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La casa dei melograni
- Il giovane re
- Il compleanno dell'Infanta
- Il figlio della stella
- Il pescatore e la sua anima
- Il compleanno dell'Infanta
- Il figlio della stella
- Il pescatore e la sua anima
80 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1888
269 people are currently reading
4511 people want to read
About the author
Oscar Wilde
5,529 books38.9k followersOscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
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December 6, 2023
Once upon a time there was a little collection of fairy tales called The House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde. I opened this book up and found a whole different book than the one I had expected! Is that a good or a bad thing? Well, I suppose both.
My familiarity with Wilde is pretty much based on his decadent excoriation of decadence and beauty-for-beauty’s-sake The Picture of Dorian Gray and his brilliant and perfect and sublimely witty The Importance of Being Earnest. I figured I would be getting more of the same, or at least a little of one and a lot of the other or some such combination. Nope.
spoilers ahead...
✲
The third story “The Fisherman and His Soul” is fascinating. Starting off as a vaguely familiar tale of a lovelorn young fisherman who gives up his soul to be with the mermaid who has stolen his heart, it quickly moves in stranger directions. There is a witch who falls in love with him, brings him to a moonlit satanic ritual to meet her diabolical master, declares her love and then shows him how to cut his soul free. Then we learn about his cast-out soul’s journeys. Such journeys! The soul learns about Knowledge and Wealth and Lust. And, most surprisingly, the soul has terrible powers and with those powers does terrible things. A phrase uttered by the soul as he recounts his acts to the fisherman, “And I did a strange thing, but what I did matters not…”, is repeated three times and it is unnerving, chilling. Why does the soul do the terrible things it does? Apparently because when the fisherman cleaved his soul from his body, his soul got none of his heart. A heartless soul! For some reason I have always identified the soul as equaling the heart, part of a kind of trinity: Body, Mind, Soul (Heart). Wilde does not see it that way. The soul returns to the fisherman repeatedly, telling him of his adventures, always trying to reunite with him in the same body. And finally the soul does tempt the fisherman away from his undersea home, despite the peace and satisfaction that the fisherman has achieved with his mermaid love. The soul leads the fisherman astray; he compels him to do terrible and cruel and inexplicable things. There is an unhappy ending. And then there is a kind of happy ending, poetic and transcendent and strange.
What does it all mean? Hard to say. Of the four stories, this one reminded me the most of Dorian Gray, in its emphasis on decadence and on the idea of breaking up the psyche into different parts. Elsewhere the spirit or soul is usually seen as a kind of agent of transcendence; yet here it is the fisherman who has achieved true transcendence - without his soul. Perhaps the soul is the form of the fisherman’s unconscious. The fisherman reaches his own transcendence by achieving his strongest desire, by falling in love: a love that is connected to his heart and one that is a palpably physical love. The mermaid is described in language that defines her as a beautiful and very material being: a body of ivory, a tail of silver and pearl, each separate hair a thread of gold. What is Wilde saying? That we can find our own riches in the physicality of love? That we don’t need those terrible adventures that force us to confront the true nature of Knowledge, Wealth, and Lust, that these are all Outside Forces that are in the end truly meaningless? That the fisherman's soul journeys towards a kind of living death and, later, in his attempt to use "good" and "evil" to influence the fisherman - that he is constructing a false binary of good vs. evil, an ultimately meaningless duality? That pure transcendence can be found in the romantic and sexual desires of eros, within the heart that acts as the fulcrum of the, er, "pleasure principle"? Love = the Id, and that's not so bad, not bad at all? Or at least love equals whatever the id was considered to be, prior to Freud? Sorry to bring up Freud, I know he’s unpopular & discredited & all that, but the fisherman's actions do seem to exist as the opposite of Freud's “reality principle” - in his disinterest in deferring gratification of his desires, in his rejection of the circumstantial and material reality that his village priest invokes to stop his quest to lose his own soul. Is the heart the true agent of transcendence, one that is linked to regeneration? The ending points me in that direction... flowers blooming on unconsecrated ground, over the body of the dead fisherman; a narrow-minded priest suddenly finding himself lost in his own passionate moment of transcendence and connection to the beauty around him.
✲
The first and fourth stories, “The Young King” and “The Star-Child” are quite charming in their own way. Certainly the prose is beautiful, jewel-like. One is the story of a young king who learns that to love the beauty of material goods is to support the enslavement and oppression of the people who create those goods; in the end he achieves a glorious and godly transcendence in a church. The other is the story of a child who is beautiful, vain, and cruel; that child is transformed into an ugly creature and is then tormented until he achieves his own glorious and godly transcendence. Charm and jewel-like prose, yes, but I actively disliked both of these stories. I don’t have a problem with religious themes in my fiction; I’m a God-lover myself, so bring it on. But my God! The messages in these two stories were so trite, so mawkish… frankly, I became rather nauseated at the ever-increasing relentlessness and obviousness of Wilde’s goals in telling these tales. All that charm became charmless. Even worse, the themes of these particular tales almost act as a renunciation of some of the ideas present in the far more complex and satisfying story of the fisherman.
✲
The second story “Birthday of the Infanta” is a troubling and very intriguing little tale. Lovely and grim in equal parts. A Spanish princess, a king mourning the death (murder?) of his wife, sinister courtiers who may have sinister designs on the royal child… disturbing things bubbling away under the surface. And then all of that is discarded as we learn the story of a dwarf brought to entertain the princess on her birthday. His purity, his love, his connection to nature are all detailed movingly. As is his lack of understanding in how he is viewed by those around him - as an ugly joke. In the end, after seeing his reflection in a mirrored wall and so learning his true place in the world of man, in the world of the princess… he dies of a broken heart in front of his own image. The meaning of the story seems timeless. Unlike my experience with the two stories above, I was not remotely annoyed - perhaps because the story is so bracing in its clear-eyed sadness at the cruelty of the world.
A striking, resonant, and somewhat heartless ending... after our little princess comes across the body of the good dwarf, she fails to understand that her toy has broken permanently and is annoyed when told that the death was due to a broken heart:
i found a lot of my own vague ideas given concrete form in Heather Marcovitch's excellent essay: ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’ and the Unconscious
My familiarity with Wilde is pretty much based on his decadent excoriation of decadence and beauty-for-beauty’s-sake The Picture of Dorian Gray and his brilliant and perfect and sublimely witty The Importance of Being Earnest. I figured I would be getting more of the same, or at least a little of one and a lot of the other or some such combination. Nope.
spoilers ahead...
✲
The third story “The Fisherman and His Soul” is fascinating. Starting off as a vaguely familiar tale of a lovelorn young fisherman who gives up his soul to be with the mermaid who has stolen his heart, it quickly moves in stranger directions. There is a witch who falls in love with him, brings him to a moonlit satanic ritual to meet her diabolical master, declares her love and then shows him how to cut his soul free. Then we learn about his cast-out soul’s journeys. Such journeys! The soul learns about Knowledge and Wealth and Lust. And, most surprisingly, the soul has terrible powers and with those powers does terrible things. A phrase uttered by the soul as he recounts his acts to the fisherman, “And I did a strange thing, but what I did matters not…”, is repeated three times and it is unnerving, chilling. Why does the soul do the terrible things it does? Apparently because when the fisherman cleaved his soul from his body, his soul got none of his heart. A heartless soul! For some reason I have always identified the soul as equaling the heart, part of a kind of trinity: Body, Mind, Soul (Heart). Wilde does not see it that way. The soul returns to the fisherman repeatedly, telling him of his adventures, always trying to reunite with him in the same body. And finally the soul does tempt the fisherman away from his undersea home, despite the peace and satisfaction that the fisherman has achieved with his mermaid love. The soul leads the fisherman astray; he compels him to do terrible and cruel and inexplicable things. There is an unhappy ending. And then there is a kind of happy ending, poetic and transcendent and strange.
What does it all mean? Hard to say. Of the four stories, this one reminded me the most of Dorian Gray, in its emphasis on decadence and on the idea of breaking up the psyche into different parts. Elsewhere the spirit or soul is usually seen as a kind of agent of transcendence; yet here it is the fisherman who has achieved true transcendence - without his soul. Perhaps the soul is the form of the fisherman’s unconscious. The fisherman reaches his own transcendence by achieving his strongest desire, by falling in love: a love that is connected to his heart and one that is a palpably physical love. The mermaid is described in language that defines her as a beautiful and very material being: a body of ivory, a tail of silver and pearl, each separate hair a thread of gold. What is Wilde saying? That we can find our own riches in the physicality of love? That we don’t need those terrible adventures that force us to confront the true nature of Knowledge, Wealth, and Lust, that these are all Outside Forces that are in the end truly meaningless? That the fisherman's soul journeys towards a kind of living death and, later, in his attempt to use "good" and "evil" to influence the fisherman - that he is constructing a false binary of good vs. evil, an ultimately meaningless duality? That pure transcendence can be found in the romantic and sexual desires of eros, within the heart that acts as the fulcrum of the, er, "pleasure principle"? Love = the Id, and that's not so bad, not bad at all? Or at least love equals whatever the id was considered to be, prior to Freud? Sorry to bring up Freud, I know he’s unpopular & discredited & all that, but the fisherman's actions do seem to exist as the opposite of Freud's “reality principle” - in his disinterest in deferring gratification of his desires, in his rejection of the circumstantial and material reality that his village priest invokes to stop his quest to lose his own soul. Is the heart the true agent of transcendence, one that is linked to regeneration? The ending points me in that direction... flowers blooming on unconsecrated ground, over the body of the dead fisherman; a narrow-minded priest suddenly finding himself lost in his own passionate moment of transcendence and connection to the beauty around him.
✲
The first and fourth stories, “The Young King” and “The Star-Child” are quite charming in their own way. Certainly the prose is beautiful, jewel-like. One is the story of a young king who learns that to love the beauty of material goods is to support the enslavement and oppression of the people who create those goods; in the end he achieves a glorious and godly transcendence in a church. The other is the story of a child who is beautiful, vain, and cruel; that child is transformed into an ugly creature and is then tormented until he achieves his own glorious and godly transcendence. Charm and jewel-like prose, yes, but I actively disliked both of these stories. I don’t have a problem with religious themes in my fiction; I’m a God-lover myself, so bring it on. But my God! The messages in these two stories were so trite, so mawkish… frankly, I became rather nauseated at the ever-increasing relentlessness and obviousness of Wilde’s goals in telling these tales. All that charm became charmless. Even worse, the themes of these particular tales almost act as a renunciation of some of the ideas present in the far more complex and satisfying story of the fisherman.
✲
The second story “Birthday of the Infanta” is a troubling and very intriguing little tale. Lovely and grim in equal parts. A Spanish princess, a king mourning the death (murder?) of his wife, sinister courtiers who may have sinister designs on the royal child… disturbing things bubbling away under the surface. And then all of that is discarded as we learn the story of a dwarf brought to entertain the princess on her birthday. His purity, his love, his connection to nature are all detailed movingly. As is his lack of understanding in how he is viewed by those around him - as an ugly joke. In the end, after seeing his reflection in a mirrored wall and so learning his true place in the world of man, in the world of the princess… he dies of a broken heart in front of his own image. The meaning of the story seems timeless. Unlike my experience with the two stories above, I was not remotely annoyed - perhaps because the story is so bracing in its clear-eyed sadness at the cruelty of the world.
A striking, resonant, and somewhat heartless ending... after our little princess comes across the body of the good dwarf, she fails to understand that her toy has broken permanently and is annoyed when told that the death was due to a broken heart:
And the Infanta frowned, and her dainty rose-leaf lips curled in pretty disdain. “For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,” she cried, and she ran out into the garden.✲
i found a lot of my own vague ideas given concrete form in Heather Marcovitch's excellent essay: ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’ and the Unconscious
January 23, 2023
I am constantly amazed at the ability of some writers to be so consistently adaptable that they tell distinct stories in such disparate voices using varying story devices. Here, in A House of Pomegranates Oscar Wilde adopts a very story-time voice to tell Once-Upon-A-Time type tales. There is a classic, timeless quality to these that almost skirt the label of parable. There are only four short stories, but they are not "fairy tales" despite their containing magical elements. The best known tale is "The Fisherman and His Soul," which has the main character conceding his soul (ostensibly giving up his humanity) for love or really in order to go live with a mermaid in her realm. Again, there is a consistent theme to Wilde's ethos, that is a prevailing thought of never compromising your values. A House of Pomegranates demonstrates Wilde's range as a storyteller, where in each story there is a differing setting throughout. The prose is lyrical and beautifully rife with religious metaphors, language, and morality feeling heavy-handed at times, but still a valuable and classic work worthy of your reading time IMHO.
May 23, 2020
"A House of Pomegranates" is a collection of four fairy tales which were written by Oscar Wilde and published in 1891. It is regarded as a follow-up to his first fairy tale collection "The Happy Prince and Other Tales".
Wilde's success arose primarly from thinking of stories as things to tell. It is hardly surprising. His mother was an Irish folklorist. He himself graduated in classical scholarship whose earliest texts were the oral narratives of a probably illiterate Homer. It gave him a much more immediate sense of audience than most writers. This does not necessarily mean that the stories were first told to his two sons, though simple versions may have been: Cyril was almost three when the five stories in "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" were published in May 1888, Vyvyan one and a half. But they were written with the intention of telling them to his sons.
They are stories from an unselfconscious father who knows how to move the storyteller in and out of the narrative with mild self-mockery. Wilde is on the child's side: but he knows the child will only be truly happy if it hates cruelty, treachery and poverty, if it loves loyalty, laughter – and love.
The true folk story rejects any genre division between comedy and tragedy, and Wilde knew that there is no tragedy greater than that of the weeping clown. It is not a wit which takes any pleasure in suffering and it holds out continual if desperate hopes for salvation.
The stories of "A House of Pomegranates" turn on those hopes, the Dwarf and the Fisherman can only be saved by death itself, while the Young King can only find salvation by the recognition of suffering and the Star-Child by himself suffering enough to cut short his life.
Wilde is a phenomenal storyteller but his strength definitely lays in the dialogue, not in description. He has a great gift for varying voices and creating quotable moments. The main reason why this collection fell a bit flat for me was its preachy narrative.
(!!Spoilers ahead for the individual tales!!)
1 – The Young King | 4.5 Stars
During the night before his coronation he has three nightmares, each revolving around an element of his raiment (his crown, scepter and robe), showing him where they came from and how they were obtained.
The first dream shows a group of starving peasants toiling hard to weave his robe without receiving payment. The second dream shows a slave who is sent underwater to find pearls for the scepter and dies afterwards. The third dream shows him the source of his crown's rubies. In it, men excavate a dry riverbed in a tropical jungle, while overlooking them, the god Death ries to bargain with the goddess Avarice for a single grain of her corn. Each time Avarice refuses, Death calls Ague, Fever and Plague to kill one third of her servants until she is left with nothing.
On his coronation day, the Young King refuses to wear the raiment, and plucks himself a crown, a scepter and a robe from things he finds in the forest. The nobles condemn him for bringing shame to their class, the peasants for trying to deprive them of work, and the bishops for foolishly trying to take the world's suffering upon himself. The story ends with his approaching the altar, and his stick-scepter blossoming with white lilies and his brier-crown with red roses, and the bishop saying that God has officially crowned the Young King.
I absolutely adored this tale. It was beautifully written and had a message that I fully support – you shouldn't exploit people, your outward appearance and status isn't as important as you think, and most importantly (especially in tales written for children), good actions get rewarded in the end.
My favorite portion of this tale was definitely Death bargaining with Avarice. It was so well executed by Oscar – it was quite epic – and it really corroborated his message that greedy people won't end up happy but alone in the end.
Additionally to that I found it really interesting to see Oscar's views on aestheticism in this children's tale as well - "he would […] wander from room to room, and from corridor to corridor, like on who was seeking to find in beauty an anodyne from pain, a sort of restoration from sickness."
2 – The Birthday of the Infanta | 3 Stars
This tale is about a hunchbacked dwarf who gets sold to the palace for the amusement of the king's daughter, the Infanta, on her twelfth birthday.
Her birthday is the only time she is allowed to play with other children and she much enjoys the performance of the dwarf. The dwarf oblivious to the fact that the children and the rest of the audience were acutally laughing at him as he dances and performs, believes that the Infanta must love him and tries to seek her out after dinner. He searches all the rooms but instead of discovering the Infanta, he stumbles upon a grotesque monster that mimicks his every move. When the dwarf realizes that he is facing a mirror and therefore his own reflection, he realized that everyone had been mocking him, and he falls to the floor, kicking and screaming.
When the Infanta and the other guests find him in this state on the floor, they think it's another perfomance and applaug him, when in fact the dwarf had died out of a broken heart. The tale ends with the Infanta telling her servant "For the future, let those who come to play with me have no hearts."
The narrative itself didn't blew my socks off but I liked the fact that in the beginning of the story the dwarf wasn't aware of how he looked (because he grew up impoverished in the woods) and this unawareness contributed to his happiness – he couldn't be shallow, he couldn't be vain because looks simply didn't matter to him. By contrast, the people in the palace who are much more privileged and educated, are much more judgmental and define their happiness by how they look and what they have. Oscar makes it very clear (despite the fact that the dwarf dies in the end) that those are the "bad" people, and that the dwarf is pure at heart and deserved much better.
3 – The Fisherman and his Soul | 3 Stars
In order to live with the love of his life (a mermaid), the young fisherman gives up his soul to live underwater. In order to give it up he has to cut his shadow and free his soul. The fisherman, however, refuses to give his Soul his heart, because he wants to save it for his mermaid, and sends the Soul away without it.
Each year that passes, the Soul visits the Fisherman and tells him of all the different places that it had visited. In the first year, the Soul had come into the possession of the Mirror of Wisdom, in the second year, the Ring of Riches. Both times the Soul tries to tempt the Fisherman with accepting these objects and therefore taking his Soul back into his body. Both times, the Fisherman refuses because he thinks that love is more important than wisdom or wealth.
However, in the third year the Soul tempts him with a woman who dances barefoot in a nearby city. The fisherman really wants to see her dance and invites his Soul back into his body. Passing through the cities on the way, the Soul tells the Fisherman to do things: steal a silver cup, beat a child and kill a man who just gave them shelter. The Fisherman horried by the power the Soul has over his body, confronts the Soul about these actions – the Soul reminds him that he had not given it a heart.
When the Fisherman tries to part from his Soul again, he learns that that is no longer possible, and he is therefore not able to return to his love underwater. In desperation he builds a shelter near the water and calls the Mermaid daily, but she never comes. After a year passes, the lifeless body of the Mermaid washes ashore, and while holding her in his arms, the waves envelope and drown him.
A priest, finding the drowned lovers, pronounces them accursed and buries them in an unmarked, and refuses to bless the water which was his initial intent. Three years later, the priest finds the grave covered in flowers, and is unable to give his sermon on God's vengeful wrath, and instead speaks of God's love.
4 – The Star-Child | 2 Stars
As a baby the Star-Child was abandoned in the woods and taken in by a poor woodcutter. When he grows up to be exceedingly beautiful, he grows vain, cruel and arrogant. One day, an old beggar woman reveals to him that he is her mother. Disgusted by her appearance the Star-Child rejects her, and is punished and turned into an ugly toad/snake-like creature. He sets off to seek forgiveness from his mother and all the animals he has tortured.
At length, he comes to a ctiy, where he is captured and sold into slavery. His master sets him the task of finding three pieces of gold hidden in the forest. With the help of a rabbit, the Star-Child manages to find a piece each day, but whenever he returns to the city, he stumbles upon a beggar who tells him that he will starve if the Star-Child doesn't surrender the gold to him. When the Star-Child returns empty-handed, his master beats him cruelly.
Before setting out to find the third and last piece of gold, his master told him that he would kill him if he comes back without it. But after finding it and being confronted with the beggar again, he gives up the piece of gold nonetheless, deciding that the beggar's life is worth more than his own's.
Upon entering the city, everyone awaits him to crown him the new king, and he discovers the city's present rulers to be his mother, the beggar woman, and his father, the beggar he had given the gold to. At that point also, he is transformed to his former beautiful self. At the story's end, we are told of his kind, loving, and charitable reign, but that it only lasted for three years, and the king that followed him was cruel and evil.
The ending was extremely abrupt and overall I wasn't the biggest fan of the story, it semed extremely generic and rushed to me. The weakest one of the collection in my opinion.
Wilde's success arose primarly from thinking of stories as things to tell. It is hardly surprising. His mother was an Irish folklorist. He himself graduated in classical scholarship whose earliest texts were the oral narratives of a probably illiterate Homer. It gave him a much more immediate sense of audience than most writers. This does not necessarily mean that the stories were first told to his two sons, though simple versions may have been: Cyril was almost three when the five stories in "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" were published in May 1888, Vyvyan one and a half. But they were written with the intention of telling them to his sons.
They are stories from an unselfconscious father who knows how to move the storyteller in and out of the narrative with mild self-mockery. Wilde is on the child's side: but he knows the child will only be truly happy if it hates cruelty, treachery and poverty, if it loves loyalty, laughter – and love.
The true folk story rejects any genre division between comedy and tragedy, and Wilde knew that there is no tragedy greater than that of the weeping clown. It is not a wit which takes any pleasure in suffering and it holds out continual if desperate hopes for salvation.
The stories of "A House of Pomegranates" turn on those hopes, the Dwarf and the Fisherman can only be saved by death itself, while the Young King can only find salvation by the recognition of suffering and the Star-Child by himself suffering enough to cut short his life.
Wilde is a phenomenal storyteller but his strength definitely lays in the dialogue, not in description. He has a great gift for varying voices and creating quotable moments. The main reason why this collection fell a bit flat for me was its preachy narrative.
(!!Spoilers ahead for the individual tales!!)
1 – The Young King | 4.5 Stars
"Are not the rich and the poor brothers?" asked the young King. "Ay," answered the man, "and the name of the rich brother is Cain.""The Young King" tells the story of the illegitimate shepherd son of the recently dead king's daughter. Being his only heir, the boy is about to get crowned king. Being used to a lifestyle of poverty and starvation, the boy is in awe of his new luxurious home and the riches and raiment that come with it.
During the night before his coronation he has three nightmares, each revolving around an element of his raiment (his crown, scepter and robe), showing him where they came from and how they were obtained.
The first dream shows a group of starving peasants toiling hard to weave his robe without receiving payment. The second dream shows a slave who is sent underwater to find pearls for the scepter and dies afterwards. The third dream shows him the source of his crown's rubies. In it, men excavate a dry riverbed in a tropical jungle, while overlooking them, the god Death ries to bargain with the goddess Avarice for a single grain of her corn. Each time Avarice refuses, Death calls Ague, Fever and Plague to kill one third of her servants until she is left with nothing.
On his coronation day, the Young King refuses to wear the raiment, and plucks himself a crown, a scepter and a robe from things he finds in the forest. The nobles condemn him for bringing shame to their class, the peasants for trying to deprive them of work, and the bishops for foolishly trying to take the world's suffering upon himself. The story ends with his approaching the altar, and his stick-scepter blossoming with white lilies and his brier-crown with red roses, and the bishop saying that God has officially crowned the Young King.
I absolutely adored this tale. It was beautifully written and had a message that I fully support – you shouldn't exploit people, your outward appearance and status isn't as important as you think, and most importantly (especially in tales written for children), good actions get rewarded in the end.
My favorite portion of this tale was definitely Death bargaining with Avarice. It was so well executed by Oscar – it was quite epic – and it really corroborated his message that greedy people won't end up happy but alone in the end.
Additionally to that I found it really interesting to see Oscar's views on aestheticism in this children's tale as well - "he would […] wander from room to room, and from corridor to corridor, like on who was seeking to find in beauty an anodyne from pain, a sort of restoration from sickness."
2 – The Birthday of the Infanta | 3 Stars
This tale is about a hunchbacked dwarf who gets sold to the palace for the amusement of the king's daughter, the Infanta, on her twelfth birthday.
Her birthday is the only time she is allowed to play with other children and she much enjoys the performance of the dwarf. The dwarf oblivious to the fact that the children and the rest of the audience were acutally laughing at him as he dances and performs, believes that the Infanta must love him and tries to seek her out after dinner. He searches all the rooms but instead of discovering the Infanta, he stumbles upon a grotesque monster that mimicks his every move. When the dwarf realizes that he is facing a mirror and therefore his own reflection, he realized that everyone had been mocking him, and he falls to the floor, kicking and screaming.
When the Infanta and the other guests find him in this state on the floor, they think it's another perfomance and applaug him, when in fact the dwarf had died out of a broken heart. The tale ends with the Infanta telling her servant "For the future, let those who come to play with me have no hearts."
The narrative itself didn't blew my socks off but I liked the fact that in the beginning of the story the dwarf wasn't aware of how he looked (because he grew up impoverished in the woods) and this unawareness contributed to his happiness – he couldn't be shallow, he couldn't be vain because looks simply didn't matter to him. By contrast, the people in the palace who are much more privileged and educated, are much more judgmental and define their happiness by how they look and what they have. Oscar makes it very clear (despite the fact that the dwarf dies in the end) that those are the "bad" people, and that the dwarf is pure at heart and deserved much better.
3 – The Fisherman and his Soul | 3 Stars
In order to live with the love of his life (a mermaid), the young fisherman gives up his soul to live underwater. In order to give it up he has to cut his shadow and free his soul. The fisherman, however, refuses to give his Soul his heart, because he wants to save it for his mermaid, and sends the Soul away without it.
Each year that passes, the Soul visits the Fisherman and tells him of all the different places that it had visited. In the first year, the Soul had come into the possession of the Mirror of Wisdom, in the second year, the Ring of Riches. Both times the Soul tries to tempt the Fisherman with accepting these objects and therefore taking his Soul back into his body. Both times, the Fisherman refuses because he thinks that love is more important than wisdom or wealth.
However, in the third year the Soul tempts him with a woman who dances barefoot in a nearby city. The fisherman really wants to see her dance and invites his Soul back into his body. Passing through the cities on the way, the Soul tells the Fisherman to do things: steal a silver cup, beat a child and kill a man who just gave them shelter. The Fisherman horried by the power the Soul has over his body, confronts the Soul about these actions – the Soul reminds him that he had not given it a heart.
When the Fisherman tries to part from his Soul again, he learns that that is no longer possible, and he is therefore not able to return to his love underwater. In desperation he builds a shelter near the water and calls the Mermaid daily, but she never comes. After a year passes, the lifeless body of the Mermaid washes ashore, and while holding her in his arms, the waves envelope and drown him.
A priest, finding the drowned lovers, pronounces them accursed and buries them in an unmarked, and refuses to bless the water which was his initial intent. Three years later, the priest finds the grave covered in flowers, and is unable to give his sermon on God's vengeful wrath, and instead speaks of God's love.
4 – The Star-Child | 2 Stars
As a baby the Star-Child was abandoned in the woods and taken in by a poor woodcutter. When he grows up to be exceedingly beautiful, he grows vain, cruel and arrogant. One day, an old beggar woman reveals to him that he is her mother. Disgusted by her appearance the Star-Child rejects her, and is punished and turned into an ugly toad/snake-like creature. He sets off to seek forgiveness from his mother and all the animals he has tortured.
At length, he comes to a ctiy, where he is captured and sold into slavery. His master sets him the task of finding three pieces of gold hidden in the forest. With the help of a rabbit, the Star-Child manages to find a piece each day, but whenever he returns to the city, he stumbles upon a beggar who tells him that he will starve if the Star-Child doesn't surrender the gold to him. When the Star-Child returns empty-handed, his master beats him cruelly.
Before setting out to find the third and last piece of gold, his master told him that he would kill him if he comes back without it. But after finding it and being confronted with the beggar again, he gives up the piece of gold nonetheless, deciding that the beggar's life is worth more than his own's.
Upon entering the city, everyone awaits him to crown him the new king, and he discovers the city's present rulers to be his mother, the beggar woman, and his father, the beggar he had given the gold to. At that point also, he is transformed to his former beautiful self. At the story's end, we are told of his kind, loving, and charitable reign, but that it only lasted for three years, and the king that followed him was cruel and evil.
The ending was extremely abrupt and overall I wasn't the biggest fan of the story, it semed extremely generic and rushed to me. The weakest one of the collection in my opinion.
December 6, 2017
Kitapta hepsi birbirinden güzel 4 masal var. Genç Kral masalı, halkları açlık, sefalet ve hastalıkla kırılırken, zevk ve sefa içinde yaşayan krallara bir eleştiri niteliğinde. Aşık olup, uğruna ruhundan vazgeçen genç balıkçı ise aşkı küçümseyen, hor gören insanlara bir cevap olmuş. Kitap bitince anlatılan masalların Wilde'ın yaşadığı dönemin acımasızlığıyla birebir örtüştüğü görülüyor. İyi okumalar...
"Düşen bir çığda, hiçbir kar tanesi, kendisini olup bitenden sorumlu tutmaz." Oscar Wilde
"Düşen bir çığda, hiçbir kar tanesi, kendisini olup bitenden sorumlu tutmaz." Oscar Wilde
February 17, 2022
Los cuentos de Oscar Wilde siempre tienen algo que logra conquistarme. Una casa de granadas nos presenta cuatro cuentos de hadas con el detallismo y dramatismo que caracteriza al autor al escribir, y su palpable amor por el arte y la belleza. Me encantó.
"La carga de este mundo es demasiado grande para que la lleve un solo hombre, y el dolor del mundo, demasiado pesado para que lo sufra un solo corazón."
–El joven rey
December 21, 2017
Aπολαυστικός Όσκαρ όμως αν είχα διαβάσει τις ιστορίες σε πολύ μικρότερη ηλικία θα μου έκαναν πολύ πιο βαθιά εντύπωση. Επειδή ακριβώς είναι παραμύθια και αρα διδακτικά κάποιες φορές με ενοχλούσε ο υπερβολικός ηθικός τόνος. Όμως μου άρεσε το γεγονός ότι τα παραμύθια όλα, μα όλα σχεδόν είχαν κάτι σκοτεινό και απαισιόδοξο. Και αν είσαι παιδί και διαβάζεις αυτές τις ιστορίες μεγαλώνεις θες δεν θες. Και θα υποστείς και μια ψυχική οδύνη. Απόλαυσα πολύ τις πρωσοποποιήσεις της Φύσης και των πραγμάτων γενικά καθώς και τους διαλόγους τους γιατί πραγματικά εκεί λάμπει το χιούμορ και η ιδιοφυία του Ουάιλντ.
Αυτές όμως που πραγματικά με τάραξαν ήταν δύο ιστορίες, ο Ψαράς και η Ψυχή του και ο Ευτυχισμένος Πρίγκιπας. Νομίζω δεν έχω ξανακλάψει έτσι και να λέω σχεδόν φωνάζοντας ΓΙΑΤΙ, ΓΙΑΤΙ. Μυλωνά σε μισώ ρε, να το ξέρεις. Κακό ψόφο να χεις.
3.5/5
Αυτές όμως που πραγματικά με τάραξαν ήταν δύο ιστορίες, ο Ψαράς και η Ψυχή του και ο Ευτυχισμένος Πρίγκιπας. Νομίζω δεν έχω ξανακλάψει έτσι και να λέω σχεδόν φωνάζοντας ΓΙΑΤΙ, ΓΙΑΤΙ. Μυλωνά σε μισώ ρε, να το ξέρεις. Κακό ψόφο να χεις.
3.5/5
February 14, 2016
Sono contenuti in questa raccolta quattro racconti che sono quattro gioielli. Storie fantastiche, ricolme di bellezza, tristi e dolorose, si tratta di racconti che con la forma di favole parlano ad ognuno di noi dei valori dell'amore, del rispetto verso gli altri esseri umani, della malvagità senza cuore, della bontà disinteressata, dell'umiltà che arricchisce più di mille tesori.
Bellissimo "Il compleanno dell'Infanta", il mio preferito.
Bellissimo "Il compleanno dell'Infanta", il mio preferito.
May 12, 2020
2.5 Stars. Oscar Wilde’s other short stories... Sadly, this is definitely my least favourite work by Wilde so far (and I only have his poems and essays left to read, which aren’t really comparable), and the only one that I haven’t really liked (which, on the bright side, says something about the quality of his work overall). These stories were all hard for me to get into, and I found them rather dull and preachy.
The Young King - 2 Stars ⭐️⭐️
The Birthday of the Infanta - 2 Stars ⭐️⭐️
The Fisherman and His Soul - 3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Star-Child - 3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Young King - 2 Stars ⭐️⭐️
The Birthday of the Infanta - 2 Stars ⭐️⭐️
The Fisherman and His Soul - 3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Star-Child - 3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
August 26, 2020
Στα κλασσικά παραμύθια έζησαν αυτοί καλά κ εμείς καλύτερα. Στην πραγματικότητα βέβαια ποτέ δεν μαθαμε αν η πριγκίπισσα μάλωσε με τον πρίγκιπα, για ποιον λόγο η κακιά μάγισσα ήταν τόσο κακιά τελοσπάντων και αν οι 7 νάνοι γέρασαν μόνοι κ έρημοι μες στο δάσος.
Στα παραμύθια του Όσκαρ Ουάιλντ τα πράγματα κυλάνε κάπως διαφορετικά. Η ζωή είναι σκληρή. Είτε είσαι φτωχός και δεν έχεις στον ήλιο μοίρα, είτε είσαι πλούσιος κ πεθαίνει ξαφνικά ο καλύτερος σου γελωτοποιός. Κυριαρχεί η απληστία και η αχαριστία και οι άνθρωποι είναι εγωιστές.
Μα αυτή είναι η μισή αλήθεια. Η άλλη μισή είναι ότι υπάρχει το νοιάξιμο, η προσφορά και η αλληλεγγύη. Κ έτσι έρχεται η ισορροπία.
Ο Όσκαρ Ουάιλντ δεν τσιγγουνεύεται καθόλου την ειλικρίνεια. Δεν πασπαλιζει τις ιστορίες του με χρυσόσκονες κ χάπι εντινγκς. Χρησιμοποιεί το χιούμορ κ τον ώμο λόγο μαζί, απλά, μα καθόλου απλοϊκά, για να μας πει τελικά το πιο σημαντικό. Ότι αυτό που μόνο έχει αξία και μας συντροφεύει απ την αρχή έως το τέλος της ζωής μας, αλλά και μετά το θάνατο και για πάντα είναι η αγάπη. Αυτή ζεσταίνει την ψυχή και αυτό αρκεί.
Στα παραμύθια του Όσκαρ Ουάιλντ τα πράγματα κυλάνε κάπως διαφορετικά. Η ζωή είναι σκληρή. Είτε είσαι φτωχός και δεν έχεις στον ήλιο μοίρα, είτε είσαι πλούσιος κ πεθαίνει ξαφνικά ο καλύτερος σου γελωτοποιός. Κυριαρχεί η απληστία και η αχαριστία και οι άνθρωποι είναι εγωιστές.
Μα αυτή είναι η μισή αλήθεια. Η άλλη μισή είναι ότι υπάρχει το νοιάξιμο, η προσφορά και η αλληλεγγύη. Κ έτσι έρχεται η ισορροπία.
Ο Όσκαρ Ουάιλντ δεν τσιγγουνεύεται καθόλου την ειλικρίνεια. Δεν πασπαλιζει τις ιστορίες του με χρυσόσκονες κ χάπι εντινγκς. Χρησιμοποιεί το χιούμορ κ τον ώμο λόγο μαζί, απλά, μα καθόλου απλοϊκά, για να μας πει τελικά το πιο σημαντικό. Ότι αυτό που μόνο έχει αξία και μας συντροφεύει απ την αρχή έως το τέλος της ζωής μας, αλλά και μετά το θάνατο και για πάντα είναι η αγάπη. Αυτή ζεσταίνει την ψυχή και αυτό αρκεί.
October 19, 2018
Các cậu có nhớ cái meme Hà Nhuận Đông đóng Lương Sơn Bá ôm ngực phun máu không?
Đấy là tớ sau khi đọc xong quyển sách này 😭
Đấy là tớ sau khi đọc xong quyển sách này 😭
January 5, 2019
4/5
Lâu rồi mới đổi vị đọc truyện cổ tích mà lại còn của Oscar Wilde. Trước đó tớ mới đọc Hoàng Tử Hạnh Phúc thôi, quyển mỏng dính 7 ngàn rưởi của NXB Kim Đồng cách đây gần hai chục năm rồi. Sau khi đọc Ngôi Nhà Thạch Lựu thì có lẽ cuốn này thích hợp hơn với người lớn, vì nó khá dark và deep như phim DC chứ không vui vẻ kết có hậu như Hoàng Tử Hạnh Phúc.
Ngôi Nhà Thạch Lựu gồm có bốn truyện ngắn, cá nhân tớ đánh giá như sau:
Vị Vua Trẻ: 3.5/5
Sinh Nhật Của Công Chúa: 4.5/5
Chàng Ngư Phủ Và Linh Hồn: 3/5
Cậu Bé Ngôi Sao: 4.25/5
Ngòi bút của Oscar Wilde vẫn hướng về cái thiện và những người nghèo. Văn của ông đẹp, ngôn từ đơn giản nhưng giàu triết lý. Mạch truyện gọn gàng, cách tạo dựng tình huống dễ hiểu dễ nắm bắt như bao câu chuyện ngụ ngôn khác, kết hợp lý. Oscar Wilde tập trung vào lòng tốt và lòng nhân ái, và rằng giá trị vật chất hay vẻ bề ngoài đôi khi cũng chỉ mang tính phù du nhất thời.
Trong bốn truyện ngắn thì tớ thích truyện Sinh Nhật Của Công Chúa và Cậu Bé Ngôi Sao nhất. Có lẽ bởi ẩn dụ trong hai câu chuyện đó tác động mạnh mẽ tới tớ hơn: Đó là đôi khi sự mặc cảm về bản thân có thể làm chết đi một con người, và rằng có lẽ thế giới này quá bất công khi chỉ coi trọng vẻ đẹp bề ngoài - mất đi cái đẹp đồng nghĩa với việc bị khinh thường và cười chê, và đôi khi sự tử tế rất mong manh mà cái ác thì vô cùng.
Nhìn chung, Ngôi Nhà Thạch Lựu là một tổ hợp truyện ngắn khá hay và khá dark với những cái kết đa số không có hậu (đặc biệt là kết truyện cuối), thích hợp cho những bạn trẻ “người lớn” hay đơn giản là dành cho bạn nào muốn tìm đọc những câu chuyện ngắn gọn nhưng đầy đủ ý. Một vài chi tiết trong truyện khá dài dòng đọc hơi díu mắt nhưng bù lại thì được phần ý nghĩa cũng sâu sắc không kém. Nói tới đây thôi không lại spoil, vì truyện ngắn lắm =)) Recommend nha.
Lâu rồi mới đổi vị đọc truyện cổ tích mà lại còn của Oscar Wilde. Trước đó tớ mới đọc Hoàng Tử Hạnh Phúc thôi, quyển mỏng dính 7 ngàn rưởi của NXB Kim Đồng cách đây gần hai chục năm rồi. Sau khi đọc Ngôi Nhà Thạch Lựu thì có lẽ cuốn này thích hợp hơn với người lớn, vì nó khá dark và deep như phim DC chứ không vui vẻ kết có hậu như Hoàng Tử Hạnh Phúc.
Ngôi Nhà Thạch Lựu gồm có bốn truyện ngắn, cá nhân tớ đánh giá như sau:
Vị Vua Trẻ: 3.5/5
Sinh Nhật Của Công Chúa: 4.5/5
Chàng Ngư Phủ Và Linh Hồn: 3/5
Cậu Bé Ngôi Sao: 4.25/5
Ngòi bút của Oscar Wilde vẫn hướng về cái thiện và những người nghèo. Văn của ông đẹp, ngôn từ đơn giản nhưng giàu triết lý. Mạch truyện gọn gàng, cách tạo dựng tình huống dễ hiểu dễ nắm bắt như bao câu chuyện ngụ ngôn khác, kết hợp lý. Oscar Wilde tập trung vào lòng tốt và lòng nhân ái, và rằng giá trị vật chất hay vẻ bề ngoài đôi khi cũng chỉ mang tính phù du nhất thời.
Trong bốn truyện ngắn thì tớ thích truyện Sinh Nhật Của Công Chúa và Cậu Bé Ngôi Sao nhất. Có lẽ bởi ẩn dụ trong hai câu chuyện đó tác động mạnh mẽ tới tớ hơn: Đó là đôi khi sự mặc cảm về bản thân có thể làm chết đi một con người, và rằng có lẽ thế giới này quá bất công khi chỉ coi trọng vẻ đẹp bề ngoài - mất đi cái đẹp đồng nghĩa với việc bị khinh thường và cười chê, và đôi khi sự tử tế rất mong manh mà cái ác thì vô cùng.
Nhìn chung, Ngôi Nhà Thạch Lựu là một tổ hợp truyện ngắn khá hay và khá dark với những cái kết đa số không có hậu (đặc biệt là kết truyện cuối), thích hợp cho những bạn trẻ “người lớn” hay đơn giản là dành cho bạn nào muốn tìm đọc những câu chuyện ngắn gọn nhưng đầy đủ ý. Một vài chi tiết trong truyện khá dài dòng đọc hơi díu mắt nhưng bù lại thì được phần ý nghĩa cũng sâu sắc không kém. Nói tới đây thôi không lại spoil, vì truyện ngắn lắm =)) Recommend nha.
December 9, 2018
Μ αρεσαν πολυ όλες οι ιστορίες. Κάθε μία δίδασκε κ κατι διαφορετικό. Δεν μπορώ να ξεχωρίσω πια ήταν η καλύτερη. Γεννούν συναισθήματα κ βοηθούν στν ενδοσκόπηση. Το προτείνω ανεπιφύλακτα, ειναι επισης καταλληλο κ για μαθητες καθως διδάσκονται μηνύματα που αφορούν την αγάπη,τον σεβασμό κ την απουσία της υπεροχής.
October 26, 2016
Like Grimm's Tales - only much much much better and far more interesting! Great.
July 10, 2019
Four Fairy Tales a la Wilde
Yes, Oscar Wilde wrote children's stories and I was amazed the first time I found out. These definitely follow a more old fashioned, pre-Disney trajectory for fairy tales. Happiness is not the objective, moral edification is and thus, often rather sad.
THE YOUNG KING
This is meant to be a Christian parable, but the young king reminded me more of Siddhartha/ Buddha. Beautiful language and imagery with a moral.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA
This is the life of the Princess of Spain with all the beauty, pageantry, and displays of power at the forefront. Again, Wilde give stunning descriptions of the surroundings and a fair rendering of both the people and the environment. Indeed, I was reminded of Velasquez's painting while reading this.
The parable here revolves around the careless cruelty innate to absolute power.
THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL
Rather depressing and morbid. What does a soul do when left to its own devices?
THE STAR CHILD
Redemption with messianic undercurrent.
Fascinating to read something completely different by Wilde. Old-fashion fairy tales with morals, didactic and strong religious overtones. While Wilde wrote about his own struggles in other books, notably De Profundis, I can't say these are singularly Christian. There is a syncretism, then again, Christianity is syncretic so it's hard for me to determine if this is deliberately a blend or merely an expression of Wilde's exposure.
Found this lingering on my currently-reading shelf and decided to finish it off. While interesting, I don't think I'd reread it and though beautiful not what I'd consider children's fare, today.
Yes, Oscar Wilde wrote children's stories and I was amazed the first time I found out. These definitely follow a more old fashioned, pre-Disney trajectory for fairy tales. Happiness is not the objective, moral edification is and thus, often rather sad.
THE YOUNG KING
This is meant to be a Christian parable, but the young king reminded me more of Siddhartha/ Buddha. Beautiful language and imagery with a moral.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA
This is the life of the Princess of Spain with all the beauty, pageantry, and displays of power at the forefront. Again, Wilde give stunning descriptions of the surroundings and a fair rendering of both the people and the environment. Indeed, I was reminded of Velasquez's painting while reading this.
The parable here revolves around the careless cruelty innate to absolute power.
THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL
Rather depressing and morbid. What does a soul do when left to its own devices?
THE STAR CHILD
Redemption with messianic undercurrent.
Fascinating to read something completely different by Wilde. Old-fashion fairy tales with morals, didactic and strong religious overtones. While Wilde wrote about his own struggles in other books, notably De Profundis, I can't say these are singularly Christian. There is a syncretism, then again, Christianity is syncretic so it's hard for me to determine if this is deliberately a blend or merely an expression of Wilde's exposure.
Found this lingering on my currently-reading shelf and decided to finish it off. While interesting, I don't think I'd reread it and though beautiful not what I'd consider children's fare, today.
December 18, 2024
This was brilliant ✨
“The fly is thy brother. Do it no harm. The wild birds that roam through the forest have their freedom. Snare them not for thy pleasure. God made the blind-worm and the mole, and each has its place. Who art thou to bring pain into God’s world? Even the cattle of the field praise Him.”
“The fly is thy brother. Do it no harm. The wild birds that roam through the forest have their freedom. Snare them not for thy pleasure. God made the blind-worm and the mole, and each has its place. Who art thou to bring pain into God’s world? Even the cattle of the field praise Him.”
November 12, 2012
way darker than anything of his i've read before - not exactly what i was looking for!
April 12, 2017
Cuốn sách nhỏ mình đọc trong chuyến đi đảo Nam Du. Oscar Wilde là nhà văn Ireland tài năng nhưng các tác phẩm của ông chưa phổ biến tại Việt Nam, gần đây mới thấy 2 tập truyện ngắn được Tao Đàn dịch và 1 tập Nhã Nam dịch. Tập truyện "Ngôi nhà thạch lựu" gồm 4 truyện ngắn, mang hơi hướng cổ tích nhưng người lớn cũng có thể cảm nhận ý nghĩa của chúng. Truyện mang không khí Ả Rập như các tác phẩm Nghìn lẻ một đêm, xen kẽ các bài học Thiên Chúa giáo. Sẽ đọc lại bản tiếng Anh vì cách tác giả mô tả thiên nhiên, các công trình như vườn tược, lâu đài vô cùng nên thơ, cách dùng tính từ, đảo ngữ sáng tạo.
1. Vị vua trẻ: 5/5. Đây là truyện mình yêu thích nhất trong tác phẩm, nó đưa ra những bài học có giá trị cả cho đời sống hiện đại. Truyện khắc họa sự mâu thuẫn giữa cái đẹp và nỗi thống khổ của người lao động, bài học này làm người đọc liên tưởng đến vở kịch Vũ Như Tô.
2. Sinh nhật của công chúa: 3/5. Cách viết khá hay nhưng cốt truyện không có gì nổi bật.
3. Chàng ngư phủ và Linh Hồn: 4/5. Đây là câu chuyện làm mình hồi hộp từ đầu đến cuối, không đoán nổi kết thúc ra sao. Chàng ngư phủ trong truyện đã từ bỏ Linh Hồn của mình để đến với nàng tiên cá. Trong 3 năm, Linh Hồn đều thuyết phục chàng cho Linh Hồn trở về với thể xác. Câu chuyện ẩn chứa những bài học về tình yêu, cái thiện và cám dỗ.
Khi ông ném tôi vào cõi nhân thế, ông chẳng ban trái tim cho tôi, nên tôi học được những điều này và thích thú với chúng.
Tình yêu quý giá hơn Trí tuệ, giá trị hơn mọi Của cải và Đẹp đẽ hơn đôi bàn chân thiếu nữ loài người.
4. Cậu bé Ngôi sao: 3/5. Cùng bài học với truyện Sinh nhật của công chúa: Tình yêu thương đáng giá hơn vẻ đẹp bên ngoài.
1. Vị vua trẻ: 5/5. Đây là truyện mình yêu thích nhất trong tác phẩm, nó đưa ra những bài học có giá trị cả cho đời sống hiện đại. Truyện khắc họa sự mâu thuẫn giữa cái đẹp và nỗi thống khổ của người lao động, bài học này làm người đọc liên tưởng đến vở kịch Vũ Như Tô.
2. Sinh nhật của công chúa: 3/5. Cách viết khá hay nhưng cốt truyện không có gì nổi bật.
3. Chàng ngư phủ và Linh Hồn: 4/5. Đây là câu chuyện làm mình hồi hộp từ đầu đến cuối, không đoán nổi kết thúc ra sao. Chàng ngư phủ trong truyện đã từ bỏ Linh Hồn của mình để đến với nàng tiên cá. Trong 3 năm, Linh Hồn đều thuyết phục chàng cho Linh Hồn trở về với thể xác. Câu chuyện ẩn chứa những bài học về tình yêu, cái thiện và cám dỗ.
Khi ông ném tôi vào cõi nhân thế, ông chẳng ban trái tim cho tôi, nên tôi học được những điều này và thích thú với chúng.
Tình yêu quý giá hơn Trí tuệ, giá trị hơn mọi Của cải và Đẹp đẽ hơn đôi bàn chân thiếu nữ loài người.
4. Cậu bé Ngôi sao: 3/5. Cùng bài học với truyện Sinh nhật của công chúa: Tình yêu thương đáng giá hơn vẻ đẹp bên ngoài.
October 12, 2017
Đọc thích hơn cuốn Hoàng Tử Hạnh Phúc một tẹo, vì có vẻ 4 truyện cổ tích trong này viết theo kiểu dành cho người lớn nhiều hơn là các cháu thiếu nhi :)) Phong cách viết, cốt truyện, các tình tiết, nhân vật và diễn biến truyện cũng có vẻ "người lớn" hơn là cuốn trước của Oscar Wilde mà mình đọc. Các truyện có độ dài hợp lý, chừa đủ không gian để tác giả giải quyết tình huống và đưa ra cái kết phù hợp chứ không tạo cảm giác "cắt cái bụp hết phim" làm mình tõn tè :D
Thích nhất là truyện "Chàng ngư phủ và Linh hồn", đúng là truyện đỉnh nhất của nguyên tuyển tập, vì phải đọc tới cuối cùng mới biết thực sự cốt lõi câu chuyện muốn nói về vấn đề gì, và đoạn kết cho câu chuyện tình yêu của chàng ngư phủ và nàng tiên cá ra làm sao. Đúng với phong cách của Oscar Wilde, truyện kết thúc buồn nhiều hơn vui. Hơi thất vọng với cái kết của "Cậu bé ngôi sao", vì mình thấy nguyên câu chuyện cho tới trước đoạn cuối cùng là hay rồi, vậy mà tác giả lại xí xọn thòng thêm cái đoạn cuối vào chi không biết... Hic hic, bi kịch hóa nguyên câu chuyện đang hay...
Thích nhất là truyện "Chàng ngư phủ và Linh hồn", đúng là truyện đỉnh nhất của nguyên tuyển tập, vì phải đọc tới cuối cùng mới biết thực sự cốt lõi câu chuyện muốn nói về vấn đề gì, và đoạn kết cho câu chuyện tình yêu của chàng ngư phủ và nàng tiên cá ra làm sao. Đúng với phong cách của Oscar Wilde, truyện kết thúc buồn nhiều hơn vui. Hơi thất vọng với cái kết của "Cậu bé ngôi sao", vì mình thấy nguyên câu chuyện cho tới trước đoạn cuối cùng là hay rồi, vậy mà tác giả lại xí xọn thòng thêm cái đoạn cuối vào chi không biết... Hic hic, bi kịch hóa nguyên câu chuyện đang hay...
October 4, 2022
Gave up. Expected much better.
May 14, 2025
Entertaining relationship listening🌜😯
This kindle ebook novella was free from Amazon
This kindle ebook novella is four short stories each different with interesting characters action and misdirection leading to each conclusion 🎉😯
I would recommend this novella and author to readers of older novels😉✨ 2025 😁🙃
This kindle ebook novella was free from Amazon
This kindle ebook novella is four short stories each different with interesting characters action and misdirection leading to each conclusion 🎉😯
I would recommend this novella and author to readers of older novels😉✨ 2025 😁🙃
April 8, 2018
“Intended neither for the British child nor the British public.”A House of Pomegranates consists of four fairy tales written by Oscar Wilde and released in 1891 as a sequel to the collection, The Happy Prince and Other Tales.
This anthology was printed in the same year as the complete, uncensored version of Wilde's barely disguised homoerotic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was unleashed on a scandalised British readership to strident accusations of effeminacy and moral depravity. The critics savaged his plot in which a young man's portrait is painted by an artist infatuated by his beauty – the protagonist making a Faustian bargain with the devil in order to ensure the picture, rather than he, will age and decline with the passing of time.
At this juncture, Wilde was living with his wife and two sons on Chelsea's fashionable Tite Street, and regularly wrote fantasy fiction for magazines. He was a famous man about town, but also visited Paris, where he was received as a respected writer at the salons littéraires. It was in this already hectic year that he was first introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie), a handsome but somewhat spoilt young fellow who famously became the older man's lover, close companion and the catalyst to his eventual ruination.
Wilde's short stories, which were marketed as children's fiction, have inevitably been overshadowed by his clever and amusing plays. They are lyrically beguiling allegories, but in much the same way Grimm's Fairy Tales could never be described as 'happy ever after' narratives, the tales in A House of Pomegranates tend to be pessimistic, devoid of solace and typically non judgemental. One wonders if they were in fact written with youngsters in mind.
This collection (there were three all told), is dedicated to his wife, Constance, and contains: The Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, The Fisherman and his Soul, and The Star-Child. They are whimsical, poignant and a touch satirical – more Gothic suspense than juvenile literature – but nevertheless a real delight for this adult.
"My roses are redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the ocean-cavern."You can read many more of my reviews and other literary features at Book Jotter >>
September 10, 2018
4 sao
Truyện cổ tích của Oscar Wilde đọc cho mình cảm giác như truyện của Andersen vậy, cũng mang không khí trầm buồn, đau khổ, diễn tiến thì khó lường luôn, ai thường chê truyện cổ tích lúc nào cũng có "happy ending" thì có thể thỏa mãn rồi nhé. Đặc biệt là các tác giả này đều rất thích "hành hạ" nhân vật của mình, đã khổ thì phải cho khốn khổ đến tột cùng mới được :((. Nhưng cũng vì vậy mà các câu chuyện này đều để lại ấn tượng sâu đậm, mình đánh giá cao hơn truyện cổ Grimm. Dù có thể những câu chuyện của anh em nhà Grimm nổi tiếng hơn nhưng vẫn mang tính chất thu nhặt về, không "chính chủ" nên nội dung chủ yếu phơi bày những thứ dị thường chứ không có trọng tâm chi cả.
Cuốn này khá mỏng, chỉ gồm 4 truyện ngắn thôi. Hai truyện đầu đọc hơi chán hơn, một phần do chưa quen phong cách viết của tác giả, một phần nội dung cũng không quá đặc sắc. Nhưng những truyện càng về sau lại càng hay dần. Truyện "đinh" của cuốn này chắc là Chàng ngư phủ và linh hồn, trước hết thể hiện ở độ dài của nó so với các truyện khác, mà phải nói bài học tác giả đưa ra đến cuối mình mới biết được, còn trong quá trình đọc truyện thì vừa thấy thú vị vừa không biết câu chuyện sẽ diễn tiến theo hướng nào. Truyện thứ 4, Cậu bé ngôi sao cũng là một truyện hay, một bài học đơn giản, quen thuộc nhưng được tác giả đưa ra qua một hành trình nhiều thử thách và đầy cảm xúc.
Các truyện của Oscar Wilde ngoài gợi nhớ đến truyện cổ Andersen còn làm mình liên tưởng đến một loại truyện khác là Nghìn lẻ một đêm. Giống ở chỗ có nhiều phân đoạn các nhân vật kể lại, mà câu chuyện kể mang nhiều nét kỳ thú, lạ thường, được trình bày một cách tỉ mỉ, có nhiều yếu tố lặp lại một cách cố ý, nhằm mục đích gợi trí tò mò ở người nghe. Chi tiết này càng thể hiện rõ ở truyện về Chàng ngư phủ, hay Sinh nhật của công chúa, ở một số truyện khác cũng sẽ thấy một số tình tiết, lời nói được lặp lại một cách cố ý, tạo nên "không khí cổ tích" cho cuốn sách. À còn một điều nữa là trong lúc đọc mình có để ý 2 chỗ nhắc đến căn nhà có cây lựu phía trước nhưng vẫn không biết vì sao tác giả lại đặt tựa sách là Ngôi nhà thạch lựu trong khi không có truyện ngắn nào có tên như vậy :s.
Nói chung thì nếu yêu thích truyện cổ Andersen bạn cũng sẽ thích tập truyện cổ tích này. Cũng giống ở chỗ, những truyện trong đây đều răn dạy về một bài học nào đó, thường là theo cách khá đen tối. Đọc cho con nít hẳn chúng cũng sẽ rất thích, nhưng người lớn khi đọc mới cảm nhận được trọn vẹn cảm xúc trong câu chuyện.
Truyện cổ tích của Oscar Wilde đọc cho mình cảm giác như truyện của Andersen vậy, cũng mang không khí trầm buồn, đau khổ, diễn tiến thì khó lường luôn, ai thường chê truyện cổ tích lúc nào cũng có "happy ending" thì có thể thỏa mãn rồi nhé. Đặc biệt là các tác giả này đều rất thích "hành hạ" nhân vật của mình, đã khổ thì phải cho khốn khổ đến tột cùng mới được :((. Nhưng cũng vì vậy mà các câu chuyện này đều để lại ấn tượng sâu đậm, mình đánh giá cao hơn truyện cổ Grimm. Dù có thể những câu chuyện của anh em nhà Grimm nổi tiếng hơn nhưng vẫn mang tính chất thu nhặt về, không "chính chủ" nên nội dung chủ yếu phơi bày những thứ dị thường chứ không có trọng tâm chi cả.
Cuốn này khá mỏng, chỉ gồm 4 truyện ngắn thôi. Hai truyện đầu đọc hơi chán hơn, một phần do chưa quen phong cách viết của tác giả, một phần nội dung cũng không quá đặc sắc. Nhưng những truyện càng về sau lại càng hay dần. Truyện "đinh" của cuốn này chắc là Chàng ngư phủ và linh hồn, trước hết thể hiện ở độ dài của nó so với các truyện khác, mà phải nói bài học tác giả đưa ra đến cuối mình mới biết được, còn trong quá trình đọc truyện thì vừa thấy thú vị vừa không biết câu chuyện sẽ diễn tiến theo hướng nào. Truyện thứ 4, Cậu bé ngôi sao cũng là một truyện hay, một bài học đơn giản, quen thuộc nhưng được tác giả đưa ra qua một hành trình nhiều thử thách và đầy cảm xúc.
Các truyện của Oscar Wilde ngoài gợi nhớ đến truyện cổ Andersen còn làm mình liên tưởng đến một loại truyện khác là Nghìn lẻ một đêm. Giống ở chỗ có nhiều phân đoạn các nhân vật kể lại, mà câu chuyện kể mang nhiều nét kỳ thú, lạ thường, được trình bày một cách tỉ mỉ, có nhiều yếu tố lặp lại một cách cố ý, nhằm mục đích gợi trí tò mò ở người nghe. Chi tiết này càng thể hiện rõ ở truyện về Chàng ngư phủ, hay Sinh nhật của công chúa, ở một số truyện khác cũng sẽ thấy một số tình tiết, lời nói được lặp lại một cách cố ý, tạo nên "không khí cổ tích" cho cuốn sách. À còn một điều nữa là trong lúc đọc mình có để ý 2 chỗ nhắc đến căn nhà có cây lựu phía trước nhưng vẫn không biết vì sao tác giả lại đặt tựa sách là Ngôi nhà thạch lựu trong khi không có truyện ngắn nào có tên như vậy :s.
Nói chung thì nếu yêu thích truyện cổ Andersen bạn cũng sẽ thích tập truyện cổ tích này. Cũng giống ở chỗ, những truyện trong đây đều răn dạy về một bài học nào đó, thường là theo cách khá đen tối. Đọc cho con nít hẳn chúng cũng sẽ rất thích, nhưng người lớn khi đọc mới cảm nhận được trọn vẹn cảm xúc trong câu chuyện.
December 20, 2016
«Ομορφή μου πριγκίπισσα, ο μικρός αστείος νάνος δεν θα ξαναχορέψει. Είναι κρίμα βέβαια, γιατί, τόσο άσχημος που ήταν θα μπορούσε να κάνει και τον βασιλιά να χαμογελάσει».
«Μα γιατί δεν θα ξαναχορέψει;» ρώτησε η Ινφάντα γελώντας.
«Γιατί η καρδιά του ράγισε».
Και η Ινφάντα σκυθρώπιασε, και τα λεπτά. σαν πέταλα από ρόδο χείλια της σφίχτηκαν περιφρονητικά. «Από εδώ και στο εμπρός, αυτοί που θα έρχονται να παίζουν για μένα, φροντίστε να μην έχουν καρδιά».
«Ο κήπος με τις ροδιές» περιλαμβάνει κάποια πολύ γνωστά διηγήματα του Όσκαρ Ουάιλντ. Τον Ευτυχισμένο πρίγκιπα, Το αηδόνι και το τριαντάφυλλο, Τη διακεκριμένη ρουκέτα, τον Αφοσιωμένο φίλο, τον Σκληρόκαρδο γίγαντα, καθώς και τα Γενέθλια της Ινφάντα, τον Μικρό βασιλιά, Το αστερόπαιδο και το «O ψαράς και η ψυχή του».
Δεν νομίζω ότι μπορώ να γράψω κριτική για αυτή τη συλλογή διηγημάτων. Μπορώ μόνο να μεταφέρω την εντύπωση που μου έχει αφήσει μετά από τόσα χρόνια. Είναι σαν να έχω μπροστά μου ένα ακριβό κέντημα με πολύ λεπτές και εξαίσιες βελονιές συναισθήματος, σκέψης και λεπτής ειρωνείας. Κάθε ιστορία προκαλεί όμορφες εικόνες, περισυλλογή και συχνά ένα πικρό χαμόγελο.
Πρόκειται για ένα μικρό βιβλιαράκι, αλλά θα μπορούσε να είναι ένα πολύ όμορφο δώρο για κάποιον ξεχωριστό άνθρωπο.
«Μα γιατί δεν θα ξαναχορέψει;» ρώτησε η Ινφάντα γελώντας.
«Γιατί η καρδιά του ράγισε».
Και η Ινφάντα σκυθρώπιασε, και τα λεπτά. σαν πέταλα από ρόδο χείλια της σφίχτηκαν περιφρονητικά. «Από εδώ και στο εμπρός, αυτοί που θα έρχονται να παίζουν για μένα, φροντίστε να μην έχουν καρδιά».
«Ο κήπος με τις ροδιές» περιλαμβάνει κάποια πολύ γνωστά διηγήματα του Όσκαρ Ουάιλντ. Τον Ευτυχισμένο πρίγκιπα, Το αηδόνι και το τριαντάφυλλο, Τη διακεκριμένη ρουκέτα, τον Αφοσιωμένο φίλο, τον Σκληρόκαρδο γίγαντα, καθώς και τα Γενέθλια της Ινφάντα, τον Μικρό βασιλιά, Το αστερόπαιδο και το «O ψαράς και η ψυχή του».
Δεν νομίζω ότι μπορώ να γράψω κριτική για αυτή τη συλλογή διηγημάτων. Μπορώ μόνο να μεταφέρω την εντύπωση που μου έχει αφήσει μετά από τόσα χρόνια. Είναι σαν να έχω μπροστά μου ένα ακριβό κέντημα με πολύ λεπτές και εξαίσιες βελονιές συναισθήματος, σκέψης και λεπτής ειρωνείας. Κάθε ιστορία προκαλεί όμορφες εικόνες, περισυλλογή και συχνά ένα πικρό χαμόγελο.
Πρόκειται για ένα μικρό βιβλιαράκι, αλλά θα μπορούσε να είναι ένα πολύ όμορφο δώρο για κάποιον ξεχωριστό άνθρωπο.
December 25, 2015
Four more short-stories by Oscar Wilde and I'm done with this author. For the next years.
'A House of Pomegranates' is a collection of four rather short fairy tales. I cannot say I enjoyed them. Despite the fantastic details of these stories, there was some kind of moralism that I didn't find interesting. It wasn't exactly the moral of each story, but the way things were put. As with the previous book, I felt that Wilde managed to spoil what had potential to be a nice story. And this happened with the four in this book.
'A House of Pomegranates' is a collection of four rather short fairy tales. I cannot say I enjoyed them. Despite the fantastic details of these stories, there was some kind of moralism that I didn't find interesting. It wasn't exactly the moral of each story, but the way things were put. As with the previous book, I felt that Wilde managed to spoil what had potential to be a nice story. And this happened with the four in this book.
June 12, 2020
The young king 3/5
The birthday of Infanta 2/5
Fisherman 1/5
The star child 3/5
The birthday of Infanta 2/5
Fisherman 1/5
The star child 3/5
April 27, 2019
I really love reading Oscar Wilde's short stories and this is no exception.
January 10, 2021
Reading Oscar Wilde is such a treat.
July 23, 2014
Not sure if awesome,
or just plain brilliant.
No, really not. I love the whole "Good looks don't make you a good person"(Take that, Disney!) and stuff, but I'm not sure how I can view this. So many people suffered in all four stories, and I kinda just wanted to jump in and hit Wilde over the head with my linguistics textbook, but of course that would have made all those stories for naught, and then I would hit him over the head with my linguistics textbook for not providing good stories, and then I expect he would hit me with his cane. Or he would use wit. Wit is effective. Lina is confused. Wild Wilde ran away. [/pokéspeech]
What I absolutely like is that somehow all those stories seem so similar to some fairytales, yet are written in their own wilde way(No pun... well, yeah, pun intended).
The Young King: (4/5)
I don't exactly remember a fairytale with a young king, but I'm pretty sure there is one. Yet, this young king goes from "I love it all because it's pretty" to "I hate it all because it's pretty" to "Holy lord blabla oh where did that fancy robe come from?". Sweet, in a way, but not my favourite.
The Birthday of the Infanta:(4/5)
Oh. Dear. Scott. What a spoiled brat. There you go, daddy king, this is what happens if all you do is cry over your deceased queen. The middle age kings and queens would have caned that brat for her blatant non-existence of milte.(milte was considered one of the most important characteristics of a rich and/or noble person in the middle ages, very much so in the Middle High German speaking part of it, which was quite a big one. It basically means to give to the poor and show kindness and be generous, without exaggerating it, of course. Everything in moderation, 'cept when you were writing minnesongs.) [No, that wasn't necessary to throw in, but I like to boast my knowledge around, because yes, I'm that boastful.]
The poor little actual main protagonist. ._.
The Fisherman and his Soul: (4/5)
I first thought of the Fisherman and his wife, and I think it has some similarities(Quite a fancy fish he fished himself there), but overall of course it's different. What I really like about this one is that everyone seems so human, even though some of them wander around and do horribly awful bad stuff. But mostly I like this because it made me think about a story I'm writing myself, and I know I should get going with it. >_<
The Star-Child: (5/5)
This one I like the most. It's so typical of people to feel entitled over others when they consider themselves more beautifil than those others, and they do need a taste of that bitter medicine themselves. But it is also so human, and overall, I found the Star-Child to be the most appealing character out of the whole four stories, aside from the Witch out of the third. Towards the end I kept thinking "Wait, that's not some kind of ruse, is it? If this is some kind of ruse I will scream!" but it wasn't a ruse, and I underestimated Wilde's brilliance, and I need to go hit myself with my linguistics textbook for that.
or just plain brilliant.
No, really not. I love the whole "Good looks don't make you a good person"(Take that, Disney!) and stuff, but I'm not sure how I can view this. So many people suffered in all four stories, and I kinda just wanted to jump in and hit Wilde over the head with my linguistics textbook, but of course that would have made all those stories for naught, and then I would hit him over the head with my linguistics textbook for not providing good stories, and then I expect he would hit me with his cane. Or he would use wit. Wit is effective. Lina is confused. Wild Wilde ran away. [/pokéspeech]
What I absolutely like is that somehow all those stories seem so similar to some fairytales, yet are written in their own wilde way(No pun... well, yeah, pun intended).
The Young King: (4/5)
I don't exactly remember a fairytale with a young king, but I'm pretty sure there is one. Yet, this young king goes from "I love it all because it's pretty" to "I hate it all because it's pretty" to "Holy lord blabla oh where did that fancy robe come from?". Sweet, in a way, but not my favourite.
The Birthday of the Infanta:(4/5)
Oh. Dear. Scott. What a spoiled brat. There you go, daddy king, this is what happens if all you do is cry over your deceased queen. The middle age kings and queens would have caned that brat for her blatant non-existence of milte.(milte was considered one of the most important characteristics of a rich and/or noble person in the middle ages, very much so in the Middle High German speaking part of it, which was quite a big one. It basically means to give to the poor and show kindness and be generous, without exaggerating it, of course. Everything in moderation, 'cept when you were writing minnesongs.) [No, that wasn't necessary to throw in, but I like to boast my knowledge around, because yes, I'm that boastful.]
The poor little actual main protagonist. ._.
The Fisherman and his Soul: (4/5)
I first thought of the Fisherman and his wife, and I think it has some similarities(Quite a fancy fish he fished himself there), but overall of course it's different. What I really like about this one is that everyone seems so human, even though some of them wander around and do horribly awful bad stuff. But mostly I like this because it made me think about a story I'm writing myself, and I know I should get going with it. >_<
The Star-Child: (5/5)
This one I like the most. It's so typical of people to feel entitled over others when they consider themselves more beautifil than those others, and they do need a taste of that bitter medicine themselves. But it is also so human, and overall, I found the Star-Child to be the most appealing character out of the whole four stories, aside from the Witch out of the third. Towards the end I kept thinking "Wait, that's not some kind of ruse, is it? If this is some kind of ruse I will scream!" but it wasn't a ruse, and I underestimated Wilde's brilliance, and I need to go hit myself with my linguistics textbook for that.
December 16, 2011
Oscar Wilde might just be the greatest fiction writer of all time. Having said that, it's a pity there are so few of his works. He certainly has a very special place in my heart, and this collection of beautiful children's stories show just how talented he really was. Wilde is famous for his 'epigrams' and his razor-sharp wit. His command of the English language made him a literary trend-setter. Yet these innocent fables allow people to see a lesser-known side of him, a more human side; a glimpse of the 'mortal'.
As mercurial and glamorous as he was (or made himself out to be), the work he produced here for younger audiences stands as a hommage for ancient story-telling that reaches out to the likes of Hans Christian Anderson or the Brother's Grimm. In fact these aren't mere stories, but rather 'fables', and unfortunately fables are an almost extinct form of story-telling these days. When people think of Oscar Wilde, no one ever thinks of morals, yet these tales each hold a deep moral lesson.
The 'Star Child' is rather like 'Dorian Gray' re-worked for children, in that it warns them of the dangers of vanity and to respect ones' elders. The 'Mermaids Soul' explores the rather complex issue of the soul, or rather the difference of making decisions with your head or your senses, and how one must have a little of both facilities in, otherwise chaos ensues. The most famous of this bunch is probably 'The Happy Prince', who when I first read it many moons ago mistook it for an Andersen fable.
My favourite, 'The Infanta', is about innocent ignorance, class-divide, love and mercy. It teaches us NOT to judge by appearances, and to accept people as they are. Wilde was famed as an aesthete, yet in all his stories there is a very firm dislike of articifice, and a reverence of the beauty of the soul as opposed to the flesh. Even though this is blatantly obvious in his writing, people still insist on ignoring it, which is sad. Judging by these stories (and stories are a window to the soul) I think Wilde was a deeply moral man whose choices in life must have pained him given the social/ cultural atmosphere of the time.
This collection would make a wonderful gift for any child. I read the Gutenberg ebook version, which unfortunately didn't have the titles, but rather interestingly had a dedication at the beginning of each story telling the reader who it was written for. I think 'The House of Pomegranates' is a real gem of a book. I'm glad I rediscovered it this year. It is absolute story perfection.
As mercurial and glamorous as he was (or made himself out to be), the work he produced here for younger audiences stands as a hommage for ancient story-telling that reaches out to the likes of Hans Christian Anderson or the Brother's Grimm. In fact these aren't mere stories, but rather 'fables', and unfortunately fables are an almost extinct form of story-telling these days. When people think of Oscar Wilde, no one ever thinks of morals, yet these tales each hold a deep moral lesson.
The 'Star Child' is rather like 'Dorian Gray' re-worked for children, in that it warns them of the dangers of vanity and to respect ones' elders. The 'Mermaids Soul' explores the rather complex issue of the soul, or rather the difference of making decisions with your head or your senses, and how one must have a little of both facilities in, otherwise chaos ensues. The most famous of this bunch is probably 'The Happy Prince', who when I first read it many moons ago mistook it for an Andersen fable.
My favourite, 'The Infanta', is about innocent ignorance, class-divide, love and mercy. It teaches us NOT to judge by appearances, and to accept people as they are. Wilde was famed as an aesthete, yet in all his stories there is a very firm dislike of articifice, and a reverence of the beauty of the soul as opposed to the flesh. Even though this is blatantly obvious in his writing, people still insist on ignoring it, which is sad. Judging by these stories (and stories are a window to the soul) I think Wilde was a deeply moral man whose choices in life must have pained him given the social/ cultural atmosphere of the time.
This collection would make a wonderful gift for any child. I read the Gutenberg ebook version, which unfortunately didn't have the titles, but rather interestingly had a dedication at the beginning of each story telling the reader who it was written for. I think 'The House of Pomegranates' is a real gem of a book. I'm glad I rediscovered it this year. It is absolute story perfection.
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July 21, 2025
So many homoerotic imageries!
Oscar Wilde once declared, "I can resist everything except temptation."
With A House of Pomegranates, he presents a collection that is, in itself, a glittering temptation– one that promises beauty, wisdom and perhaps a gentle prod towards existential despair, all wrapped in prose so luscious that it practically demands to be read aloud in a velvet-lined room.
Wilde- the maximalist, gives us tales dripping with a lot of symbolic finery. We're introduced to the prince who would rather gaze upon their own reflection in a flawless mirror than actually rule their kingdom; Infantas whose hearts are as cold and unyielding as the most exquisite jewel; and Young Kings who learn the hard way that a crown of rubies might look splendid but feels rather less comfortable than a humble sheepskin.
🍦The Young King’s beauty is emphasised in the tale as if he is a ‘wild-eyed… like a brown woodland faun,’ which makes Jack Zipes to see him as ‘a homoerotic portrayal of an idealised lover.’
🍦He adores ‘a Greek gem, carved with the figure of Adonis’... also a silver representation of Endymion and is discovered ‘pressing his warm lips to the marble brow of an antique statue… inscribed with the name of the Bithynian slave of Hadrian.’😱
A Narcissist! and another Dorian Gray!
That's why there is a figure in his art collection- 'Narcissus in green bronze' holding a polished mirror above its head🫤
The baby king can't see anything beyond his aesthetic beauty and pleasures:|
Such a melancholic grace!
🧁So, is A House of Pomegranates a literary masterpiece? Perhaps.
🧁Is it an acquired taste, best savored with a cup of very strong Earl Grey and a healthy dose of self-awareness? Absolutely.
It's a reminder that beauty, in Wilde's world, often comes with a hefty price tag and that sometimes, the most tragic figures are those who have everything but a beating heart.
🍿
Oscar Wilde once declared, "I can resist everything except temptation."
With A House of Pomegranates, he presents a collection that is, in itself, a glittering temptation– one that promises beauty, wisdom and perhaps a gentle prod towards existential despair, all wrapped in prose so luscious that it practically demands to be read aloud in a velvet-lined room.
Wilde- the maximalist, gives us tales dripping with a lot of symbolic finery. We're introduced to the prince who would rather gaze upon their own reflection in a flawless mirror than actually rule their kingdom; Infantas whose hearts are as cold and unyielding as the most exquisite jewel; and Young Kings who learn the hard way that a crown of rubies might look splendid but feels rather less comfortable than a humble sheepskin.
🍦The Young King’s beauty is emphasised in the tale as if he is a ‘wild-eyed… like a brown woodland faun,’ which makes Jack Zipes to see him as ‘a homoerotic portrayal of an idealised lover.’
🍦He adores ‘a Greek gem, carved with the figure of Adonis’... also a silver representation of Endymion and is discovered ‘pressing his warm lips to the marble brow of an antique statue… inscribed with the name of the Bithynian slave of Hadrian.’😱
A Narcissist! and another Dorian Gray!
That's why there is a figure in his art collection- 'Narcissus in green bronze' holding a polished mirror above its head🫤
The baby king can't see anything beyond his aesthetic beauty and pleasures:|
Such a melancholic grace!
🧁So, is A House of Pomegranates a literary masterpiece? Perhaps.
🧁Is it an acquired taste, best savored with a cup of very strong Earl Grey and a healthy dose of self-awareness? Absolutely.
It's a reminder that beauty, in Wilde's world, often comes with a hefty price tag and that sometimes, the most tragic figures are those who have everything but a beating heart.
🍿
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