A Trio of Saki: The Storyteller, Open Window, Bertie's Christmas Eve
Saki
May 2008 · Matrix · Narrated by Joy Gelardi
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Audiobook
33 min
Unabridged
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Eligible
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About this audiobook
Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (December 18, 1870 - November 13, 1916), a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives.
This audiobook collects three of his finest short stories:
"The Open Window" - A man with the unlikely name of Framton Nuttel comes to a country village for some peace and rest. He calls upon a lady his sister used to know; for a few minutes he is left alone with her niece, who has quite an active imagination. She tells Framton a story about the tragedy of the lady's husband and two younger brothers, who had gone hunting one day three years earlier and never returned. The bodies were never found, and because of this, the window from which they left is always kept open.
"The Storyteller" - Here is a cynical antidote to crude didacticism. An aunt is travelling by train with three of her nieces and nephews; a bachelor is sitting opposite. The aunt starts telling a story, but is unable to satisfy the curiosity of the children. The bachelor intervenes and tells a different kind of story, which feeds their curiosity and imagination.
"Bertie's Christmas Eve" - A Russian peasant tale reveals that the cows may speak at midnight on Christmas Eve. This gives Bertie the perfect excuse to exact a revenge on his meddling and tiresome extended family.
This audiobook collects three of his finest short stories:
"The Open Window" - A man with the unlikely name of Framton Nuttel comes to a country village for some peace and rest. He calls upon a lady his sister used to know; for a few minutes he is left alone with her niece, who has quite an active imagination. She tells Framton a story about the tragedy of the lady's husband and two younger brothers, who had gone hunting one day three years earlier and never returned. The bodies were never found, and because of this, the window from which they left is always kept open.
"The Storyteller" - Here is a cynical antidote to crude didacticism. An aunt is travelling by train with three of her nieces and nephews; a bachelor is sitting opposite. The aunt starts telling a story, but is unable to satisfy the curiosity of the children. The bachelor intervenes and tells a different kind of story, which feeds their curiosity and imagination.
"Bertie's Christmas Eve" - A Russian peasant tale reveals that the cows may speak at midnight on Christmas Eve. This gives Bertie the perfect excuse to exact a revenge on his meddling and tiresome extended family.
About the author
H. H. Munro, better known as "Saki," was born in Burma, the son of an inspector-general for the Burmese police. Sent to England to be educated at the Bedford Grammar School, he returned to Burma in 1893 and joined the police force there. In 1896, he returned again to England and began writing first for The Westminster Gazette and then as a foreign correspondent for The Morning Post. Best known for his wry and amusing stories, Saki depicts a world of drawing rooms, garden parties, and exclusive club rooms. His short stories at their best are extraordinarily compact and cameolike, wicked and witty, with a careless cruelty and a powerful vein of supernatural fantasy. They deal, in general, with the same group of upper-class Britishers, whose frivolous lives are sometimes complicated by animals---the talking cat who reveals their treacheries in love, the pet ferret who is evil incarnate. The nom de plume "Saki" was borrowed from the cupbearer in Omar Khayyam's (see Vol. 2) The Rubaiyat. Munro used it for political sketches contributed to the Westminster Gazette as early as 1896, later collected as Alice in Westminster. The stories and novels were published between that time and the outbreak of World War I, when he enlisted as a private, scorning a commission. He died of wounds from a sniper's bullet while in a shell hole near Beaumont-Hamel. One of his characters summed up Saki's stories as those that "are true enough to be interesting and not true enough to be tiresome."
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