Saki

Saki (December 18, 1870 - November 14, 1916) was the pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro, whose witty and outrageous stories satirised the Edwardian social scene in macabre and cruel ways.

Short stories

Saki's world contrasts the effete conventions and hypocrisies of Edwardian England with the ruthless but straightforward life-and-death struggles of nature. Nature generally wins in the end.

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Saki's work is now in the public domain, and all or most of these stories are on the Internet.

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Some of his best-known short stories include:

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• "The Interlopers"

:Two feuding men trapped together in a forest settle their feud. They see a rescue party coming and call out, only to realize that it's actually a pack of wolves.

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• "The Schartz-Metterklume Method"

:At a train station, an arrogant and overbearing woman mistakes the mischievous Lady Carlotta for the governess she expected. Lady Carlotta, deciding not to correct the mistake, presents herself as a proponent of "the Schartz-Metterklume method" of making children understand history by acting it out themselves, and chooses a rather unsuitable historical episode for her first lesson.

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• "The Open Window" (see above)

:Vera, a self-possessed young lady, takes it upon herself to entertain Mr. Nuttel, a nervous newcomer to the countryside, by letting her imagination run wild. She relates a local tragic ghost story, with the forlorn hope of her long-dead uncle and his hunting companions returning through the open window. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk." Aunt's innocent remarks on the subject are then interpreted as sickly delusion. The punchline comes when Vera's uncle and his companions, complete with the little brown spaniel, do indeed return through the window after a long day's hunt, as she had fully expected them to. The poor Mr. Nuttel dashes away in horror, whereupon Vera tells her aunt that he has a horror of dogs because he was once trapped in a pit with a pack of wild ones glaring down at him, and the very last line informs us that "Romance at short notice was her speciality".

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• "The Toys of Peace"

:Rather than giving their young boys toy soldiers and guns, a couple decides to give their sons "peace toys". When the packages are opened, young Bertie shouts "It's a fort!" and is disappointed when his father replies "It's a municipal dust-bin". The boys are initially baffled as to how to obtain any enjoyment from models of a school of art and a public library, or from little toy figures of John Stuart Mill, poetess Felicia Hemans, and astronomer Sir John Herschel. Youthful inventiveness finds a way, however.

Related Topics:
John Stuart Mill - Felicia Hemans - John Herschel

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• "The Storyteller"

:A bachelor is irritated by badly-behaved children in a railway ("the smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite 'On the Road to Mandalay'. She only knew the first line, but she put her limited knowledge to the fullest possible use"). He decides to tell them a story about a little girl named Bertha who is extraordinarily good — "horribly good." In the story's dénouement, Bertha is hiding in some shrubbery from a pursuing wolf. She almost escapes, but she is wearing three medals — for obedience, punctuality, and good behavior. As she trembles with fear, her medals clink against each other and attract the attention of the wolf, who devours her. "The story began badly," says the smaller of the small girls, "but it had a beautiful ending."

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• "The Unrest-Cure"

:Saki's recurring hero Clovis Sangrail, a sly young man, overhears the complacent middle-aged Huddle complaining of his own addiction to routine and aversion to change. Huddle's friend makes the wry suggestion of the need for an "unrest-cure" (the opposite of a rest-cure) to be performed, if possible, in the home. Clovis takes it upon himself to "help" the man and his hapless sister, by inventing a bloody-minded bishop who invisibly takes over the Huddle's home and plots a massacre of all the Jews in the neighborhood. Clovis poses as the bishop's confidential secretary and uses frequent telegrams, unwitting visitors, and dark, cryptic utterances to build an increasing atmosphere of tension, seige, and eventually bloodshed, without in fact doing anyone any harm at all. "I don't suppose," mused Clovis, as an early train bore him townwards, "that they will be in the least grateful for the Unrest-cure."

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• "Esmé"

:In a hunting story that promises to be different, the Baroness tells Clovis of a hyena she and her friend Constance encountered alone in the countryside, who takes a liking to them but cannot resist the urge to stop for a snack. The story is a perfect example of Saki's delight in setting societal convention against uncompromising nature.

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::The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gypsy child was firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws.

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::"Merciful Heaven!' screamed Constance, 'what on earth shall we do? What are we to do?"

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:The child is shortly devoured, and Constance continues:

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::Constance shuddered. "Do you think the poor little thing suffered much?" came another of her futile questions.

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::"The indications were all that way,' I said; 'on the other hand, of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children sometimes do."

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Basically Saki is like Charles Dickens. Both had a bad childhood...both write about misery...the only difference is that there is subtlety (in misery) laced up with wicked humour in Saki's writings.

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