to perfection, but stories such as "I Don't Speak French Well", and "The Garden Party" or even "Prelude" are all well executed and disturbing depictions of human cruelty among the frail and weak. Her style is reminiscent of peers such as DH Lawrence and Elizabeth Bowen, of that high Modernist style in which narratives are rather fragmented and distorted rather than straightforward. But the irony is that Ms. Mansfield chooses to be more straightforward in her narrative, yet the thought processes of her characters are indeed fragmented.
My 2023 Review:
I had the hankering to read some of the books I had on my shelf that I hadn't read in a while, deciding if some book were worth keeping or giving away. Every book lover I believe experiences this bit of privileged conflict, and rereading this collection took my breath away, especially with this sentence, "it is the loneliness which is so appalling, we whirl along like caves, and nobody knows, nobody cares where we fall, in what black river we float away" (Mansfield 216).
The stories in this collection are absolutely outstanding: Not only the immortal "The Garden Party" that remains the masterpiece that is; but the novellas that link female charactes, Kezia and Aunt Beryl, women trapped in their gendered roles: "Prelude", "At the Bay", "The Doll's House"; "Life of Ma Parker", and "The Stranger" are some of the most unforgettable ones.
"Je Ne Parle Pas Francais" was a story that really blew me away. The point of view is in the first person, a rarity for the other stories; told by bachelor Raoul Duquette, Parisian who spent time in Africa, who reminiscences about a possible sexual encounter with an African woman.
The lines of whether this was consensual are blurred, which makes for a chilling confession that he might have been complicit in hurting her- but its left unclear, "I suppose I was in a state of more or less physical excitement, and that was what appealed to them" (Mansfield 163).
In "The Daughters of the Late Colonel", I found a sentence such as "Nurse Andrews was simply fearful about butter" (Mansfield 240). This random sentence was both wicked satire, and an observation about the fallibility of the human psyche.
The language in which Mansfield crafts sentences is indeed both ordinary and innovative- she writes for as long as she wants in her novellas, and doesn't follow a specific form, highly indicative of the stylings of her contemporaries, Woolf, Joyce, TS Eliot, Forster, and later, one of my favorite writers, Elizabeth Bowen.
The Modernist approach is definitely what stands out, and she writes eloquently about the struggles of gender roles, women trapped in compromising situations and the dangers of unexpected daily cruelty.
"The Garden Party" stunned me at this third or fourth reading because it's such a canonical coming of age story about Laura coming to terms her family is vapid and shallow as hell. When an accident kills Mr. Scott outside the party's gate, Laura's family is so apathetic about how someone has died, whereas only caring about the optics of what the party looks like.
Jose and Laura's mother are two of the most vapid characters I've encountered in a while, and later when they try to make nice and send some of the leftover food to the Scott family, Laura's coming of age and perhaps later desire to help those in need, come into light, "here she was going down the hill somewhere where a man lay dead, and she couldn't realize it...it seemed to her that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, and the smell of crushed grass were somehow inside her...how strange!" (Mansfield 294).
After she sees the body of the unfortunate Mr. Scott, her conscience gets to the best of her, the realization her family simply turns away from those in need, "but all the same you had to cry, and she couldn't go out of the room without saying something to him. Laura gave a loud childish sob. Forgive my hat" (Mansfield 296).
It was marvelous to rediscover Ms. Mansfield's work anew. She deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest writers. Period.
January 3, 2016
Katherine Mansfield is one of the accomplished masters of that most difficult of literary forms - the short story. Almost all of the 21 stories in this collection are outstanding examples of her art.
Mansfield is labelled as a modernist writer: her stories do not follow the classic narrative structure of a beginning, middle and end many a time. Sometimes, they do not tell a story in the traditional sense at all. They are, rather, mirrors held up to the nature of her characters - mostly young women - and an incident or incidents which illuminate the soul of the protagonist. There is humour, often of a sarcastic variety, but mostly sympathetic. Sometimes, it transforms into the dark variety - and occasionally into total darkness. Katherine Mansfield is where Jane Austen meets Emily Bronte.
Of the stories in the current collection, one common theme may be seen to be pervasive - the difficulty for a woman in finding fulfillment. In The Tiredness of Rosabel, the first story in the volume, the heroine dreams of a life outside her mundane job in a hat shop, with a glamourous customer: of course, she is prudent to restrict her longings to her active imagination. In The Swing of the Pendulum, Viola takes it one step further to flirting with a man caller – and pays the price by inviting an unwanted sexual advance. In the long stories Prelude and its continuation At the Bay, the unfulfilled Beryl also flirts with life… and finds an unwelcome caller. In The Little Governess, this theme is taken to its logical extreme, ending with the protagonist’s life in a shambles – even though she is not physically violated, her psyche, reputation and future is scarred for life.
Katherine Mansfield, extremely daring and unconventional herself, has no illusions about woman’s lot in life. She can choose to be man’s possession, moving about in the constrained space allotted to her by society (the tale of two spinsters, left rudderless at the death of their tyrannical father in Daughters of the Late Colonel - often touted as Mansfield’s finest story – shows the plight of such women when the man in their life disappears), or she can go out and become “bad”. Both are equally undesirable. It is this tension that constantly colours her stories, and make walk the tightrope between humour and horror.
Though most of the tales are set in Europe, among “civilised" folk, a couple are set in New Zealand and show a different face of the author. Both these stories (Millie and The Woman in the Store) inhabit a more primal and violent world than the chaste drawing rooms of the continent, and the themes are also darker. Mansfield has captured this atmosphere beautifully in a sentence in the latter story:
There is no twilight in our New Zealand days, but a curious half-hour when everything appears grotesque—it frightens—as though the savage spirit of the country walked abroad and sneered at what it saw.
It is this half-light which illuminates this story – the light which is kept at bay in the brilliantly lit interiors of her other stories. But it is always there, promising to show us the bloodthirsty yakshi hidden behind the beautiful visage of a nubile young woman. And that is why this is my most favourite story in the book: here the author casts away her refined aura, and enters into the truly wild spirit of her native country – the spirit of the wanton woman.
Highly recommended.
Mansfield is labelled as a modernist writer: her stories do not follow the classic narrative structure of a beginning, middle and end many a time. Sometimes, they do not tell a story in the traditional sense at all. They are, rather, mirrors held up to the nature of her characters - mostly young women - and an incident or incidents which illuminate the soul of the protagonist. There is humour, often of a sarcastic variety, but mostly sympathetic. Sometimes, it transforms into the dark variety - and occasionally into total darkness. Katherine Mansfield is where Jane Austen meets Emily Bronte.
Of the stories in the current collection, one common theme may be seen to be pervasive - the difficulty for a woman in finding fulfillment. In The Tiredness of Rosabel, the first story in the volume, the heroine dreams of a life outside her mundane job in a hat shop, with a glamourous customer: of course, she is prudent to restrict her longings to her active imagination. In The Swing of the Pendulum, Viola takes it one step further to flirting with a man caller – and pays the price by inviting an unwanted sexual advance. In the long stories Prelude and its continuation At the Bay, the unfulfilled Beryl also flirts with life… and finds an unwelcome caller. In The Little Governess, this theme is taken to its logical extreme, ending with the protagonist’s life in a shambles – even though she is not physically violated, her psyche, reputation and future is scarred for life.
Katherine Mansfield, extremely daring and unconventional herself, has no illusions about woman’s lot in life. She can choose to be man’s possession, moving about in the constrained space allotted to her by society (the tale of two spinsters, left rudderless at the death of their tyrannical father in Daughters of the Late Colonel - often touted as Mansfield’s finest story – shows the plight of such women when the man in their life disappears), or she can go out and become “bad”. Both are equally undesirable. It is this tension that constantly colours her stories, and make walk the tightrope between humour and horror.
Though most of the tales are set in Europe, among “civilised" folk, a couple are set in New Zealand and show a different face of the author. Both these stories (Millie and The Woman in the Store) inhabit a more primal and violent world than the chaste drawing rooms of the continent, and the themes are also darker. Mansfield has captured this atmosphere beautifully in a sentence in the latter story:
There is no twilight in our New Zealand days, but a curious half-hour when everything appears grotesque—it frightens—as though the savage spirit of the country walked abroad and sneered at what it saw.
It is this half-light which illuminates this story – the light which is kept at bay in the brilliantly lit interiors of her other stories. But it is always there, promising to show us the bloodthirsty yakshi hidden behind the beautiful visage of a nubile young woman. And that is why this is my most favourite story in the book: here the author casts away her refined aura, and enters into the truly wild spirit of her native country – the spirit of the wanton woman.
Highly recommended.
August 28, 2020
I know she's a celebrated author of short stories from New Zealand, and each of these stories was brilliant until the end, then they just......fizzled. It's very disappointing to love the language or the characters, only to have them left dangling with no resolution at all. Maybe I'm not intellectual enough to appreciate her, but reading this book accomplished two things. I got this book off my shelf, and I've read Katherine Mansfield. Two out of three ain't bad.
November 19, 2007
This has been one of my favorite books since I was a freshman in college... the stories are so lovely, so breathtaking. They remind me somewhat of Salinger, with its focus on a particular family in many of the tales. And like Woolf, there is a sense of melancholy and isolation, humanity as flawed and stumbling toward something, so clumsy and gangly, yet breathtakingly graceful in all it's failures.
September 1, 2019
I had never read Katherine Mansfield, and always had the name confused with that of Dorothy Parker. Says a lot about the gaps in my knowledge...!
Mansfield is brilliant. Several of these stories are masterpieces, and several others are very, very, very good. Some fall flat. For me, at least.
An important Modernist writer, and if you haven’t read her, you really ought to.
Mansfield is brilliant. Several of these stories are masterpieces, and several others are very, very, very good. Some fall flat. For me, at least.
An important Modernist writer, and if you haven’t read her, you really ought to.
December 25, 2024
She was all smiles. Little smiles like butterflies, alighting on her lips and gone again.
Read
March 3, 2019Having already read "The Baron" (3 stars), "The Modern Soul" (4 stars), "The little governess" (3 stars), "Prelude" (4 stars), "At the Bay" (5 stars), "Psychology" (5 stars), "Bliss" (5 stars), "Je ne parle pas français" (4 stars), "Sun and moon" (3 stars), "The man without a temperament" (3 stars), "Revelations" (4 stars), "The Young Girl" (3 stars) and "" ( stars), I jumped straight to:
The Tiredness of Rosabel
The Woman at the Store
Ole Underwood
This Flower
The Doll’s House - school is where the children of all social classes gather and the Kelveys as the lowest of the social classes; all the children are invited to the Burnell's garden party, despite the fact that adults discourage their children from socializing with the Kelveys (4 stars)
The Doves' Nest
Six Years After
The Fly
The Tiredness of Rosabel
The Woman at the Store
Ole Underwood
This Flower
The Doll’s House - school is where the children of all social classes gather and the Kelveys as the lowest of the social classes; all the children are invited to the Burnell's garden party, despite the fact that adults discourage their children from socializing with the Kelveys (4 stars)
The Doves' Nest
Six Years After
The Fly
February 13, 2017
love this, from "The Daughters of the Late Colonel":
'Josephine had had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would father say when he found out? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. "Buried. You two girls had me buried!" She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were strangers; they couldn't be expected to understand that father was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say then?'
'Josephine had had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would father say when he found out? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. "Buried. You two girls had me buried!" She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were strangers; they couldn't be expected to understand that father was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say then?'
February 26, 2013
She's not on the short list of outstanding female American short story writers for nothing. I read some of these vignettes in H.S. & college, and years later I thoroughly enjoyed becoming reacquainted with them, and will likely reread again. At the conclusion of each story/vignette I find myself thinking, "wait...don't just end it here as I'm becoming enthralled with the characters, the setting, and the mood. I want the rest of the story." Mansfield is concise, with every word skillfully chosen to convey a believable scenario. Her sketches are wonderful and remind me of Willa Cather, but better. I much prefer her to Virginia Woolf.
November 4, 2019
Mit einem wundervollen Schreibstil generiert Katherine Mansfield hier unglaubliche Momentaufnahmen. Diese fühlen sich so real an, dass man die Gefühle der Protagonisten regelrecht spüren kann genauso wie die Sonne auf der Haut und den Wind im Haar. Die unterschiedlichen Geschichten führen dazu, dass man durch eine Achterbahn der Gefühle fährt und viele Situationen miterleben darf. Die Autorin konnte mich regelrecht in ihre Geschichten einsaugen und emotional mitnehmen. Fantastisch geschrieben und sehr empfehlenswert!
November 16, 2009
Your lovely pear tree - pear tree - pear tree!
I just remember the striking impression these stories made on me. I hugged this book to my chest and carried it around for months.
I don't clearly recall most of the stories, just the mood of sadness, bitterness and yet, hope and mercy despite it, and beauty. Before Gatsby, this was MY green light.
I just remember the striking impression these stories made on me. I hugged this book to my chest and carried it around for months.
I don't clearly recall most of the stories, just the mood of sadness, bitterness and yet, hope and mercy despite it, and beauty. Before Gatsby, this was MY green light.
August 18, 2022
Among the less than flattering Goodreads comments concerning Katherine Mansfield's work is one member who refers to her writing as dated and another reviewer who, eschewing originality, quotes Ernest Hemingway's take that "trying to read her after Chekov was like hearing the careful artificial tales of a young old-maid compared to those of an articulate and knowing physician who was a good and simple writer. It was better to drink water. But Chekov was not water except for clarity."
One may perhaps think of Mansfield's stories as dated in the sense that they were written a century ago and depict a bygone era when, as in one narrative, elderly people removed their false teeth and put them in a jar by the bed before rolling over to sleep, but in other respects Mansfield was a writer well ahead of her time, distancing herself from the romances and drawing room stories prevalent among her near contemporaries and exploring stylistic variations that set her well apart from the studied and stately prose of the 19th Century.
As for Hemingway's comments, he presented them from notes he took while in Paris in the 1920's and didn't prepare for publication until near the end of his life. Mansfield died in 1923, at the age of 34, which means that Hemingway kicked her while she was down. Although she suffered the debilitating effects of tuberculosis, Mansfield lived as fully, adventurously, and bravely as her circumstances permitted.
I read Mansfield after reading Chekov, and I found her style engaging, as in this first paragraph from "At the Bay":
"Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered hills at the back were smothered. You could not see where they ended and the paddocks and bungalows began. The sandy road was gone and the paddocks and bungalows the other side of it; there were no white dunes covered with reddish grass beyond them; there was nothing to mark which was beach and where was the sea. A heavy dew had fallen. The grass was blue. Big drops hung on the bushes and just did not fall; the silvery, fluffy toi-toi was limp on its long stalks, and all the marigolds and the pinks in the bungalow gardens were bowed to the earth with wetness. Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves. It looked as though the sea had beaten up softly in the darkness, as though one immense wave had come rippling, rippling--how far? Perhaps if you had waked up in the middle of the night you might have seen a big fish flicking in at the window and gone again. . . ."
Within that passage one finds simple, declarative sentences of the type Hemingway favored and his trick of repeating descriptive elements to fix the scene in the reader's mind. She deviates from this simplicity with the dreamlike element of describing what can't be seen hidden beneath the white sea-mist. She actively engages the reader's imagination while prompting it with concrete details, and then she returns to the dreamlike quality, urging you to wake up and see something fantastic. Near-beer? I don't think so. Mansfield's writing has the clarity of water, and yet there is something intoxicating to it. Maybe Hemingway didn't like the semicolons, or all the references to flowers, or the fact that Mansfield didn't write about bullfighting or deep sea fishing or fisticuffs. It's hard to tell what Hemingway's specific issues were with her writing, since he contented himself with name-calling.
Mansfield writes about growing up in, and away from, a place and people that were home and family but which she did not feel a part of, of attitudes too narrow for a broadly exploring mind, of struggling with the constraints of traditional relationships she found unsatisfying, and recognizing and pushing against the limitations imposed on her and those near to her by her illness. If there are faults in her writing it may be attributable to the stories' hurriedness, the urgency of someone running as fast as she could when she was running out of time.
Chekov also died of tuberculosis. I can't say that, had he lived to read Mansfield's stories, he would have found a kindred spirit, but I do think the good doctor would have appraised her and her work with compassion.
One may perhaps think of Mansfield's stories as dated in the sense that they were written a century ago and depict a bygone era when, as in one narrative, elderly people removed their false teeth and put them in a jar by the bed before rolling over to sleep, but in other respects Mansfield was a writer well ahead of her time, distancing herself from the romances and drawing room stories prevalent among her near contemporaries and exploring stylistic variations that set her well apart from the studied and stately prose of the 19th Century.
As for Hemingway's comments, he presented them from notes he took while in Paris in the 1920's and didn't prepare for publication until near the end of his life. Mansfield died in 1923, at the age of 34, which means that Hemingway kicked her while she was down. Although she suffered the debilitating effects of tuberculosis, Mansfield lived as fully, adventurously, and bravely as her circumstances permitted.
I read Mansfield after reading Chekov, and I found her style engaging, as in this first paragraph from "At the Bay":
"Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered hills at the back were smothered. You could not see where they ended and the paddocks and bungalows began. The sandy road was gone and the paddocks and bungalows the other side of it; there were no white dunes covered with reddish grass beyond them; there was nothing to mark which was beach and where was the sea. A heavy dew had fallen. The grass was blue. Big drops hung on the bushes and just did not fall; the silvery, fluffy toi-toi was limp on its long stalks, and all the marigolds and the pinks in the bungalow gardens were bowed to the earth with wetness. Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves. It looked as though the sea had beaten up softly in the darkness, as though one immense wave had come rippling, rippling--how far? Perhaps if you had waked up in the middle of the night you might have seen a big fish flicking in at the window and gone again. . . ."
Within that passage one finds simple, declarative sentences of the type Hemingway favored and his trick of repeating descriptive elements to fix the scene in the reader's mind. She deviates from this simplicity with the dreamlike element of describing what can't be seen hidden beneath the white sea-mist. She actively engages the reader's imagination while prompting it with concrete details, and then she returns to the dreamlike quality, urging you to wake up and see something fantastic. Near-beer? I don't think so. Mansfield's writing has the clarity of water, and yet there is something intoxicating to it. Maybe Hemingway didn't like the semicolons, or all the references to flowers, or the fact that Mansfield didn't write about bullfighting or deep sea fishing or fisticuffs. It's hard to tell what Hemingway's specific issues were with her writing, since he contented himself with name-calling.
Mansfield writes about growing up in, and away from, a place and people that were home and family but which she did not feel a part of, of attitudes too narrow for a broadly exploring mind, of struggling with the constraints of traditional relationships she found unsatisfying, and recognizing and pushing against the limitations imposed on her and those near to her by her illness. If there are faults in her writing it may be attributable to the stories' hurriedness, the urgency of someone running as fast as she could when she was running out of time.
Chekov also died of tuberculosis. I can't say that, had he lived to read Mansfield's stories, he would have found a kindred spirit, but I do think the good doctor would have appraised her and her work with compassion.
March 20, 2021
I think I picked this up because I heard Katherine Mansfield referred to as one of the best authors you've never read. The works reminded me of Edith Wharton (whom I love), but I suppose that's because of the setting and societal norms of their shared time period, rather than their writing styles.
Some of these stories hit for me and some of them didn't, which also could have been due to external factors as I was reading them. "Miss Brill", a very short story, is relatively uncomplicated but packs a punch.
A note: Most of these stories tend towards personal/societal struggles or reflections, but "Ole Underwood" has a bit more of the world's evils -- I would skip it if you're in a fragile place (which I learned the hard way).
Some of these stories hit for me and some of them didn't, which also could have been due to external factors as I was reading them. "Miss Brill", a very short story, is relatively uncomplicated but packs a punch.
A note: Most of these stories tend towards personal/societal struggles or reflections, but "Ole Underwood" has a bit more of the world's evils -- I would skip it if you're in a fragile place (which I learned the hard way).
June 6, 2015
“Short stories can be like photographs, catching people at some moment in their lives and trapping the memory for ever . There they are, smiling or frowning, looking sad, happy, serious, surprised ... And behind those smiles and those frowns lie all the experience of life, the fears and delights, the hopes and the dreams.”
Katherine Mansfield wrote some of the best short stories I've read. The majority of them are indeed rather photographic, or impressionistic, exploring the depths of the moment and the characters' innermost thoughts, fears, and desires. She had a fascinating mind and seemed to fixate her curiosity on things that get overlooked -- things never talked about or even noticed (like the beautiful strangeness of an aloe leaf, or the way the afternoon sun shines sun-dots on a teapot). She's extremely poetic, but her style never gets in the way of what she needs to say. She uses the English language in a unique way, and writes stories in a distinctive way. She's a master writer, and I'm practically outraged that I didn't come across her work when I was an English major -- she should be taught always, and passionately!
Naturally, with a 28-story collection, not all of them hit me the same way. A few even bored me. But the best ones -- "At the Bay", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", "Life of Ma Parker", "The Fly", etc. -- hit me right in the gut. These are stories to be read forever, cherished, passed down to future generations, taught to children, taught to adults. Wondrous stuff!
Born and raised in New Zealand, she spent most of her adult life abroad, and these stories, when not reminiscing of her old Kiwiland, are of England, Germany, and France. There's a definite international flavor in a lot of them, but that microscopic portrait-study always remains.
As usual, here's the part where I stop my own gushing and just give examples of her brilliance:
“For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn't as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter--nor did she enter his like a queen walking on soft petals. No, they were eager, serious travellers, absorbed in understanding what was to be seen and discovering what was hidden--making the most of this extraordinary absolute chance which made it possible for him to be utterly truthful to her and for her to be utterly sincere with him.”
---
“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?... Oh, is there no way you can express it without being 'drunk and disorderly?' How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”
---
"I believe that people are like portmanteaux - packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle..."
---
(while a group of kids are playing a game, the youngest can't remember the rules and starts crying)
" 'I haven't got a hanky,' Lottie said. 'I want one badly, too.'
'Here, Lottie, you can use mine.' Rags dipped into his sailor blouse and brought up a very wet-looking one, knotted together. 'Be very careful,' he warned her. 'Only use that corner. Don't undo it. I've got a little starfish inside I'm going to try and tame.' "
---
" 'It seems to me just as imbecile, just as infernal, to have to go to the office on Monday,' said Jonathan, 'as it always has done and always will do. To spend all the best years of one's life sitting on a stool from nine to five, scratching in somebody's ledger! It's a queer use to make of one's...one and only life, isn't it? Or do I fondly dream?' He rolled over on the grass and looked up at Linda. 'Tell me, what is the difference between my life and that of an ordinary prisoner? The only difference I can see is that I put myself in jail and nobody's ever going to let me out. That's a more intolerable situation than the other. For if I'd been--pushed in, against my will--kicking, even--once the door was locked, or at any rate in five years or so, I might have accepted the fact and begun to take an interest in the flight of flies or counting the warder's steps along the passage with particular attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I'm like an insect that's flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything on God's earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I'm thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is, "The shortness of life! The shortness of life!" I've only one night or one day, and there's this vast dangerous garden, waiting out there, undiscovered, unexplored. [...] I'm exactly like that insect again. For some reason, it's not allowed, it's forbidden, it's against the insect law, to stop banging and flopping and crawling up the pane even for an instant.'"
Katherine Mansfield wrote some of the best short stories I've read. The majority of them are indeed rather photographic, or impressionistic, exploring the depths of the moment and the characters' innermost thoughts, fears, and desires. She had a fascinating mind and seemed to fixate her curiosity on things that get overlooked -- things never talked about or even noticed (like the beautiful strangeness of an aloe leaf, or the way the afternoon sun shines sun-dots on a teapot). She's extremely poetic, but her style never gets in the way of what she needs to say. She uses the English language in a unique way, and writes stories in a distinctive way. She's a master writer, and I'm practically outraged that I didn't come across her work when I was an English major -- she should be taught always, and passionately!
Naturally, with a 28-story collection, not all of them hit me the same way. A few even bored me. But the best ones -- "At the Bay", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", "Life of Ma Parker", "The Fly", etc. -- hit me right in the gut. These are stories to be read forever, cherished, passed down to future generations, taught to children, taught to adults. Wondrous stuff!
Born and raised in New Zealand, she spent most of her adult life abroad, and these stories, when not reminiscing of her old Kiwiland, are of England, Germany, and France. There's a definite international flavor in a lot of them, but that microscopic portrait-study always remains.
As usual, here's the part where I stop my own gushing and just give examples of her brilliance:
“For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn't as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter--nor did she enter his like a queen walking on soft petals. No, they were eager, serious travellers, absorbed in understanding what was to be seen and discovering what was hidden--making the most of this extraordinary absolute chance which made it possible for him to be utterly truthful to her and for her to be utterly sincere with him.”
---
“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?... Oh, is there no way you can express it without being 'drunk and disorderly?' How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”
---
"I believe that people are like portmanteaux - packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle..."
---
(while a group of kids are playing a game, the youngest can't remember the rules and starts crying)
" 'I haven't got a hanky,' Lottie said. 'I want one badly, too.'
'Here, Lottie, you can use mine.' Rags dipped into his sailor blouse and brought up a very wet-looking one, knotted together. 'Be very careful,' he warned her. 'Only use that corner. Don't undo it. I've got a little starfish inside I'm going to try and tame.' "
---
" 'It seems to me just as imbecile, just as infernal, to have to go to the office on Monday,' said Jonathan, 'as it always has done and always will do. To spend all the best years of one's life sitting on a stool from nine to five, scratching in somebody's ledger! It's a queer use to make of one's...one and only life, isn't it? Or do I fondly dream?' He rolled over on the grass and looked up at Linda. 'Tell me, what is the difference between my life and that of an ordinary prisoner? The only difference I can see is that I put myself in jail and nobody's ever going to let me out. That's a more intolerable situation than the other. For if I'd been--pushed in, against my will--kicking, even--once the door was locked, or at any rate in five years or so, I might have accepted the fact and begun to take an interest in the flight of flies or counting the warder's steps along the passage with particular attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I'm like an insect that's flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything on God's earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I'm thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is, "The shortness of life! The shortness of life!" I've only one night or one day, and there's this vast dangerous garden, waiting out there, undiscovered, unexplored. [...] I'm exactly like that insect again. For some reason, it's not allowed, it's forbidden, it's against the insect law, to stop banging and flopping and crawling up the pane even for an instant.'"
July 17, 2018
Exquisite. Absolutely exquisite. A painful, beautiful pleasure to read. Mansfield is such an intuitive and loving author. I took about a year to finish it, but now I’m done with it I’m a little sad I didn’t take even longer.
August 11, 2024
Katherine Mansfield es la maestra de mostrar los pequeños recovecos donde se entreven las oscuridades, los temores, lo verdaderamente terrible. Y tiene una habilidad inusual para la ternura y la belleza. Ambas cualidades quizá no están sobre expuestas o sobre explicadas, lo que a mis ojos siempre es mejor. Leeré todo lo que pueda de ella.
July 17, 2014
Katherine Mansfield's short stories were originally published in the 1930s, and I found most of them surprisingly relevant and insightful despite antiquated settings. It seems that people don't change that much after all. It's easy to read several Mansfield stories in a row, because each story is a "day in the life" of an everyday person. Sometimes nothing really happens; other times there is a plot. Either way, the story is more about the small details. People in these stories don't usually express their feelings outwardly; instead, we discover them through clues. Stories like "The Black Cap" and "The Garden Party" stayed in my mind long after I finished them because they strongly conveyed a sense of humanity without the need for characters to make grand speeches or even acknowledge their thoughts to themselves. In fact, that's perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this collection - characters are unbelievably self-centered but possess no self-awareness. While in some instances this probably reflects real life, in others it feels cynical and even ridiculous. At the same time, Mansfield ably conveys the complex thoughts and feelings of characters of all ages and stations in life. She depicts the cruelty of children like someone who still feels the sting of grade school taunts; she knows the nuances of old age before she's experienced it; and she nimbly hops between the worlds of the rich and the poor. The only group of people she is absolutely terrible at portraying is foreigners - for her, in particular, Germans. Her feelings toward those she considers lower than herself are most evident in these stories and I found myself wanting to skip over any story that included German characters for this reason. I also didn't read the small collection of unfinished stories at the end, because I don't think unfinished stories are intended for the general reading public. However, I'd still recommend this collection to anyone who wants to explore more short stories or female writers.
March 30, 2008
So I was inspired to pick this up after reading about Katherine Mansfield in Uncommon Arrangements. She was praised for the "economy" in her short stories. I understand that now. She clearly manages to convey more emotion and drama and character into 5 or 10 pages than some authors do within an entire novel. However, to some extent these stories date themselves a bit. The intro says how her characters are quintessential Englishmen and women who are pushed out of their comfort zones. But the mores of the times have changed, and I don't entirely understand the strict propriety and the violations didn't bother me so much. The other thing about these stories is that many of these characters are brought out their comfort zones by "shocking revelations" that inevitably lead to rather depressing consequences. I think that if I were getting these stories in small doses, like the New Yorker, I'd probably appreciate them more. All at once, make sure you're in a good mood before you start... And read something of Mansfield's life beforehand. It gives many of her stories quite a bit more meaning when you think that that's probably an excellent description of part of her life with her husband. Although I suppose that's then back to the depressing aspect.
April 23, 2025
The tiredness of Rosabel --3
The baron --2
The modern soul --3
The woman at the store --3
Ole Underwood --2
The little governess --4
Prelude --2
At the bay --3
Psychology --2
Je ne parle pas français --2
Sun and moon --3
Mr. Reginald Peacock's day --4
Pictures --3
This flower --3
The man without a temperament --2
Revelations --2
The young girl --2
The stranger --3
The daughters of the late colonel --3
Life of Ma Parker --3
The singing lesson --3
Mr. and Mrs. Dove --3
An ideal family --2
The voyage --4
The garden-party --4
Miss Brill --4
Marriage a la mode --3
The doll's house --3
The fly --4
The dove's nest --2
Six years after --2
Father and the girls --2
The canary --3
***
The apple tree --2
Bank holiday --2
Bliss --3
A cup of tea --3
A dill pickle --2
Feuille d'album --3
Germans at meat --3
Her first ball --3
How Pearl Button was kidnapped --2
An indiscreet journey --2
A married man's story --2
Poison --2
The Samuel Josephs --1
Something childish but very natural --2
Strange visitor --1
The baron --2
The modern soul --3
The woman at the store --3
Ole Underwood --2
The little governess --4
Prelude --2
At the bay --3
Psychology --2
Je ne parle pas français --2
Sun and moon --3
Mr. Reginald Peacock's day --4
Pictures --3
This flower --3
The man without a temperament --2
Revelations --2
The young girl --2
The stranger --3
The daughters of the late colonel --3
Life of Ma Parker --3
The singing lesson --3
Mr. and Mrs. Dove --3
An ideal family --2
The voyage --4
The garden-party --4
Miss Brill --4
Marriage a la mode --3
The doll's house --3
The fly --4
The dove's nest --2
Six years after --2
Father and the girls --2
The canary --3
***
The apple tree --2
Bank holiday --2
Bliss --3
A cup of tea --3
A dill pickle --2
Feuille d'album --3
Germans at meat --3
Her first ball --3
How Pearl Button was kidnapped --2
An indiscreet journey --2
A married man's story --2
Poison --2
The Samuel Josephs --1
Something childish but very natural --2
Strange visitor --1
July 4, 2024
There are two types of fiction writers, writers who use a lot of plant names and writers who don’t. Mansfield is the former. She tests my patience with all the garden descriptions. Like, what are we doin here? Is this an actual test? Turns out… kinda?
At the beginning of The Garden Party Mansfield basically says: here come a bunch of guests and guess what, these idiots have only heard of roses. This was an aha moment for me because like, she invited them! She put them in the story! What I realized, what I felt rather, was her overbearing disdain. Although that’s not quite right because disdain implies someone or something is beneath consideration and Mansfield certainly considers. She opens up her characters’ minds, delves into their motivations, etc. It’s just that the outcome of all her considering is always the same. People suck. It starts to feel a little predetermined, and as such, saps my interest more than any rhapsodizing about hydrangeas ever could.
At the beginning of The Garden Party Mansfield basically says: here come a bunch of guests and guess what, these idiots have only heard of roses. This was an aha moment for me because like, she invited them! She put them in the story! What I realized, what I felt rather, was her overbearing disdain. Although that’s not quite right because disdain implies someone or something is beneath consideration and Mansfield certainly considers. She opens up her characters’ minds, delves into their motivations, etc. It’s just that the outcome of all her considering is always the same. People suck. It starts to feel a little predetermined, and as such, saps my interest more than any rhapsodizing about hydrangeas ever could.
September 9, 2020
I don’t deny she is a masterful writer but most of the time I left a story confused and wondering what I missed. There is a lot going on in each story and the writing is beautiful but often times I found myself frustrated at the end. I was being drawn along on a journey and then felt like the story ended abruptly and I was left scratching my head wondering what she was trying to say. Most of the stories are contemplative and profound but also inaccessible to many readers.
March 24, 2008
One of the few book that I will always keep on my bookshelf to be read over and over. Katherine Mansfield is extremely under-rated. I find this collection of short stories endearing and charming. I loved these stories so much that I wanted to name my daughter Kezia (a character that Katherine wrote about to represent herself).
January 10, 2008
Tied with Brideshead as my all-time favorite. Read it.
July 26, 2020
This is a beautiful collection. Mansfield's writing reminds me a bit of Sarah Orne Jewett.
"There was a sickening smell of warm humanity -- it seemed to be oozing out of everybody in the 'bus -- and everybody had the same expression, sitting so still, staring in front of them."
"She had scented her furs and gloves and handkerchief, taken a big muff and run down stairs."
"I looked at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad -- taking a whole lettuce leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbitwise -- a fascinating process to watch."
"But the more knew about it the oftener he remarked to me, 'England is merely an island of beef flesh swimming in a warm gulf stream of gravy.'"
"On the appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed like upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin dressing-table covers."
"We walked together up the garden path. It was planted on both sides with cabbages. They smelled like stale dish-water."
"It was sunset. There is no twilight in our New Zealand days, but a curious half-hour when everything appears grotesque -- it frightens -- as though the savage spirit of the country walked abroad and sneered at what it saw. Sitting alone in the hideous room I grew afraid."
"The water was clear and soft as oil."
"She had changed the blue pinafore for a white calico dressing jacket and a black skirt -- the kid was decorated to the extent of a blue sateen hair ribbon. In the stifling room, with the flies buzzing against the ceiling and dropping on to the table, we got slowly drunk."
"It was dark in the carriage. She seemed to lean against the dark rushing and to be carried away and away."
"Now when she rubbed a place she could see bright patched of fields, a clump of white houses like mushrooms, a road 'like a picture' with poplar trees on either side, a thread of a river."
"Things had a habit of coming alive like that."
"I like that aloe. I like it more than anything here. And I am sure I shall remember it long after I've forgotten all the other things."
"There were glimpses, moments, breathing spaces of clam, but all the rest of the time it was like living in a house that couldn't be cured of the habit of catching on fire, on a ship that got wrecked every day."
"Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everyone else is asleep?"
"It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life it is always sad."
"little sharp sandwiches"
"They saw themselves as two little grinning puppets jiggling away in nothingness."
"I believe that people are like portmanteaux -- packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle..."
"No paper or envelopes, of course. Only a morsel of pink blotting-paper, incredibly soft and limp and almost moist, like the tongue of a little dead kitten, which I've never felt."
"The sun was still high. Every leaf, every flower in the garden lay open, motionless, as if exhausted, and a sweet, rich, rank smell filled the quivering air."
"She could not stand this silent flat, noiseless Marie, this ghostly, quiet, feminine interior."
"Constantia was still gazing at the clock. She couldn't make up her mind if it was fast or slow. It was one or the other, she felt almost certain of that. At any rate, it had been."
"Why did the photographs of dead people always fade so?"
"And there was something -- a bush, there was -- at the front door, that smelt ever so nice. But the bush was very vague. She's only remembered it once of twice in the hospital, when she'd taken bad."
"People went flitting by, very fast; the men walked like scissors; the women trod like cats."
"Here and there on a rounded woodpile that was like the stalk of a huge black mushroom, there hung a lantern, but it seemed afraid to unfurl its timid, quivering light in all that blackness; it burned softly, as if for itself."
"kitchen regions"
"I was growing dusky as Laura shut their garden gates. A big dog ran by like a shadow."
"How she loved sitting here, watching it all! I was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted?"
"She laughed in the new way."
"The morning whisked away as foreign mornings do."
"Not a leaf moved; the oranges were little worlds of burning light."
"It is extraordinary how peaceful it feels on a little steamer once the bustle of leaving port is over. In a quarter of an hour one might have been at sea for days. There is something almost touching, childish, in the way people submit themselves to the new conditions. They go to bed in the early afternoon, they shut their eyes and 'it's night' like little children who turn the table upside down and cover themselves with the table cloth."
"There was a sickening smell of warm humanity -- it seemed to be oozing out of everybody in the 'bus -- and everybody had the same expression, sitting so still, staring in front of them."
"She had scented her furs and gloves and handkerchief, taken a big muff and run down stairs."
"I looked at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad -- taking a whole lettuce leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbitwise -- a fascinating process to watch."
"But the more knew about it the oftener he remarked to me, 'England is merely an island of beef flesh swimming in a warm gulf stream of gravy.'"
"On the appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed like upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin dressing-table covers."
"We walked together up the garden path. It was planted on both sides with cabbages. They smelled like stale dish-water."
"It was sunset. There is no twilight in our New Zealand days, but a curious half-hour when everything appears grotesque -- it frightens -- as though the savage spirit of the country walked abroad and sneered at what it saw. Sitting alone in the hideous room I grew afraid."
"The water was clear and soft as oil."
"She had changed the blue pinafore for a white calico dressing jacket and a black skirt -- the kid was decorated to the extent of a blue sateen hair ribbon. In the stifling room, with the flies buzzing against the ceiling and dropping on to the table, we got slowly drunk."
"It was dark in the carriage. She seemed to lean against the dark rushing and to be carried away and away."
"Now when she rubbed a place she could see bright patched of fields, a clump of white houses like mushrooms, a road 'like a picture' with poplar trees on either side, a thread of a river."
"Things had a habit of coming alive like that."
"I like that aloe. I like it more than anything here. And I am sure I shall remember it long after I've forgotten all the other things."
"There were glimpses, moments, breathing spaces of clam, but all the rest of the time it was like living in a house that couldn't be cured of the habit of catching on fire, on a ship that got wrecked every day."
"Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everyone else is asleep?"
"It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life it is always sad."
"little sharp sandwiches"
"They saw themselves as two little grinning puppets jiggling away in nothingness."
"I believe that people are like portmanteaux -- packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle..."
"No paper or envelopes, of course. Only a morsel of pink blotting-paper, incredibly soft and limp and almost moist, like the tongue of a little dead kitten, which I've never felt."
"The sun was still high. Every leaf, every flower in the garden lay open, motionless, as if exhausted, and a sweet, rich, rank smell filled the quivering air."
"She could not stand this silent flat, noiseless Marie, this ghostly, quiet, feminine interior."
"Constantia was still gazing at the clock. She couldn't make up her mind if it was fast or slow. It was one or the other, she felt almost certain of that. At any rate, it had been."
"Why did the photographs of dead people always fade so?"
"And there was something -- a bush, there was -- at the front door, that smelt ever so nice. But the bush was very vague. She's only remembered it once of twice in the hospital, when she'd taken bad."
"People went flitting by, very fast; the men walked like scissors; the women trod like cats."
"Here and there on a rounded woodpile that was like the stalk of a huge black mushroom, there hung a lantern, but it seemed afraid to unfurl its timid, quivering light in all that blackness; it burned softly, as if for itself."
"kitchen regions"
"I was growing dusky as Laura shut their garden gates. A big dog ran by like a shadow."
"How she loved sitting here, watching it all! I was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted?"
"She laughed in the new way."
"The morning whisked away as foreign mornings do."
"Not a leaf moved; the oranges were little worlds of burning light."
"It is extraordinary how peaceful it feels on a little steamer once the bustle of leaving port is over. In a quarter of an hour one might have been at sea for days. There is something almost touching, childish, in the way people submit themselves to the new conditions. They go to bed in the early afternoon, they shut their eyes and 'it's night' like little children who turn the table upside down and cover themselves with the table cloth."
August 2, 2020
I picked up this book on a tour of the author’s home. I love short stories and I thought this would be a great addition to my library. I read the first story and found myself confused. It seemed to just end at a random point before the narrative arc had really been established. Then I read another story in the book and the same thing happened. Story after story it was the same - characters well developed but the story didn’t go anywhere, plot severely lacking. I held out hope that The Prelude (one of her “masterpieces”) would draw me in. This turned out to be a much longer story with the same fundamental problem - seemingly no structured narrative. I put the book down and went to read some analysis on her work and on that story in particular. What was I missing? What I was missing was an understanding of modernism in literature. Turns out her writing is part of the modernism movement, which is focused on unstructured, open ended writing and character over plot. Her stories don’t have the traditional narrative arc on purpose. Maybe it’s a taste I just haven’t acquired, but I can’t get into her stories when they don’t go anywhere. It makes me feel like asking what’s the point? I couldn’t finish the book.
January 1, 2021
Well, it only took me nearly an entire year to finish this, but I can officially say that I've completed it. I came to Katherine wanting to be swept away, but the fact that the book took me so long to finish shows how ambivalent I was to her work at times. I'm not sure if Kathering is entirely for me, but I am able to appreciate the complexity of her characters and her stories. There is such a profound sense of listlessness and idleness that permeates every single story, and to achieve that over and over is impressive. I also loved her use of flowers and foliage throughout her stories. Rich with symbolism, these stories are deep and not easily digestible in one go. I'm sure I will return to Mansfield eventually, but for now, I'm finally ready to close this book for good and move into 2021.
October 29, 2021
It is hard to decide between 4 and 5 stars but I suppose if there is hesitancy it should be 4. I enjoyed this collection hugely. I feel the Anton Chekhov influence strongly but also a creative building upon it. The stories are filled with subtle insight and open questions, reflecting lifelike turns in mood and emotional realism where not everything is always perfectly clear. The language is expressive without being flowery and is filled with a particular joy for the hard-to-define delights of ordinary life. It fits very nicely that phrase "slice of life" with an eye toward the joys as well as the concerning mystery. I feel it has represented it faithfully with an overall affirmation of its enormous, veiled meaning.
February 6, 2020
After visiting New Zealand and delighting in the people, I wanted to read some Mansfield, a New Zealand native. She writes quite evocatively and it was a pleasure reading her short stories. I’m reminded of Willa Cather in terms of style, but without the rawness of an immigrant’s story and journey. There’s a refinement in Mansfield’s writing that speaks of class and education. These stories are not plot-driven. They’re about moments, reflection, introspection. They speak of the roles of men and women, of childhood and young adulthood. Admittedly they are somewhat dated, having been written a century ago. Nonetheless, isn’t that true for most of what we generally call “classics”?
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