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The Quest
- GenresShort StoriesSatire
Unknown Binding
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About the author
Saki
1,747 books594 followersBritish writer Hector Hugh Munro under pen name Saki published his witty and sometimes bitter short stories in collections, such as
The Chronicles of Clovis
(1911).
His sometimes macabre satirized Edwardian society and culture. People consider him a master and often compare him to William Sydney Porter and Dorothy Rothschild Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives. "The Open Window," perhaps his most famous, closes with the line, "Romance at short notice was her specialty," which thus entered the lexicon. Newspapers first and then several volumes published him as the custom of the time.
His works include
* a full-length play, The Watched Pot , in collaboration with Charles Maude;
* two one-act plays;
* a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire , the only book under his own name;
* a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington ;
* the episodic The Westminster Alice , a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland ;
* and When William Came: A Story of London under the Hohenzollerns , an early alternate history.
Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Joseph Rudyard Kipling, influenced Munro, who in turn influenced A. A. Milne, and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.
His sometimes macabre satirized Edwardian society and culture. People consider him a master and often compare him to William Sydney Porter and Dorothy Rothschild Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives. "The Open Window," perhaps his most famous, closes with the line, "Romance at short notice was her specialty," which thus entered the lexicon. Newspapers first and then several volumes published him as the custom of the time.
His works include
* a full-length play, The Watched Pot , in collaboration with Charles Maude;
* two one-act plays;
* a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire , the only book under his own name;
* a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington ;
* the episodic The Westminster Alice , a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland ;
* and When William Came: A Story of London under the Hohenzollerns , an early alternate history.
Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Joseph Rudyard Kipling, influenced Munro, who in turn influenced A. A. Milne, and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 21, 2024
The wonderful thing about Saki is how completely up-to-date he is. The fatuous nonsense that today's crystal gazing new age thinking idiots embrace with such messianic and ill advised fervour was as rampant in the high noon Britain's early twentieth century grandeur as it is in the citadels of today's mega rich and thick. In 'The Quest' Saki demolishes with a zest that is positively infectious the assertions of those who claim that it is a 'lack of faith' that prevents you from achieving: everything you desire:
"...(it) was said with the conscious air of defiance that a waiter adopts in announcing that the cheapest-priced claret in the wine-list is no more..."
Rose-Marie Gilpet, the possessor of a loudly boasted of faith sufficient to move mountains, is called upon to use it to find a missing child, and does so but unfortunately it turns out to be the wrong child. How brilliantly Saki skewers so many prejudices, presumptions and pretensions in barely a thousand words is a lesson more verbose writers should, but won't, follow.
I have said it before and I will say it again, Saki is an unalloyed joy.
"...(it) was said with the conscious air of defiance that a waiter adopts in announcing that the cheapest-priced claret in the wine-list is no more..."
Rose-Marie Gilpet, the possessor of a loudly boasted of faith sufficient to move mountains, is called upon to use it to find a missing child, and does so but unfortunately it turns out to be the wrong child. How brilliantly Saki skewers so many prejudices, presumptions and pretensions in barely a thousand words is a lesson more verbose writers should, but won't, follow.
I have said it before and I will say it again, Saki is an unalloyed joy.
May 16, 2021
A missing child and an absurd group of people add up to a humorous vignette. Audible edition narrated by Nadia May.
September 15, 2024
An infant goes missing but no one, even the parents, remembers anything about the specific infant.... other than it cries a lot. Saki points a finger at parenting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews