The Skeleton's Holiday

by Leonora Carrington

'Ring for your maid, and when she comes in we'll pounce upon her and tear off her face. I'll wear her face tonight instead of mine.' These dreamlike, carnivalesque fables by one of the leading lights of the Surrealist movement are masterpieces of invention and grand-guignol humour.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Horror, Fantasy, Modern Classics, 20th Century

52 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Leonora Carrington was an English-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City, and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s.

Reviews

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não sei se Leonora Carrington consta dos livros de Pénélope Bagieu que ainda não li, mas garanto que podia coabitar com as suas “Destemidas”. Tendo convivido em Paris com grandes vultos do surrealismo como Salvador Dalí, Picasso, Joan Miró e o seu namorado Max Ernst, disse posteriormente a artista de origem inglesa numa entrevista: “Eram um grupo essencialmente de homens, que tratavam as mulheres como musas. Isso era bastante humilhante. Por isso, não quero que me chamem de musa de nada nem de ninguém. Jamais me considerei uma mulher-criança, como André Breton queria ver as mulheres. Nunca quis que me entendessem assim, nem tão pouco ser como os outros. Eu caí no surrealismo porque sim. Nunca perguntei se podia entrar.”
Sabendo que tinha o seu próprio caminho a trilhar, quando Ernst foi detido e enviado para um campo de concentração durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, Carrington fugiu, e depois de uma curta estadia em Lisboa, local de passagem de tantos exilados na altura, instalou-se no México, onde escreveu e pintou, tendo vivido até à provecta idade de 94 anos.
Os setes contos que constituem esta pequena colecção são a expressão de um surrealismo verdadeiramente desembestado, com uma pontinha de crueldade e uma enorme dose de humor negro a que nunca fico indiferente.

While the hyena was eating, I looked out the window. A few minutes later she said, ‘I can’t eat any more. Her two feet are left over still, but if you have a little bag, I’ll eat them later in the day.’
‘You’ll find a bag embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in the cupboard. Empty out the handkerchiefs you’ll find inside, and take it.´'

Eleonora Carrigton é bem capaz de ser a detentora das melhores frases de abertura, como pode comprovar-se aqui em baixo; e mesmo num número reduzido de páginas consegue criar um pequeno universo original e irrepetível em clara comunicação com a sua pintura, sendo o seu “Auto-Retrato” a manifestação pictórica de “The Oval Lady”, com o seu cavalo de madeira, e de “The Dubutante”, com a presença da hiena, os meus contos preferidos.

White Rabbits-4*

Uncle Sam Carrington-4*
Whenever Uncle Sam Carrington saw the full moon he couldn’t stop laughing. A sunset had the same effect on Aunt Edgeworth.”

The Debutante-5*
When I was a debutante, I often went to the zoo. I went so often that I knew the animals better than I knew girls of my own age.

The Oval Lady-4*
The Seventh Horse-4*

My Flannel Knickers-3*
Thousands of people know my flannel Knickers, and though I know this may be flirtatious, it is not. I am a saint.

The Skelton’s Holiday-3*
The Skelton was as happy as a madman whose straitjacket had been taken off. He felt liberated at being able to walk without flesh.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not connect to the morbid humor in these surrealist stories.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Never mind,' I told myself, 'it's only a nightmare.' But then I remembered that I'd never gone to bed that night, and so it couldn't possibly be a nightmare.

Knowing nothing at all about Leonora Carrington’s writing, I came to this with no preconceptions. I found a set of playful and weird folk tales that often made me smile at some strange mental image.

'White Rabbits' is a vivid and bloody piece of horror that makes a perfect opening. The narrator is drawn into the weird world of her opposite neighbour, who keeps a pack of carnivorous rabbits.

In 'Uncle Sam Carrington', a little girl sets off in search of an unconventional way to solve the problem of her embarrassing aunt and uncle. On her journey she meets fighting vegetables, a talking horse and a pair of witches.

'The Debutante' is the memorable tale of a spoiled debutante who, tired of attending balls thrown in her honour, sends a hyena in her place. You can probably guess how well that turns out.

'The Oval Lady' is like a bizarre dream – or, indeed, one of Carrington's paintings come to life. The same might be said of 'The Seventh Horse', and these two stories come the closest to feeling like Carrington is writing nonsense for the sake of it. There are still striking images and lines to be found in them, however.

'My Flannel Knickers' has a brilliant beginning: 'Thousands of people know my flannel knickers, and though I know this may seem flirtatious, it is not. I am a saint.' It's a dark fable about vanity and social ambition.

'The Skeleton's Holiday' was originally published as part of a collaborative novel, The Man Who Lost His Skeleton, with a group of other surrealist artists. Written in 1939, it is considerably older than the other stories collected here, all of which were first published in 1988. It doesn't make an awful lot of sense in isolation (though I'm willing to bet it doesn't make much more sense in context).

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[Lauren (Cook's Books) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am very sick and on the good good (tesco cold & flu caps) and this was the weirdest fucking trip you could ever experience

[Nicolai Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello? Thank you, fellow booklover, for calling. You must be dying to know what just happened to me. Hmm. Where to begin?

Well, my first ever proper read of surrealist literature just happened! It's is this cute little book of short stories by one Leonora Carrington, who, as far as I can tell, was a major figure in the surrealist movement. A staunch feminist as well. And a painter! How cool is that 😊

The blurb calls these short stories “dreamlike, carnivalesque fables”. Oooh! They are also “masterpieces of invention and Grand Guignol humour”. What on earth is Grand Guignol? Well, I looked it up and it was some kind of theatre where they performed naturalistic horror shows.

You are intrigued. I can tell.

Me too, I’ve been intrigued by surrealism ever since I heard about it in school, and I should have explored it much, much earlier.

You know, actually, I recently discussed Carrington’s collection with my imaginary friends from the upper echelons of the void. We sat in an abandoned, poorly lit and overgrown warehouse full of alien footwear. Some of my younger friends found her short stories too silly and called them confusing and dumb. In response, two of my two-year older friends slammed their fists down on the expensive mahogany table - purchased exclusively for this meeting - and disagreed with a raging tongue and bulging eyes, shouting that Carrington’s writing style is simply whimsical and quirky, meant to simply entertain, so we would be happier and better served letting go of our arrogance! And then, in the corner of the room was seated a strong, savage sage with a withered rose on his left shoulder and flies swarming around his cheap toupee while he smoked the last cigar of our former king. He whispered how clever Carrington had been, how immaculately astute of her to write in this manner. “Shut up!” interrupted a tired, gray tree outside the banana shaped window, “she’s too eccentric”, he moans. “Too wonderful for her own good. Meeting adjourned.” And so, they all left, and I was, again, forever alone in the imaginary dark mires of time and space.

Ahem. Through these stories I’ve learned how surrealism performs (!) a life and a world which is constantly changing, where transformations happen extraordinarily and unexpectedly, and where the imagination is but a mirror-image of our soul. You bet! My mind was warped and twisted in profound ways. It was like going out one night to a place you’ve been hundreds of times before, but never once have you seen it in the dark. Can you imagine? Or it was like turning my head upside down, just so that I could see the world from a different view. Like, I’ve sometimes been struck by a fancy to lay down in the corner of some room I’m very familiar with and look up at it from a new angle. It’s like seeing the room for the first time! Like seeing a different room, even! That’s what’s called jamais vu, by the way. The opposite of déjà vu. And that’s what it’s like reading Carrington’s stories.

Unfortunately, because of the symbolism and randomness of it all, I sometimes struggled to figure out what she meant, getting many bad answers in return, or too many, or too few. And I sometimes struggled to understand what was happening. You see one thing, then another, then nothing or everything. But then I asked myself: does it even matter? I don’t think so. It’s a bit like poetry or a prose poem: Just feel the words, react to the situations, oooh and aaah and hahaha at the surreal wackiness. Just let go of your questions and have fun. That’s what I did, and it was all worth it. Promise!

White Rabbits – ★★★★★

A woman observes from her balcony the house opposite. A woman appears and scarily fascinating stuff happens.

“Do you happen to have any bad meat over there that you don’t need? […] Any stinking meat? Decomposed flesh meat?” (3)

Uncle Sam Carrington – ★★★★★

Opening lines say: “Whenever Uncle Sam Carrington saw the full moon he couldn’t stop laughing. A sunset had the same effect on Aunt Edgeworth. Between them they caused my poor mother a great deal of suffering, for she had a certain social reputation to keep up.” (8)

When I finished reading the story, I made an observation, which I wrote down in my notes:

I don’t understand what it all means. Snippets of wisdom. Amusing observations. Sprinkled bits of philosophy on a cupcake making a serious face. It is made of rebellious dough.

“The vegetables have to suffer for the sake of society” (13)

The Debutante – ★★★

A friendship between a privileged girl and a caged hyena in a zoo. The ending was unsatisfying, too simple. Dumb. Or maybe I was the dumb one here? Hah! Whatever.

“She’ll probably die if she hasn’t got a face.” (17)

The Oval Lady – ★★★★★

Someone visits an unusual family of three and a magpie.

“’Madam, do you like poetry?”’

‘No, I hate poetry,’ she answered in a voice stifled with boredom, without turning to me.” (21)

The story made me think of domestic abuse, bad parenting and imaginary friends.

“As for me, I danced a sort of polka so as not to die of cold.” (24)

The Seventh Horse – ★★★

Opening line: “A strange-looking creature was hopping about in the midst of a bramble brush.” (29)

What even is the significance of the number seven? Carrington mentions it all the time here. Asking for a friend.

“Do you know that I can hate for seventy-seven million years without stopping for rest. Tell those miserable people that they are doomed.” (30)

My Flannel knickers – ★★★★

Hmm. Is the narrator a metaphor for something? Or a symbol of something? An idea? A concept? Beats me, I enjoyed this nonetheless.

“There I was, sitting in the dark bloodstream like a mummified foetus with no love at all. (41)

“The quickest way of retiring from social face-eating competition occurred to me when I attacked a policeman with my strong steel umbrella.” (44)

The Skeleton’s holiday – ★★★★★

This was my favorite! No wonder, though, as it is about a happy skeleton. I love undead things. And contains some rich imagery. It’s layers upon layers of positive effects:

I found it to be wonderfully whimsical when

“The skeleton knew how to give him the slip, by letting fall a young zeppeline bone, on which the professor pounced, reciting chemical hymns and covering the bone with hot kisses.” (45)

Super sad when I was asked:

“Have you heard the appalling moan of the dead in slaughter? It’s the terrible disillusionment of the newly born dead, who’d hoped for and deserved eternal sleep but find themselves tricked, caught up in an endless machinery of pain and sorrow.” (47)

Brimming with beauty when

“He looked like a transparent monument dreaming of an electric breast, and gazed without eyes, with a pleasant and invisible smile, into the inexhaustible supply of silence that surrounds our star.” (46)

And curiously clever when

“In the evening, at cocktail time, he went to the café on the corner, where he read the Necromancer’s Journal, the paper favoured by high-toned corpses.” (47)

By the way, if you can read Norwegian, there’s a book written about the author called Leonoras reise by Susanne Christensen, which traces Carrington’s life in pursuit of her desires and her own alternative, but powerful vision of the world, of feminism and mystery and insanity. That’s what it says in the blurb, anyways, and after having read these short stories, I’m eager to explore more of her work and have added to my list both The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington and the novel The Hearing Trumpet. Next up in surrealism for me, though, is reading Mad Love by André Breton.

I think have it here somewhere.

Oh well, I’m hanging up now. Talk soon. Bye.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire Leonora Carrington's paintings for their atmosphere, imagination and evocation of fantasy. The very short stories contained in this small volume are similar -- her imagery is captivating and unsettling, and her stories lack internal logic, but are disquieting and memorable. My favourite of these is "The Seventh Horse" -- I don't really understand what the heck is going on in it, but the imagery is very successful. I also admire "White Rabbits" for its extremely unsettling quality. I didn't really follow "The Skeleton's Holiday" -- it was simply too short to explore its idea. I enjoyed these as an insight into Carrington's prose, but I don't know if I would seek out more of her stories. A little goes a long way.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leonora Carrington's The Skeleton's Holiday is one of the books which I have been most looking forward to in the Penguin Moderns series. I read her novel, The Hearing Trumpet, last June, and very much enjoyed its brand of absurdity. The titular story was written as part of a collaborative novel in 1939, and the other stories - 'White Rabbits', 'Uncle Sam Carrington', 'The Debutante', 'The Oval Lady', 'The Seventh Horse', and 'My Flannel Knickers' - have all been translated from their original French by the likes of Marina Warner and Carrington herself. The writing here is characteristically Carrington's; each tale is filled with oddity, and surprises the reader at every grotesque turn. Throughout, Carrington has a wonderful knack of vividly setting scenes, and her prose is at once odd and beguiling. There is a dark, startling humour throughout, and an otherworldly sense to her stories. The author clearly had such an imagination; this collection has left me eager to read more of her work.

[farahxreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another great author to be explored. A mesh of normality and surrealism, with dreamlike and creepy plot that makes your hair stands at end. Out of seven stories, four stories will definitely stay with me - a secret concealed by a woman who demanded decomposed flesh meat from her neighbour, a story of a filial child who couldnt stand the disgrace brought by his uncle and aunt upon his family, a story of a hyena tearing off a maid’s face and pasted it on its face and lastly, a story of a thin and tall lady who was too old to play with ‘horses’.

Incredibly dreamlike, detailed in parts, creepily operating on its own logic. A great read.

Actual rating: 3.5 stars for The Skeleton Holidays by Leonora Carrington!

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

reads like a fever dream in a good way

[Eleanor Eden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy Carrington's morbid humour. I liked the use of surrealism throughout all the stories, using it for humour in some, and for suspense in others. Having read the Hearing Trumpet recently I've grown quite fond of Carrington's writings, I'm glad this was as good as I was hoping.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to read everything by Leonora Carrington

[Bart Van Overmeire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heerlijk boekje uit de Penguin Modern reeks, met bizarre, surreële en creepy verhalen.

[Bloodorange · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a better painter than a writer at this point of her career, although "The Debutante" was fantastic.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The greatest difficulty was to find a way of disguising the hyena’s face. We spent hours and hours looking for a way, but she always rejected my suggestions. At last she said, ‘I think I’ve found the answer. Have you got a maid?’
‘Yes,’ I said, puzzled.
‘There you are then. Ring for your maid, and when she comes in we’ll pounce upon her and tear off her face. I’ll wear her face tonight instead of mine.’
‘It’s not practical,’ I said. ‘She’ll probably die if she hasn’t got a face. Somebody will certainly find the corpse, and we’ll be put in prison.’ [16–7]

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Carrington's surrealist artwork, but it seems surrealist writing simply doesn't work quite as well for me. The first story, White Rabbits, was brilliantly creepy, and The Debutante very striking in its sinister absurdity, but the other 5 stories did nothing for me, sadly, and I don't think they'll stay with me.

[P.S. Clinen]

Weeeeeeeird.....

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not dislike these but it kinda feels like she's acting out? All stories are shocking but pointless. "Moody goth teen" stories which try too hard to disturb, and forget that there's a narrative to be had before the scare! It's impossible to relate to any characters here because there's too much description!

Maybe it is just me, but I have a feeling Penguin Modern have misrepresented Carrington's ability much like they did Daphne Du Maurier, by adding their odd unpopular horror stories to this collection?

[Dylan Kakoulli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this just goes to show, surrealism probably works far better when it comes to painting, than writing.

That said, I did think 'The Debutante” was bizarrely -and bloodily (quite literally) brilliant!

2.5 stars

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Leonora Carrington's paintings and her short stories do not disappoint - they seriously have the exact same vibe.

[JK · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved these bizarre and ridiculous stories. Having no experience of Carrington, I wasn’t sure what I was going into, and I’m still not sure what I’ve come out from. But the level of macabre here has spoken to me, and despite making no sense, the stories were utterly delightful.

From carnivorous rabbits to fighting vegetables, hyenas wearing human faces to flannel knickers, each of these had an exquisite dark humour with a playful and cheeky creepiness, whilst threatening danger at every moment.

I’ll be exploring Carrington in more depth in future - what a brilliant mind.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

EDIT 9/4/23: I must have read this out of order last time because I ended up reading it again, and while I remembered the creepy and horror-adjacent "White Rabbits" and "The Debutante," the rest I might as well have been reading for the first time, so forgettable were they the first time. Always nice to discover I agree with myself from two years ago!

_________
This is a weird collection of stories, surrealism par excellence. None of the rest rises to the level of the opening "White Rabbits," unfortunately. That's a creepy bit of surrealist horror, and "The Debutante" amps up the surrealism while keeping an unsettling edge. The other stories, alas, are mostly words strung together.

Well, that's not totally fair. Gertrude Stein's poetry in this same box set is truly just words strung together, and is nigh unreadable. Carrington strings sentences together in a style that is readable and compelling. It's just that a lot of the time, the paragraphs seem to be from different stories. Overall, I enjoyed reading them, but I was hoping for better after the sterling opening.

[Miss Bookiverse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection contains 7 of Carrington's surrealist short stories. I had never read surrealist literature before and while reading this collection my recurring thought was "OMG, WTF did I just read?" It's like Alice in Wonderland on mind-enhancing drugs: weird, colorful, often brutal, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes melancholy. Anything is possible and sometimes it's hard to follow (or find) the actual storyline. But it's still so much fun because it's so unique and reminded me of twisted fairy tales and I'm sure a lot more could be gained from some in-depth analyses.
My favorite story was The Debutante about a young woman and a hyena attempting to switch places. The only thing that bothered me was how in White Rabbits leprosy was used for shock value and the people suffering from this illness were depicted as creepy and insane.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always thought myself not much of a surrealist fan, but recently realised it was because I'd only ever been seeing men's surrealist art and that there was a whole world of surrealist women artists whose work felt really different.

I read this book of short stories at 3am when I couldn't sleep and it was the perfect timing, as the stories are nightmarish, confusing and amusing. I particularly loved the hyena/girl life swap of The Debutante, the gothic horror of White Rabbits, and freaky revenge tale The Seventh Horse.

[Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories of the surreal kind. What's not to love? It's like Lovecraft if he didn't drag on.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I veered between liking and loving it. I do have a leaning towards the surreal, absurd or just plain bonkers, so this sort of collection was right up my street.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leonora Carrington, British citizen who adopted Mexico as home, wife of Max Ernst, and a premier female member of the Surrealist art group is also known for being a writer of fiction. Her novel The Hearing Trumpet is possibly the greatest work of Surrealist literature ever written. Her collection of short stories, called The Skeleton’s Holiday, doesn’t quite live up to her other achievements though.

In this slim collection of seven stories, spanning less than fifty pages, we get a variety of wildly imaginative vignettes. In “White Rabbits”, a girl gets invited into a home owned by an older couple whose elegant mansion is filled with rabbits. In “The Debutante”, a teenage girl convinces a hyena to take her place at her debutante ball. In “The Oval Lady”, a teenage girl gets punished by her father for magically transforming herself into a horse. In “The Skeleton’s Holiday”, we get introduced to a mischievous skeleton who likes pranks.

Certain motifs and themes reoccur throughout the stories. Houses are used as symbols of the unconscious and whatever else is hidden from public view. Animals, especially horses, are used as alter egos. Family conflict is another theme taken up by Carrington. The girl in “The Debutante” is at a crossroads with her mother because she doesn’t want to attend her own party. The magical powers of the teenage girl in “The Oval Lady” are a source of discord with her stern and unimaginative father. In “Uncle Sam Carrington”, a family dispute is solved by two women in the forest who torture vegetables. This style of irrationality is another theme in these stories since the solutions to family dysfunction involve things that make no sense. Likewise, the father in “The Oval Lady” punishes his daughter for her magical transformations by whipping an imaginary horse. One other theme is social dislocation. Some of these stories are narrated by a teenage girl who penetrates into a world she cannot understand, one in which she can only observe without participating. In “The Debutante” she outright refuses to be a participant and in “My Flannel Knickers” we have a story about a girl who gets forced out of society and publicly humiliated, again in a way that is incomprehensible to rationalists.

Carrington is a great writer. The whole problem with these stories is that they are so short that it makes it almost impossible to draw definite conclusions about what she is trying to say. They are more like sketches, vignettes, or introductions than actual stories. She feeds us scraps of information and then cuts off our nourishment just as we begin to chew on it. It’s hard to interpret these vignettes when there is just enough information to arouse our interest and then abruptly stop just when the stories should be picking up and moving along. The sense of incompleteness just makes them fall flat. It’s hard to tell if this is intentional since Surrealism is all about relinquishing control of rationality and allowing psychological content to run free. Carrington may have intended to break off the narratives just when we begin to analyze her symbolism by recognizing patterns. I’m not convinced that is the case though. These stories just feel like literary sketches that she probably intended to build on at a later date and then never got around to doing so.

In this brief volume, almost so thin it is difficult to even think of it as a book, the author gives us some unique and provocative ideas. They are so unique and provocative that it is disappointing they aren’t drawn out further. We are given canapes when we are in the mood for a banquet. If you’re interested in Leonora Carrington, then The Hearing Trumpet is a far more fulfilling read. She really developed her talents in her paintings though, and the sorely underrated book Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement by Whitney Chadwick gives an excellent introduction and critical analysis of her art. The Skeleton’s Holiday is an interesting diversion, but it probably works best for diehards of Carrington and devotees of Surrealism.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utterly bizarre, charming, humorous, and dark, these stories were a bright spot in my lackluster reading as of late. As with most short story collections, I enjoyed some more than others; some I loved and some I absolutely did not care for. My favorites were "White Rabbits," "The Debutante," and "My Flannel Knickers." I'm definitely interested in reading more by Leonora Carrington in the future, as I'd never heard of her before and only bought this on a whim upon reading the collection's title. Her writing style is wry but beautiful and descriptive, and her imagery and surrealism reminds me of a cross between Lewis Carroll and Angela Carter. I don't think this is for everyone, especially those who are looking for more of a straightforward plot sequence or resolute endings, but this really worked for me.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The skeleton got up every morning, clean as a Gilette blade. He decorated his bones with herbs, brushed his teeth with ancestor narrow, and lacquered his nails with Fatma Red. In the evening, at cocktail time, he went to the café on the corner, where he read the Necromancer's Journal, the paper favoured by high-tuned corpses. Often he amused himself by playing dirty tricks. Once he pretended to be thirsty and asked for writing materials; he emptied the inkpot between his jaws into his carcass: the ink stained and spotted his white bones. Another time he went into a joke shop and bought himself a supply of those Parisian pleasantries, imitation turds. One evening he put some in his chamber pot, and his servant never got over the shock in the morning: to think that a skeleton who neither ate nor drank did his business like the rest of us."

[Eloísa Nogaroli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Olha, valeu a pena ler, achei o estilo bem diferente. Gostei muito do "The Debutante" e amei ameiiii o "The Skeleton's Holiday". Os outros contos me deixaram desinteressada, talvez pela maneira bem desconectada da escrita. Só que pelo jeito essa que é a pira mesmo. Mas (tirando os dois bonitinhos que eu citei antes) essa pira num foi muito minha não.
Um pedacinho do The Skeleton's Holiday
"The skeleton didn't like disasters, but to suggest that life did have its hazardous moments, he had placed an enormous thimble in the middle of his fine apartment, on which he sat from time to time like a real philosopher. Sometimes he danced a few steps to the tune of Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre. But he did it with such grace, with such guilelessness, in the manner of midnight dances in romantic, old-fashioned graveyards, that nobody seeing him would have thought of anything unpleasant." lindo demaissssssisisii

[Anisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two cabbages having a terrible fight.
I'll wear her face tonight instead of mi e
So fun! Bit like Carter's bloody chamber with the surreal fairy tale fantasy .but also lots of themes on rebirth/ transient body & appearance What is an animal? Strange human behaviours creaturez. V v strange characters, magical realismesque, loved it a lot!
(Livia I was thinking about u!)