Lulu/ Lucien ha recensito The collected short stories di Jean Rhys (Norton paperback fiction)
Some great short stories, some average, or messy...
3 stelle
This collection of 51 short stories brings together 36 stories that were published in 1927 (the left bank), 1968 (tigers are better-looking) and 1976 (sleep it off, lady), adding 3 short stories that had never been published in collections before.
This means that 12 others were but elsewhere than the 3 volumes mentioned.
And as we have so many stories, all different from each other, and whose compositions span decades, I notice a great inequality in the narrative quality - especially for the first period, where certain stories seemed to me to contain several stories, without real connections, in a narrative jumble, where sentences and paragraphs seemed to come out of nowhere, without reason, or link to what had just been said...
The other stories are better written, with beginnings, middles, and ends more clearly defined and connected.
Jean Rhys, the author, had lived in London, Paris and the Caribbean, …
This collection of 51 short stories brings together 36 stories that were published in 1927 (the left bank), 1968 (tigers are better-looking) and 1976 (sleep it off, lady), adding 3 short stories that had never been published in collections before.
This means that 12 others were but elsewhere than the 3 volumes mentioned.
And as we have so many stories, all different from each other, and whose compositions span decades, I notice a great inequality in the narrative quality - especially for the first period, where certain stories seemed to me to contain several stories, without real connections, in a narrative jumble, where sentences and paragraphs seemed to come out of nowhere, without reason, or link to what had just been said...
The other stories are better written, with beginnings, middles, and ends more clearly defined and connected.
Jean Rhys, the author, had lived in London, Paris and the Caribbean, and set all of the stories in these cities, with rare exceptions.
We see the reflection of his own tumultuous life, with the 2 main leitmotifs of this work: poverty, and relationships without love, even toxic in certain short stories.
She also speaks often but not systematically of various indifferences, some of which have tragic consequences - and I warn that these stories do not spare emotional shocks sometimes, and content triggers to be seen at the end of this review.
I loved certain stories, which deserve the term favorite; others barely crossed my mind, and so, as I said in the title, there are some short stories that are superb, even small narrative gems, lacking neither emotion nor humor ( sometimes chilling, or black), but the others are average, or disordered.
Trigger warning section:
Some stories mention death, even suicide.
One (Rapunzel, Rapunzel) even has emetophobic triggers.
List of the short stories included :
Illusion A spiritualist From a French prison In a café Tout Montparnasse and a lady Mannequin In the Luxemburg Gardens Tea with an artist Trio Mixing cocktails Again the Antilles Hunger Discourse of a lady standing a dinner to a down-and-out friend A night In the Rue de l'Arriveé Learning to be a mother The blue bird The grey day The Sidi At the Villa d'Or La grosse Fifi Vienne Till September Petronella The day they burned the books Let them call it jazz Tigers are better-looking Outside the machine The lotus A solid house The sound of the river I spy a stranger Temps perdi Pioneers, oh, pioneers Good-bye Marcus, good-bye Rose The bishop's feast Heat Fishy waters Overture and beginners please Before the deluge On not shooting sitting birds Kikimora Night out 1925 The chevalier of the Place Blanche The insect world Rapunzel, Rapunzel Who knows what's up in the attic? Sleep it off lady I used to live here once Kismet The whistling bird Invitation to the dance.