So, I got up this morning and in a fit of being inbetween six books and being bored with them all, I decided to peruse the book collection that sits on top of the dresser. There's a lot of books there. About a sixth of them got too high and too precarious and fell over one night. However, there's still a lot left. I'm afraid to think that they are mostly now books of my own choice that I've convinced Jeff to buy here and there at book sales and markdown shops and expensive retail stores. And as he's very bent on spoiling me, I've managed to gather many little books to our home.
Today I got up and after spending a grueling hour looking for a place to rent on the internet, I shambled over and picked up Saki.
Saki is someone I've being dying to read for years. He's very famous for his stories from the view point of a cat (since there's so many writers I've been dying to read for years, it takes me years to get around to picking them up. I have a very long list). The book I have are short stories picked out by Graham Greene- on more stories than just the cat one.
Here's a quote from the first short story:
Duchess: “When I was younger, boys of your age used to be nice and innocent.”
Reginald: “Now we are only nice. One must specialize in these days.”
Saki is something of a Wilde but there's something craftier going on with his words. He's very sneaky- it seems like a fierce intelligence is laying under a lazy exterior.
“Not that I ever indulge in despair about the Future; there always have been men who have gone about despairing of the Future, and when the Future arrives it says nice, superior things about their having acted according to their lights. It is dreadful to think that other people's grandchildren may one day rise and up and call one amiable.
There are moments when one sympathizes with Herod.”
I burst out laughing at that though I'm still confused on what he's exactly saying.
His last known words before blown up in a trench in France? “Put out that bloody cigarette.”