What do you think?
Rate this book
Prelude
One of Katherine Mansfield's most important works, Prelude established her reputation as a master of short fiction. It is accompanied here by its continuation pieces At the Bay and The Doll's House. A large, seemingly loving family, the Burnells lead an idyllic life, with the children free to play at will, and with enough adults on hand to lavish love upon them. Yet alongside this innocent evocation of childhood bliss, another aspect of the household is delicately and unmistakably laid bare as Mansfield exposes the true nature of the family. Pretensions and insecurities rise to the surface in a series of vivid, all too real impressions of domestic life. The result is an exquisite rendering of childhood, memory, and understanding. A key figure in the Modernist movement, Katherine Mansfield is most remarkable for having perfected the art of the short story.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1918
19 people are currently reading
487 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Mansfield
976 books1,204 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
February 6, 2017
Beautifully, sensually written. Katherine Mansfield's descriptions a family's long summer days spent together are wonderful. The characters are exquisite, and the more you read, the more the tension of that seemingly perfect family bubbles under the surface until it threatens to explode. I loved the continuation of the story into the last 2 parts of the book.
April 1, 2025
I've said it before & I will probably say it again & again, but Mansfield is my favourite NZ author & my favourite short story writer. Who knows what she would have achieved if she had her health & lived a bit longer.
This is a slice of life tale. The Burnells are the Beauchamps, (Kezia/Katherine) & they moved from Thorndon to Karori (suburbs of Wellington) for the sake of the family's health. Nineteenth century Wellington wouldn't have been a very sanitary place. Mansfield's baby sister Gwendolyn died in infancy in 1891, from cholera. Interestingly the Burnell's languid mother Linda is pregnant during the move, not grieving the loss of a baby. Descriptions are made of events that appear mundane, but subtly show the divisions & undercurrents.
This story was originally published roughly when this portrait of KM was painted. (1918)
I was lucky enough to see this portrait when it was exhibited in Auckland earlier this year. The artist, Anne Estelle Rice, was a friend of Mansfield's & I'm interested that in Auckland the display card with the painting stated that the red dress was Rice's idea to get Mansfield out of the drab shades she normally wore, where according to the Te Papa website;
https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/ob...
Mansfield suggested the colour scheme. i don't even know why this is important to me, other than I like to think that this was a happier time in Mansfield's life. Certainly Prelude was depicting a mixture. one of the best childhood tales I have read.
This is a slice of life tale. The Burnells are the Beauchamps, (Kezia/Katherine) & they moved from Thorndon to Karori (suburbs of Wellington) for the sake of the family's health. Nineteenth century Wellington wouldn't have been a very sanitary place. Mansfield's baby sister Gwendolyn died in infancy in 1891, from cholera. Interestingly the Burnell's languid mother Linda is pregnant during the move, not grieving the loss of a baby. Descriptions are made of events that appear mundane, but subtly show the divisions & undercurrents.
This story was originally published roughly when this portrait of KM was painted. (1918)
I was lucky enough to see this portrait when it was exhibited in Auckland earlier this year. The artist, Anne Estelle Rice, was a friend of Mansfield's & I'm interested that in Auckland the display card with the painting stated that the red dress was Rice's idea to get Mansfield out of the drab shades she normally wore, where according to the Te Papa website;
https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/ob...
Mansfield suggested the colour scheme. i don't even know why this is important to me, other than I like to think that this was a happier time in Mansfield's life. Certainly Prelude was depicting a mixture. one of the best childhood tales I have read.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
October 28, 2015
Short story perfection. Set in her native New Zealand, this story features the Burnell family, who also appear in some of her other stories. At first glance they seem like a normal family, but on closer inspection Mansfield exposes their underlying struggles and insecurities. Written in the Modernist style, this lyrical flowing prose is a joy to read.
January 28, 2019
When my friend, Amapola mentioned to me her loving Katherine Mansfield's stories and having the author on my list for a longtime, actually years ago my husband had bought The Katherine Mansfield Megapack for my Kindle but with so many stories to read I put her off. Having just finished "Prelude" and loving it, thanks to my Goodreads' friend for sharing her love which made me love Mansfield too!💖
I am a big fan of Mansfield's cousin, author, Elizabeth von Arnim and having read some of her books which had mentioned her cousin, Katherine, not directly but indirectly.
If you are looking for a quick thoughtless read, this is not it. This story as you unwind it with each page is something quite deep. I also thought the theme of nothing is as it really is will ring different to each individual reader in what they see and take away from this which I find that quite fascinating. Even though Ibsen's married couple in The Doll House are different in many ways, then this couple, I kept thinking of that play. The reader has no idea how these people are related until one reach a certain point and even then it is by layers, not all blurted out. The mother is someone that you thought for sure was not the mother which was the biggest shock for me. Even some of the children hide their true feelings. When Linda started off with her fantasy/ vision of inanimate objects being something quite different from reality, you start to think, is she mad? But then it becomes clear or at least to me a form of escape.
The short story in short- A family moves to the country.
A taste but more quotes from the collection of her works, on my Katherine Mansfield shelf.
"Oh, Alice was wild. She wasn’t one to mind being told, but there was something in the way Miss Beryl had of speaking to her that she couldn’t stand. Oh, that she couldn’t. It made her curl up inside, as you might say, and she fair trembled. But what Alice really hated Miss Beryl for was that she made her feel low. She talked to Alice in a special voice as though she wasn’t quite all there; and she never lost her temper with her—never. Even when Alice dropped anything or forgot anything important Miss Beryl seemed to have expected it to happen"
Look forward to reading Katherine again and many more times as the year go by!💖🌼
*****Spoiler Alert****
Linda does not want to have more children and the ones she has she is not much interested in. She rather be away from her life and her husband.
Beryl Fairfield- Linda's sister pretends to be happy and carefree but she is gloomy and feels like she is false and never really herself.
Mrs. Fairfield- their mother is the glue to keeping things going and especially Linda needs her mother's support.
Stanley- Linda's husband thinks the move to the country is paradise and that he has a loving wife that loves him and listens to everything he says.
I am a big fan of Mansfield's cousin, author, Elizabeth von Arnim and having read some of her books which had mentioned her cousin, Katherine, not directly but indirectly.
If you are looking for a quick thoughtless read, this is not it. This story as you unwind it with each page is something quite deep. I also thought the theme of nothing is as it really is will ring different to each individual reader in what they see and take away from this which I find that quite fascinating. Even though Ibsen's married couple in The Doll House are different in many ways, then this couple, I kept thinking of that play. The reader has no idea how these people are related until one reach a certain point and even then it is by layers, not all blurted out. The mother is someone that you thought for sure was not the mother which was the biggest shock for me. Even some of the children hide their true feelings. When Linda started off with her fantasy/ vision of inanimate objects being something quite different from reality, you start to think, is she mad? But then it becomes clear or at least to me a form of escape.
The short story in short- A family moves to the country.
A taste but more quotes from the collection of her works, on my Katherine Mansfield shelf.
"Oh, Alice was wild. She wasn’t one to mind being told, but there was something in the way Miss Beryl had of speaking to her that she couldn’t stand. Oh, that she couldn’t. It made her curl up inside, as you might say, and she fair trembled. But what Alice really hated Miss Beryl for was that she made her feel low. She talked to Alice in a special voice as though she wasn’t quite all there; and she never lost her temper with her—never. Even when Alice dropped anything or forgot anything important Miss Beryl seemed to have expected it to happen"
Look forward to reading Katherine again and many more times as the year go by!💖🌼
*****Spoiler Alert****
Linda does not want to have more children and the ones she has she is not much interested in. She rather be away from her life and her husband.
Beryl Fairfield- Linda's sister pretends to be happy and carefree but she is gloomy and feels like she is false and never really herself.
Mrs. Fairfield- their mother is the glue to keeping things going and especially Linda needs her mother's support.
Stanley- Linda's husband thinks the move to the country is paradise and that he has a loving wife that loves him and listens to everything he says.
April 18, 2025
An impressionist painting of a story.
A family moves to a house in the country, and we feel the adjustment from each of the family members-- from the energetic father to the delicate mother to the humorously bitter servant girl. My favorite was the young daughter Kezia, who creates beautiful stories and scenes out of whatever is at hand.
“She began to lay the cloth on a pink garden seat. In front of each person she put two geranium leaf plates, a pine needle fork and a twig knife. There were three daisy heads on a laurel leaf for poached eggs, some slices of fuchsia petal cold beef, some lovely little rissoles made of earth and water and dandelion seeds …”
This had some gorgeous bits. It felt Proustian--the luxurious way scenes were described, down to the flowering camellias and aloe. It seems to be about what is going on under the surface within each of these members of an outwardly-seeming perfect family.
I have mixed feelings about modernist stories like this. There’s no real plot, and the meaning is obscure--you can almost make it about whatever you want. But after some thought, I decided the descriptions were so lovely and the thoughts rang so true that I had to love it.
A family moves to a house in the country, and we feel the adjustment from each of the family members-- from the energetic father to the delicate mother to the humorously bitter servant girl. My favorite was the young daughter Kezia, who creates beautiful stories and scenes out of whatever is at hand.
“She began to lay the cloth on a pink garden seat. In front of each person she put two geranium leaf plates, a pine needle fork and a twig knife. There were three daisy heads on a laurel leaf for poached eggs, some slices of fuchsia petal cold beef, some lovely little rissoles made of earth and water and dandelion seeds …”
This had some gorgeous bits. It felt Proustian--the luxurious way scenes were described, down to the flowering camellias and aloe. It seems to be about what is going on under the surface within each of these members of an outwardly-seeming perfect family.
I have mixed feelings about modernist stories like this. There’s no real plot, and the meaning is obscure--you can almost make it about whatever you want. But after some thought, I decided the descriptions were so lovely and the thoughts rang so true that I had to love it.
October 28, 2014
I am very grateful to all my kiwi friends who rolled their eyes and groaned painfully whenever Katherine Mansfield was mentioned (forced study at school no doubt) as I have put off reading her until I am old enough to appreciate it! Just such a beautifully written and evocative book - that the complete non-plot does not matter at all. The people seem so vivid and the stream of consciousness so plausible.
April 27, 2019
3,5 estrellas
Es mi primer acercamiento aMansfield y no será el último.
Me ja gustado su forma de describir, particularmente lo que tiene que ver con la naturaleza y el paisaje. Está claro que era una mujer muy observadora y que sabía traducir muy bien esas observaciones en palabras.
Sí la nota que le doy no es muy alta es porque tengo la impresión de que en esta narración hay muchos simbolismos y creo que yo no he sido capaz de captarlos todos.
Hay muchas sutilezas y elipsis en esta pequeña obra y seguramente conociendo mejor a la autora se podrán interpretar de una forma más acertada.
Tengo la esperanza que alguna de las historias de la Mansfield llegue a cautivarme por completo.
Es mi primer acercamiento aMansfield y no será el último.
Me ja gustado su forma de describir, particularmente lo que tiene que ver con la naturaleza y el paisaje. Está claro que era una mujer muy observadora y que sabía traducir muy bien esas observaciones en palabras.
Sí la nota que le doy no es muy alta es porque tengo la impresión de que en esta narración hay muchos simbolismos y creo que yo no he sido capaz de captarlos todos.
Hay muchas sutilezas y elipsis en esta pequeña obra y seguramente conociendo mejor a la autora se podrán interpretar de una forma más acertada.
Tengo la esperanza que alguna de las historias de la Mansfield llegue a cautivarme por completo.
May 20, 2014
The audio version is available at LibriVox.
One of the first books to be published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press, Prelude is among Katherine Mansfield's most accomplished stories, inspired by her childhood in New Zealand. (Introduction by ire monger)
One of the first books to be published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press, Prelude is among Katherine Mansfield's most accomplished stories, inspired by her childhood in New Zealand. (Introduction by ire monger)
February 5, 2024
ok im ngl i was really confused at first but after studying this in class and also doing my own research I can really appreciate what Katherine Mansfield did with this! the bird motif was really well utilised once I understood what it meant hahaha
i'm excited to keep reading the rest of her work, especially when we compare it to her context!
i'm excited to keep reading the rest of her work, especially when we compare it to her context!
June 20, 2008
Very V&V (Vita & Virginia/Mrs. Dalloway so clearly loved it. Amazing writing of the undertones and insecurities of domestic life. Mansfield brings amazing clarity to seemingly simple but very deeply felt life experiences.
March 17, 2019
A wonderful writer, beautifully descriptive and with penetrating characterizations; she's very different than anyone I have read. These stories, though, are dark, showing ugliness and pathology behind the facade of a tranquil domestic life.
May 21, 2023
Boring. The affair should have been more prominent
April 8, 2024
a thoughtful piece of modernist fiction that meditates on the complex dynamics & relationships that make up a traditional, domestic family- exposing the often confronting truths behind a seemingly composed, comfortable household. simultaneously, the piece serves as a collection of simple but valuable observations on class and womanhood in the late nineteenth century- uniquely set in new zealand.
some of the lines here really spoke to me. the contents of this short story pack a lot of relatability and a certain timelessness that i didn't expect. upon reflection, i've begun to notice a lot of meaning underpinning the mundane subject matter.. although not the most compelling read, mansfield's writing contains layers that i'm excited to peel back and analyse in class.
(UPDATE-8/4/24) : WHEN I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD THE ALOE MOTIF MY MIND WAS BLOWN
i'm keen to pick up more of katherine's work now. i would describe her writing as serene, subtle, and very beautiful.
some of the lines here really spoke to me. the contents of this short story pack a lot of relatability and a certain timelessness that i didn't expect. upon reflection, i've begun to notice a lot of meaning underpinning the mundane subject matter.. although not the most compelling read, mansfield's writing contains layers that i'm excited to peel back and analyse in class.
(UPDATE-8/4/24) : WHEN I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD THE ALOE MOTIF MY MIND WAS BLOWN
i'm keen to pick up more of katherine's work now. i would describe her writing as serene, subtle, and very beautiful.
May 23, 2023
not happy, kathy. 😐
December 29, 2016
if I could describe this short story with one word it would be " happiness". This story like others written by Katherine Mansfield's are so personal and universal that anyone would feel identified with its characters or nostalgic scenes. I felt genuinely happy while reading it.
Read
December 31, 2014Incredible piece of work. I like short stories a lot.
August 4, 2014
Loved this story. Great piece of modernist fiction (especially after battling with To the Lighthouse, which frankly did my head in).
January 21, 2020
I think one of the best pieces of art I've had the pleasure of being with.
April 27, 2025
5 stars - With a wonderfully readable and flowing prose, Mansfield offers a family portrait where an apparently benign surface barely conceals feelings of frustration and revolt among its female members. The story's point of view starts from young daughter Kezia, then flows easily to the mother and wife, Linda, and then to Linda's younger sister Beryl. Offering a more monotone contrast to these imaginative ladies are the husband-father, Stanley, and the stalwart "grandmother" (also called mother or Mrs. Fairfield). A more dramatic contrast appears with Pat, a hired hand, who is gentle and caring with everyone yet at one point reveals a sudden casual violence in keeping with the practical nature of his rural tasks. The relatively prosaic incidents and dialog within the family remain undramatic, without any relief of tension, except in Linda's dreamy escapes into solitary thoughts and an eventual realization about deep-seated feelings toward her husband, and in Beryl's heated but suppressed flares of sexual yearning. It's all conveyed with calm delicacy but the sense that something momentous might happen simmers through every page. After all, the story is titled "Prelude."
The story is considered to be modernist in style, but this is a modernism different from Marcel Proust or Virginia Woolf. There are no Proustian syntactical pyrotechnics; the self-analyzing stream-of-consciousness of Woolf is stripped down and made brief in Katherine Mansfield. To me Mansfield's style feels closest among modernists to the Dubliners stories of James Joyce. And although it might be modernist, I see connections in "Prelude" to the sensibilities of Jane Austen, in Mansfield Park , for example, which I have just read. The situation of Beryl as a dependent relative with suppressed yearnings parallels that of Fanny Price within Austen's Bertram family. Fannie Price's vague anxieties about love and marriage become in Beryl more intense and directly sexual. The requirements in Austen's books for women to daily enact duty, obedience and gratitude to husbands and fathers is shown in "Prelude" by most if not all the women, young and old, but Linda Burnell's state of mind veers toward emotional defeat or something nearing insanity. The honesty and realism of Katherine Mansfield adds to her modernism beyond her stylistic innovations of shifts in point of view, a nearly absent plot and an entirely absent final resolution.
The story is considered to be modernist in style, but this is a modernism different from Marcel Proust or Virginia Woolf. There are no Proustian syntactical pyrotechnics; the self-analyzing stream-of-consciousness of Woolf is stripped down and made brief in Katherine Mansfield. To me Mansfield's style feels closest among modernists to the Dubliners stories of James Joyce. And although it might be modernist, I see connections in "Prelude" to the sensibilities of Jane Austen, in Mansfield Park , for example, which I have just read. The situation of Beryl as a dependent relative with suppressed yearnings parallels that of Fanny Price within Austen's Bertram family. Fannie Price's vague anxieties about love and marriage become in Beryl more intense and directly sexual. The requirements in Austen's books for women to daily enact duty, obedience and gratitude to husbands and fathers is shown in "Prelude" by most if not all the women, young and old, but Linda Burnell's state of mind veers toward emotional defeat or something nearing insanity. The honesty and realism of Katherine Mansfield adds to her modernism beyond her stylistic innovations of shifts in point of view, a nearly absent plot and an entirely absent final resolution.
November 17, 2019
Fijn proevertje, dit korte verhaal van Mansfield. Toch eens uitkijken naar meer werk van haar.
March 26, 2023
Had to read for English 101. Most average reading
March 18, 2025
Kathy our modernist queen
November 10, 2020
mansfield quickly becoming an all time favorite of mine. this story is the only one i feel comfortable logging (as it is much longer than everything else ive read by her) , but everything ive read so far is simply wonderful.
September 13, 2024
Prompted by Peter Dann's link to his recording of Katherine Mansfield's 'Prelude' at Librivox*, I listened to the story this afternoon, hypnotised by Peter's rendering of this ostensibly simple story about a family moving into a new house. Wikipedia says that it's based on the Beauchamps' move to Karori, a country suburb of Wellington, in 1893.
First published by the Hogarth Press in July 1918, 'Prelude' is a shorter version of the novella The Aloe (1930) which was posthumously edited and published. (See my review here.) But if short stories run from 1000 words to 10,000, 'Prelude' at almost 45,000 words is a novella too. It's written in twelve parts, or fragments, with the narrative perspective shifting from one character to another, revealing that not all is well in the household.
The story begins (as The Aloe does) with the Burnell family in the throes of loading their belongings for departure.
Mansfield doesn't tell us how old these little girls are but they are old enough to understand that they are not 'absolute necessities.' They are left behind with a neighbour, Mrs Samuel Josephs, and straight away we see Mansfield's preoccupation with class. This neighbour is always addressed and referred to as Mrs Samuel Josephs. She is addressed by her husband's surname, as was common in those days, but with the addition of his Christian name. This formality and distancing is an indicator of the gulf in social class. By contrast, Mrs Samuel Josephs addresses her social superior as Mrs Burnell.
The dialogue between them shows us not that Mrs Joseph's has a head cold, (as Wikipedia would have it) — because in the days before antibiotics, no one (not even someone as careless as Linda Burnell) would have left children in the care of someone with an infectious cold that might easily have killed them. Like the bread and dripping sandwiches the children eat at the Josephs, and their host's slovenly dress, Mrs Joseph's speech is another marker of class: she hasn't had her adenoids attended to, in an era when it was routine to have them out if they were causing trouble.
But Mansfield isn't just drawing attention to class distinctions, she also shows the servility of people dependent on the household but not necessarily contented within it.
TO read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/09/13/p...
First published by the Hogarth Press in July 1918, 'Prelude' is a shorter version of the novella The Aloe (1930) which was posthumously edited and published. (See my review here.) But if short stories run from 1000 words to 10,000, 'Prelude' at almost 45,000 words is a novella too. It's written in twelve parts, or fragments, with the narrative perspective shifting from one character to another, revealing that not all is well in the household.
The story begins (as The Aloe does) with the Burnell family in the throes of loading their belongings for departure.
THERE was not an inch of room for Lottie and Kezia in the buggy. When Pat swung them on top of the luggage they wobbled; the grandmother's lap was full and Linda Burnell could not possibly have held a lump of a child on hers for any distance. Isabel, very superior, was perched beside the new handyman on the driver's seat. Holdalls, bags and boxes were piled upon the floor. "These are absolute necessities that I will not let out of my sight for one instant," said Linda Burnell, her voice trembling with fatigue and excitement.
Lottie and Kezia stood on the patch of lawn just inside the gate all ready for the fray in their coats with brass anchor buttons and little round caps with battleship ribbons. Hand in hand they stared with round solemn eyes, first at the absolute necessities and then at their mother. ('Prelude, at the Katherine Mansfield Society online, Part 1)
Mansfield doesn't tell us how old these little girls are but they are old enough to understand that they are not 'absolute necessities.' They are left behind with a neighbour, Mrs Samuel Josephs, and straight away we see Mansfield's preoccupation with class. This neighbour is always addressed and referred to as Mrs Samuel Josephs. She is addressed by her husband's surname, as was common in those days, but with the addition of his Christian name. This formality and distancing is an indicator of the gulf in social class. By contrast, Mrs Samuel Josephs addresses her social superior as Mrs Burnell.
The dialogue between them shows us not that Mrs Joseph's has a head cold, (as Wikipedia would have it) — because in the days before antibiotics, no one (not even someone as careless as Linda Burnell) would have left children in the care of someone with an infectious cold that might easily have killed them. Like the bread and dripping sandwiches the children eat at the Josephs, and their host's slovenly dress, Mrs Joseph's speech is another marker of class: she hasn't had her adenoids attended to, in an era when it was routine to have them out if they were causing trouble.
"Why nod leave the chudren be for the afterdoon, Brs. Burnell? They could go on the dray with the storeban when he comes in the eveding. Those thigs on the path have to go, dod't they?" (Part 1)
But Mansfield isn't just drawing attention to class distinctions, she also shows the servility of people dependent on the household but not necessarily contented within it.
TO read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/09/13/p...
January 28, 2016
I'm in love with Katherine Mansfield this week. So many great stories.
This is an excerpt from "Book of a lifetime: Prelude by Katherine Mansfield
Review from Kirsty Gunn: the Independent
Prelude is the story of a family who are leaving their house in town for life in the country, all told through the eyes of one of the younger daughters, Kezia, who observes every single little thing as one home is dismantled and another set up to take its place. Mansfield builds up a domestic world as rich and varied and idiosyncratic as life itself, a story made entirely from the seemingly inconsequential moments, overheard conversations, half-realised thoughts… with no almighty sense of plot or drama, only the long hours ticking past in a long day.
What I understood then, in that first reading of a book I have returned to over and over, is that it's not only short stories that may have the power of second-by-second reading – where every detail, every line, is of concentrated importance. I was reading what it was to be in the world – observant and sensitive to its textures, sights and sounds. Until then I had thought that all novels had to have a plot, a cast of characters that marched in time to authorial will, each chapter like the compartment of a fully-loaded goods train. Here instead was a narrative made up of tiny details that could go anywhere, mean anything – "moments of being" Woolf, Mansfield's fellow modernist writer, called them.
Now I know this is the mark of all great fiction. To have a world be given us that is not just a place we look at, or learn about, or derive entertainment from, but feels as familiar as our own. So I learned, sitting in a square of sunshine from my childhood, reading, that for me the most interesting kind of story was, like life, not something ever known and understood and fixed by its shape of beginning, middle and ending, but an opening, a door that lets us in. Prelude was the start.
Kirsty Gunn's novel 'The Big Music' is published by Faber & Faber
This is an excerpt from "Book of a lifetime: Prelude by Katherine Mansfield
Review from Kirsty Gunn: the Independent
Prelude is the story of a family who are leaving their house in town for life in the country, all told through the eyes of one of the younger daughters, Kezia, who observes every single little thing as one home is dismantled and another set up to take its place. Mansfield builds up a domestic world as rich and varied and idiosyncratic as life itself, a story made entirely from the seemingly inconsequential moments, overheard conversations, half-realised thoughts… with no almighty sense of plot or drama, only the long hours ticking past in a long day.
What I understood then, in that first reading of a book I have returned to over and over, is that it's not only short stories that may have the power of second-by-second reading – where every detail, every line, is of concentrated importance. I was reading what it was to be in the world – observant and sensitive to its textures, sights and sounds. Until then I had thought that all novels had to have a plot, a cast of characters that marched in time to authorial will, each chapter like the compartment of a fully-loaded goods train. Here instead was a narrative made up of tiny details that could go anywhere, mean anything – "moments of being" Woolf, Mansfield's fellow modernist writer, called them.
Now I know this is the mark of all great fiction. To have a world be given us that is not just a place we look at, or learn about, or derive entertainment from, but feels as familiar as our own. So I learned, sitting in a square of sunshine from my childhood, reading, that for me the most interesting kind of story was, like life, not something ever known and understood and fixed by its shape of beginning, middle and ending, but an opening, a door that lets us in. Prelude was the start.
Kirsty Gunn's novel 'The Big Music' is published by Faber & Faber
April 14, 2022
A very uneventful, yet subtly symbolic piece. It definitely follows the modern literary tradition of weaving the metaphors so deeply into a boring storyline that you almost miss it if you aren't looking closely.
I didn't enjoy it per se, but I do appreciate its message. I also appreciate writers who put more effort into building the characters than creating a captivating yet cliche plot. Mansfield was definitely brilliant.
I didn't enjoy it per se, but I do appreciate its message. I also appreciate writers who put more effort into building the characters than creating a captivating yet cliche plot. Mansfield was definitely brilliant.
May 28, 2020
Muy malo, es aburrido y tedioso. Aunque mucha gente diga que es muy bueno, creo que la lectura de esto es aburrida y la historia deja mucho que desear. Se puede hablar de diversos temas de época pero aún así no lo considero algo bueno.
March 6, 2015
Oh. Wow.
February 17, 2016
Honestly, I'm sure I could've enjoyed this more but I couldn't help but drift off into my own world every few sentences and only realise I was doing it paragraphs later.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews