The Stories

by Jane Gardam (Contributor)

From the inimitable Jane Gardam, whose 'Old Filth' trilogy cemented her status as one of England’s greatest living novelists, comes a collection of short stories that showcase her subversive wit, gentle humor, and insight into the human condition. Gardam’s versatility is on full display, while her sublime grasp of language and powers of observation remain as provocative as ever.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, British Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Literature

466 pages, Hardcover

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Jane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

Reviews

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond any possible preconceiving of the idea, I have stopped at exactly the half way point while reading this book. Because this is the rare book I want to keep, and someone wants me to have for a present. As I house very few books, purposely, I'm saving the rest for premier reading during a winter trip from my own copy.

If this was a 7 seven star rating system, this collection would get them all. And that opinion is coming from a person who rarely likes short stories to a 3 or 4 star level. Next to these, O'Henry would get a 5.

Jane Gardam gives a characterization to the core essence of a personality within 10 pages. The texture of the context completed without using paragraph length sentences, or partaking of the usual 4 page asides of preaching/ defining the author's personal worldview philosophy, is absolutely incredible. You know what she believes and how she feels by how she releases her characters to their quirks, their anticipations, their fears, their memories. And the descriptions of what they see in their own slant to the world.

But to a deeper degree than emotion and personality, she gets relationship. Not relationship of category or legality- but essence relationship communication ticks that matter. And it could be between complete strangers.

Beyond being a fan of her incredible skill and understanding of human psychology- there also lurks the woman. The woman who is a feminist without anger, who never speaks with the voice of a victim- regardless of being one at one time or another, or having never been one. (The Pangs of Love) And also the woman who doesn't know about God or not but knows what she knows to feel. (The Easter Lilies) But yet again, the women who has lived long enough to know that sometimes the stuff you hate the most becomes the serendipity ecstasy of a lifetime's experience if you let it. (The Pig Boy)

She almost didn't publish some of these. Thank you, Jane. They ARE good enough. In fact, so good- it could have been split into two.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far more of an edge than Alice Munro or Maeve Binchy, though they all are about ordinary folk in the small tucked-in places of England (or Ireland), or expat parts of the Empire, or even, Italy. British gentility and aging and elegant writing and real characters! Of course the re-told Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen is sheer delight, and my fave quote is in there: "...she danced with all the mermen who had silver crowns on their heads and St Christophers round their necks, very trendy like the South of France..." Gardam's stories seldom end well, often badly, or sadly, and there is the distant shadow of monsters under the bed, of biting spirits with psychological claws, of age and gentility and loss and, often, sweetness. Love them all, always wanted to read more immediately, but found them best taken a little at a time, perhaps because the underlying drama in each took a spell to digest. There is a lot of sacrifice here, and a lot of going about unfazed by those who have the advantage. The characters and the places come alive on the page, one looks up at the end and is surprised not to find them all there in the room.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

The rating, any status updates, and those bookshelves, indicate my feelings for this book.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read Ms Gardam's Old Filth Trilogy I was anxious to read her collection of favorite short stories. I was not disappointed though astounded with the heft of the book--nearly thirty stories and over 400 pages. Usually I feel off-kilter and unsatisfied when I finish reading modern short story collections. I think that is because my introduction to the genre were the exquisite short stories of O. Henry and Guy De Maupassant. Nothing I have read since ever compares completely favorably, that is until now. And while a few of Gardam's stories (The Great, Grand, Soap-Water Kick, for instance) fell flat with me, I was entertained by the majority. My favorites were ones with characters from the Old Filth Trilogy, of course, as well as those involving other expats and their foibles. Another story, The Pangs of Love, was especially interesting because I was also reading The Female Eunuch's section entitled Love between stories. Ms Gardam's story was a much better, less shrill, depiction of the feminist viewpoint and much preferred. The Green Man left me scratching my head a bit, but only because I am not British and only vaguely know of the related folktales. However, that is my lack and not the author's. Jane Gardam states in the introduction that she was surprised when approached to assemble a book of her favorite short stories. She was unaware that many recently published books have been short story anthologies. Having read several of the latest collections published I feel Ms Gardam's are far superior and, for me, much more satisfying.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So elegant, so humane, so witty. This is good writing without gimmickry, simply outstanding observation and care and curiosity. And it's all about those marginalised, little voices, some of them annoying, some of them pitiable.

[Elan Durham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revelation in every way, that I graduated with a MFA in Fiction, and did not know about this British writer before now is a travesty. Apparently just now experiencing a bit of a renaissance, Gardam deserves the credit, attention, and accolades.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/20...

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Gardam is one of my absolute faves, and these stories are wonderful. Full of imagination, whimsy, tragedy, and sharp-eyed observations. And very British, as usual. When I came across the Old Filth "origin" story towards the end, though, I got nostalgic for that trilolgy of books, realizing that as great as all these short stories are, I prefer the more probing character explorations that her novel-length books provide.

[Sabine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alles, was ich von Gardam gelesen habe,wunderbar.Sie hat die Gabe,Menschen perfekt zu charakterisieren und den Blick für das Wesentliche auch in jeder alltäglichen Situation.Und.das Beste: es ist diese bestimmte englische Art,die ich uneingeschränkt liebe!

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved these stories, each one a gem, each offering insight into love and relationships, extra-ordinary and ordinary lives.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with everything Jane Gardam writes, I adored this book. There are a few stories that were beyond me, for one reason or another, but I felt many different emotions as I read each of them.

Gardam's characters are, of course, most often simply quintessentially English (for better or worse), so there is a good deal of wistfulness or sadness, but also humor (sometimes dark, sometimes kindly) and so much kindness, gentleness. There is one story early on that I remember frightening me delightfully once it was finished, and another at the end of the collection that left me thoroughly unsettled; it has stayed with me, in fact. Brrr.

Fans of the Old Filth trilogy will be delighted to encounter Edward Feathers again, even if the circumstances are familiar, and we even get a bit of Terry Veneering; both made me sigh in delight and recognition.

But many of the characters are new acquaintances, and if you love Jane Gardam, you simply must add this to your list.

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

No -- probably ten stars. This collection of stories is beyond delightful, and Jane Gardam is a goddess of the English language. Each story is a separate, exquisite jewel, blending gentle insight and humour with her very human characters. These range from a variety of aged men and women through children, a homeless man and on to The Green Man himself. Twenty-eight treats -- wouldn't have missed even one of them.

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give more than 5 stars I would. Gardam is best known for her novels but her short stories are just as amazing. Her prose is lovely. Her plots are always unique and entrancing. If you love British fiction you'll love this.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful rich collection of short stories from a grand dame of the genre.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a Jane Gardam story is just about as fulfilling as reading one of her novels. There is such depth to them, that ... well, it almost feels like having read a novel!

[Richard B · Rating 4 out of 5]

So very English, and very well written.

A large collection of short stories, covering a wide array of characters, situations and genres.
The thing that stood out through all of them (and I was pleasantly surprised that in a book that contained so many stories, that I really enjoyed as many as I did) was the quality and naturalness of the dialogue. You could genuinely hear many of her characters speaking, and using the dialogue she was able to build a sense of the person.

If you are a fan of well crafted and economical shoer stories you will probably get something from this book.

[Ebenmaessiger]

"Sidmouth Letters": 5 stars
- unfussy unhurried unreal

"A Spot of Gothic": 5 starts
- a tocsin for the lassitudinally inclined among us, in the form of a little ghost story. the title says it. woman newly and happily moved to remote countryside encounters twice a strange woman, who seems to recognize her, until finding out she was once also a transplant from the city, with ghost stuff happening thereafter

"The Tribute": 5 stars
- Gardam's a whitbread prize o henry

"The Great, Grand, Soap-Water Kick": 4 stars
- the tramp voice doesn't work -- or, at least, its inexplicable. The central story, however -- of a tramp wanting a bath and getting one via B and E -- does.

[Lia. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Gardam ist toll. Kurzgeschichten mMn nicht. Trotzdem überraschen die ersten hier so sehr, dass ich fast meine Meinung geändert hätte. Sie bleiben aber nicht so stark. Wegen des starken Anfangs trotzdem drei Sterne.

[Spiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have very much enjoyed reading Jane Gardam's novels, Old Filth and Crusoe's Daughter, but nothing prepared me for the sheer excellence of this collection of short stories, set largely among the milieu of faded diplomatic and civil servants: people stranded at the ebbing tide of Empire. The humor is wry and very dry, and yet compassionate withal.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a good number of Jane Gardam's novels, but her short stories may be even better. One can compare Alice Munro to Chekov and perhaps, Tolstoy. Jane Gardam, however, is more like Gogol with her stories. One can never tell where they will end up.

Very, very impressive and usually funny.

[Paul The Uncommon Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Rainbow of Stories

Gardam, I think, appears to be (though may not actually be, I don’t know enough about her) one of those upper middle-class British eccentrics who is capable, it seems, of writing almost anything. We have here, amongst others: a rather ghostly re-encounter with an old lover in Ireland; then a very cryptic story told by a cranky and unreliable narrator, about a workaholic daughter and her (or is it the mother’s?) lack of emotional intelligence, which flits in and out of reality in a way that captures brilliantly how an unstable psyche operates (it takes very close reading to work out what’s going on, and even then…); followed by a wily tramp who tricks his way into a free bath; then a complex story involving family heirlooms/history and correspondence in Jane Austen’s hand that would be of huge, global cultural interest… And these are just the first four of this large collection of Gardam’s short stories (thirty in all make up this collection).

At nearly 500 pages, this is a long read. I confess to skipping over a few stories which didn’t grab me, but I read enough to get what a skilled writer Gardam is. Like Beatles songs, no two are the same, or even moulded and put together the same way – a testimony to her mastery of writing technique. In “The Pig Boy”, for example, she manages to convey a bewildered sense of culture shock, as the protagonist’s fear and confusion mount amid the mayhem of Hong Kong, as the danger she finds herself in on leaving the ex-pat compound increase. The prose is suddenly frenetic – short sentences, a quickfire of impressions (pigs that look dead, terrible smells, locals whose habits are different from anything she has ever encountered before). Somehow the writing conveys Veronica’s sense of panic and alienation perfectly.

There’s even a fairy-tale (“The Pangs of Love”), told in a kind of “Once upon a time / … and they all lived happily ever after” style that is both funny and ironic, playing as it does on the fantasies and stereotypes of adolescent romantic obsession.

“Stone Trees” is very short, a poetic story of death and grief. Stark, as the title indicates. “Showing the Flag” is a touching tale of a boy’s fear of loneliness based on being unloved by his mother. Very instinctual, what a basic and universal fear that is! “Swan” is a clever illustration of the difficulties of integration (that of foreign cultures), a solution being to look carefully for areas of overlap, as well as for things which the newcomer can do which you can’t (in this case: look after animals, and have no fear of them). “Damage” is the tale of an intelligent career woman with a cruel parent and a rather forlorn love life (the two are connected closely in the story). Both issues are resolved at the end. “Groundlings” concerns the fate of an eccentric theatre-goer, describing the eccentricities of that crowd. Again, touching, poignant. There is a grieving mother in “Dead Children”; people with diamonds in the backs of their necks in the surreal, fairy-tale-like “Grace” (I’m still trying to work out the symbolism of this); more symbolism in “Light”, a brilliant, mystical tale of a Tibetan girl, blind in her eyes, but with a special eye at the back of her throat, who is persecuted for this weirdness (here, I’m thinking, people with special gifts of vision – writers/storytellers? – often get a bashing from ordinary folk, along the lines of prophets never being appreciated in their home towns?). The setting is as remarkable as the plot. Incredibly imaginative (unless it is based on some Buddhist parable that I am unaware of, unlikely, as they tend to be less symbolic than the Christian variety. More anecdotal than metaphorical. Ho hum).

Moving on: “Miss Mistletoe” is a parasite, a kind of benevolent Tartuffe. Odd. “Telegony” I gave up on – I found it uncharacteristically rambling and rabbit-warren-like. “The Boy who Turned into a Bike” is about how lack of communication can ruin love: a tragic little love story. “Missing the Midnight” touches (not for the first time) on too high parental expectations wrecking young lives; “The Zoo at Christmas” a child-like parable of animal captivity, perhaps a parable of our lives.

“Old Filth” is the title not only of a story here, but also of a full novel by Gardam, which she wrote years later, on the encouragement of her publishers, and which was a huge commercial success. I found it interesting to read the original shard of the novel here. She obviously took the germ of an idea and expanded and expanded it. Having read the full novel a few months ago, the short story feels very inadequate, obviously, but is still good.

“The Green Man” riffs, parable-like and rich in metaphor, on ecological issues and aroused my curiosity about the age-old, pagan figure. I had often wondered why there are so pubs in Britain called by this name. Now I know why, kind of. “Soul Mates” is the closest Gardam gets to laughing at the stuffy English middle-classes, and yet a substratum of decency and humanity remains. Even the Phipps’ and the Phillipses have feelings – and they are as subject to the whims and life-threats of the subconscious and of Great Creating Nature as our superstitious ancestors were. The superficial veneer of the bourgeoisie, eh?

And, finally, “The People on Privilege Hill” is another fragment of “Old Filth”, I think. Hard to tell, as I’m pretty sure it was discarded for the novel. Probably because the writer lacked vision in it, it’s kind of bitty and inconclusive. So only interesting to me as a student of how writers write novels, which appears to be a long and arduous process, as much of what one writes ends up in the bin, or as a rather lame conclusion to what is overall a very impressive set of shorts.

My favourite, I think, was “The Easter Lilies”, a poignant story of love and death, with the lilies acting as a kind of constant reminder of the delicacy and beauty of life. Again, Gardam implies rather than spells out, and the story is the better for that. I found it touching and deep, and extremely sensitively and delicately told.

I think that what Jane Gardam’s biggest forte (and there are many) is to convey the uncertainties and unpredictable nature of events and relationships in what seems sometimes to be a scatty narrative style, but is in fact calculated omission of plot elements, so the reader is left wondering what the heck is going on here. Her protagonists are often placed in unfamiliar situations which they just have to deal with, forced to make the best of a bad job. The full “Old Filth” novel is based around being born in a foreign culture, neglected by emotionally distant (disabled!) colonial English people. Children are sent to cold boarding schools in England and asked – expected! – to master life themselves, alone. This is almost impossible, and nearly always leads to loneliness. This is all the more remarkable since this was not Gardam’s own experience; she had a normal childhood and adolescence in Yorkshire (as opposed to being born in Malaya, sent to boarding school aged 8 almost completely alone in England, and later working as a judge in colonial Hong Kong). Which means either that she researched such lives very thoroughly, or she has a vivid imagination. Both, probably, and these are twin characteristics of very good writers, I think.

A very enjoyable collection.

[Cam Mannino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read many books of short stories in their entirety - but I did with this book. The stories are truly short - usually 5-7 pages - perfect for a last literary snack at bedtime. And in that short span, Gardam cooks down the characters and ambience into a rich, strong experience you can feel and really savor. It probably helps that I'm a reforming Anglophile and these are very British tales - a middle-aged woman who falls for an old lover yet is ultimately loved by the right sort, the proper wife of a British lawyer in Hong Kong who discovers life outside the "bubble" with the help of pig delivery man, a Jane Austen scholar who "gets hers back" on a former prof by offering to seek out some undiscovered Austen letters. Gardam is a master of what lots of us were taught in college - find the universal in the very, very particular. She seems to keep mining universal themes within a very narrow range of human experience - very much like that Jane Austen! But with more shadows, more surprises, a more edgy sense of the ridiculous.

[Tuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

collected stories from '80's to a new one of 2007. she even has a couple with old filth and terry veneering, of the 'old filth' trilogy The Man in the Wooden Hat where one sees gardam working over (just starting?) her brilliant sage of hong kong colonials and their retirements back in dorset. lots of stories here in this collection, most on the small eccentric lives in small eccentric england. each one a novel in 20 pages or so. essential for gardam fans and short story readers.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fan of British authors, this book was right up my alley. All stories are set in England with, of course, English characters. This was my first exposure to Jane Gardam and I plan to read her other books. Don't do what I did and read the whole book at once as it contains 28 short stories. Read to savor each story.

I liked all but about four of the stories, but I still highly recommend this book.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book of stories reminded me of the days when you would like a song on the radio, buy the CD, and then be less than thrilled with the rest of the songs. This book consists of 29 stories, most of which were meh, but two of which I loved. One which I really really loved. So it's hard to rate this book. My recommendation is to track down the following two stories by this author: "The Easter Lilies" and "Showing the Flag."

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It surprised me that this large book of short stories held my attention start to finish, reading every one! There were a few odd ones but I like Gardam's style and the good telling of the stories, some with a twist. Nice change of pace for me as I am having trouble getting some characters and plots in my head from one read to another = aging? I now would like to read the author's Old Filth.

[Caryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection of stories! A great introduction to Jane Gardam; now I want to become a Gardam completist. Favorites: "Hetty Sleeping," "The Sidmouth Letters," "A Spot of Gothic," "Miss Mistletoe," and "Old Filth," but those are just today's favorites. My list could change depending on mood. Enjoyed them all.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, I reveal my ignorance: I was unaware of this author. She is extraordinary. Much like the writing of Barbara Pym.

The Sidmounth Letters may be my favorite so far. Many excellent ones in this collection.

[Barbpie · Rating 5 out of 5]

all of these stories were wonderful and I hadn't read any of them before except for maybe the two featuring old Filth.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cannot recommend this book too highly; so much glorious writing A wealth of wonderful stories that I will return to. Great writer