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Strange Bliss: Essential Stories
A beguiling new selection of Katherine Mansfield’s finest stories, focused on her mysterious, complex portrayals of relationships between women
Katherine Mansfield was one of the true pioneers of the short story. Her style shifts subtly between the comic and the tragic, as calm surfaces are punctured by moments of disruption, insight and strange beauty.
This new collection gathers together the best of Mansfield’s work exploring different facets of relationships between women. From complex expressions of desire and connection to shared experiences of frustration and release, these stories capture fleeting movements of feeling with unmatched precision.
Katherine Mansfield was one of the true pioneers of the short story. Her style shifts subtly between the comic and the tragic, as calm surfaces are punctured by moments of disruption, insight and strange beauty.
This new collection gathers together the best of Mansfield’s work exploring different facets of relationships between women. From complex expressions of desire and connection to shared experiences of frustration and release, these stories capture fleeting movements of feeling with unmatched precision.
224 pages, Paperback
Published July 20, 2021
13 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Mansfield
985 books1,214 followersKathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp) was a prominent New Zealand modernist writer of short fiction who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 29, 2021
There are 6 short stories here from the New Zealand modernist writer, Katherine Mansfield, at home within the short story format that she makes her own. They are, however, of their time and place, with the social norms and attitudes that prevailed, particularly regarding race and women. The writing is artistic and sublime, as she flits between the light and shadows of the characters, brimming with social and psychological insights, casting her perceptive and observant eye on the subtly nuanced nature of relationships, identity, friendships, nature and the environment, family, marriage, children and women. There is joy, humour, sensitivity, compassion, loneliness and heartbreak, a piercing examination of the intimate, class and privilege, human fallibilities, the hidden depths of the self, loyalties, the yearnings and desires, and the limitations that women chafe at.
The first and last stories, Prelude and At the Bay, feature the same family, beginning with their house move to a more rural area, with 3 generations of women, Linda Burnell is married to Stanley, and whilst she has children, she does not love them and is not close to them, bubbling beneath the veneer are thoughts of the prison that family and marriage can be, condemned to the debilitating process of continuous childbirths, a fate from which there is no escape. There is the dissatisfaction of Beryl, wanting a lover who can see in her what others cannot, but the lover that appears is far from ideal. When Stanley leaves for work, there is a collective sigh of relief from all the women, including Alice, they are now free to be themselves, unburdened, and do what they want. These 2 stories are the longest in the collection, and probably my favourites.
The other stories are significantly shorter, the stilted and limited lives of Constantia and Josephine in The Daughters of the Late Colonel, and the young Pearl Button happily goes off with the 'dark' women, until the little blue men appear. In Psychology, the seemingly perfect relationship between a man and woman turns out not to be so, Bliss outlines 30 year old Bertha's inexplicable feelings of connection to Miss Pearl Fulton, a woman her husband dislikes, but is everything as it appears? These are exquisite stories to savour, vibrant and astute, with wonderful imagery, and if you have never read Katherine Mansfield before, this collection is a great place to start. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
The first and last stories, Prelude and At the Bay, feature the same family, beginning with their house move to a more rural area, with 3 generations of women, Linda Burnell is married to Stanley, and whilst she has children, she does not love them and is not close to them, bubbling beneath the veneer are thoughts of the prison that family and marriage can be, condemned to the debilitating process of continuous childbirths, a fate from which there is no escape. There is the dissatisfaction of Beryl, wanting a lover who can see in her what others cannot, but the lover that appears is far from ideal. When Stanley leaves for work, there is a collective sigh of relief from all the women, including Alice, they are now free to be themselves, unburdened, and do what they want. These 2 stories are the longest in the collection, and probably my favourites.
The other stories are significantly shorter, the stilted and limited lives of Constantia and Josephine in The Daughters of the Late Colonel, and the young Pearl Button happily goes off with the 'dark' women, until the little blue men appear. In Psychology, the seemingly perfect relationship between a man and woman turns out not to be so, Bliss outlines 30 year old Bertha's inexplicable feelings of connection to Miss Pearl Fulton, a woman her husband dislikes, but is everything as it appears? These are exquisite stories to savour, vibrant and astute, with wonderful imagery, and if you have never read Katherine Mansfield before, this collection is a great place to start. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
August 24, 2021
4★
“What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss—absolute bliss!—as though you’d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?...
Oh, is there no way you can express it without being ‘drunk and disorderly’? How idiotic civilization is!
Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”
Ah, thirty! Bertha is thirty and feeling on top of the world. She’s preparing for a small dinner party, making everything perfect. She pushes her way into the nursery and fairly snatches up her baby for an impulsive cuddle, annoying the nanny’s supper routine.
Katherine Mansfield has strong opinions about privilege and the self-centred attitudes of the wealthy. This particular young wife is riding for a fall, as the saying goes, and it’s rather satisfying to watch her build herself up beforehand. But I have to admit to some pangs of sympathy later.
This is from the title story, ‘Bliss’. There are six stories in the collection, and when I found that a couple felt familiar, I thought to check one of the first e-books I bought, which was a collection of Mansfield’s short stories. Sure enough, there they were. I had no idea they’d made enough of an impression on me, but they had.
I won’t attempt to itemise them. They all take place in the early 1900s, when people with money travelled by horse-drawn carriages and had servants. Mansfield does not poke fun at them, rather, she reveals their underlying insecurity and discomfort. She makes you want to shake the characters and tell them to wake up!
The story ‘Psychology’ is so poignant it made me squirm with frustration.
“When she opened the door and saw him standing there she was more pleased than ever before, and he, too, as he followed her into the studio, seemed very very happy to have come.”
That’s promising, right? She says she’s not busy, in fact, she’s just about to have some tea and invites him in to join her. Meanwhile, we hear each of them thinking to themselves how fond they are of each other. But what do they do? They talk about nothing, then books, then silence, then some current event, then silence.
It is beyond awkward – it is nerve-rackingly tender.
“There was another way for them to speak to each other, and in the new way he wanted to murmur: ‘Do you feel this too? Do you understand it at all?’ . . . Instead, to his horror, he heard himself say: ‘I must be off; I’m meeting Brand at six.’ What devil made him say that instead of the other?”
Yes, and what makes her answer and say he must hurry or he will be late?
“‘You’ve hurt me; you’ve hurt me! We’ve failed!’ said her secret self while she handed him his hat and stick, smiling gaily.”
A Mansfield story can appear to be a simple comedy of manners, but there is always something more. Sometimes it’s obvious, as in the example above where we hear the characters’ thoughts, but often it’s the irony in how her people behave in the situations she puts them in. There is some laugh-aloud humour, too - it's not just dry ‘literature’.
The characters and the settings may be dated, but the humanity is universal. Well worth a read. Thanks to Pushkin Press for publishing this collection and to NetGalley for the copy for review.
“What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss—absolute bliss!—as though you’d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?...
Oh, is there no way you can express it without being ‘drunk and disorderly’? How idiotic civilization is!
Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”
Ah, thirty! Bertha is thirty and feeling on top of the world. She’s preparing for a small dinner party, making everything perfect. She pushes her way into the nursery and fairly snatches up her baby for an impulsive cuddle, annoying the nanny’s supper routine.
Katherine Mansfield has strong opinions about privilege and the self-centred attitudes of the wealthy. This particular young wife is riding for a fall, as the saying goes, and it’s rather satisfying to watch her build herself up beforehand. But I have to admit to some pangs of sympathy later.
This is from the title story, ‘Bliss’. There are six stories in the collection, and when I found that a couple felt familiar, I thought to check one of the first e-books I bought, which was a collection of Mansfield’s short stories. Sure enough, there they were. I had no idea they’d made enough of an impression on me, but they had.
I won’t attempt to itemise them. They all take place in the early 1900s, when people with money travelled by horse-drawn carriages and had servants. Mansfield does not poke fun at them, rather, she reveals their underlying insecurity and discomfort. She makes you want to shake the characters and tell them to wake up!
The story ‘Psychology’ is so poignant it made me squirm with frustration.
“When she opened the door and saw him standing there she was more pleased than ever before, and he, too, as he followed her into the studio, seemed very very happy to have come.”
That’s promising, right? She says she’s not busy, in fact, she’s just about to have some tea and invites him in to join her. Meanwhile, we hear each of them thinking to themselves how fond they are of each other. But what do they do? They talk about nothing, then books, then silence, then some current event, then silence.
It is beyond awkward – it is nerve-rackingly tender.
“There was another way for them to speak to each other, and in the new way he wanted to murmur: ‘Do you feel this too? Do you understand it at all?’ . . . Instead, to his horror, he heard himself say: ‘I must be off; I’m meeting Brand at six.’ What devil made him say that instead of the other?”
Yes, and what makes her answer and say he must hurry or he will be late?
“‘You’ve hurt me; you’ve hurt me! We’ve failed!’ said her secret self while she handed him his hat and stick, smiling gaily.”
A Mansfield story can appear to be a simple comedy of manners, but there is always something more. Sometimes it’s obvious, as in the example above where we hear the characters’ thoughts, but often it’s the irony in how her people behave in the situations she puts them in. There is some laugh-aloud humour, too - it's not just dry ‘literature’.
The characters and the settings may be dated, but the humanity is universal. Well worth a read. Thanks to Pushkin Press for publishing this collection and to NetGalley for the copy for review.
August 1, 2021
The six stories in this collection from Katherine Mansfield were written between 1912 and 1922 and demonstrate her ear for and understanding of domestic relationships and (dis)harmonies. All of the characters appear dissatisfied with their lives in some way though, possibly because it was the early 20th century, no one was yet acting out. In “The Daughters of the Late Colonel,” on the death of their tyrannical father, two women are belatedly seeming to realize that they have missed out on a life. In the bookend stories, “Prelude” and “At the Bay,” the characters are searching for something other. A mother finds she has no feelings for her children and wishes her husband to be the romantic he used to be. Her husband, meanwhile, has become a man obsessed with accomplishments but not happy with anything.
Mansfield exposes some misogyny, racism, sexism, paternalistic attitudes of her time (and some still present in our time) in very well written stories that have also aged well. I recommend this book to short story readers.
A copy of this book was provided by Pushkin Press through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Mansfield exposes some misogyny, racism, sexism, paternalistic attitudes of her time (and some still present in our time) in very well written stories that have also aged well. I recommend this book to short story readers.
A copy of this book was provided by Pushkin Press through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
July 16, 2021
There are 6 short stories in this collection first published 1912-22 set either in New Zealand or London. Mansfield writes wonderful characters who on the surface seem to be happy and living their lives in socially accepted ways and then she gives us a glimpse into their inner selves putting everything else into question. Beautifully observed stories of children playing, women as friends or family or lovers and wondering on what else could be possible. My favourite here would be “Psychology”. A woman meets her lover (maybe he’s not her lover yet) and ponders all the complications and fallout from that relationship developing. “Bliss” is almost a drug induced dream. Is Bertha really as happy as she seems to be or is there something more she’s craving? There’s also the gentle satire of the bohemian lifestyle in the dinner guests. A lovely little collection from this great short story writer.
June 29, 2021
2.5 rounded up
Mansfield has been called 'the pioneer of the short story' which made me intrigued to give this collection a try. Strange Bliss collects a handful of her stories which focus on the relationships between women and the interior worlds of said women. These felt like character studies in miniature and provided the perfect snapshot view of Mansfield's way with words and her craft. I would say it often feels like you've been dumped in the middle of the story and it can take a while to orient yourself. That said, the writing is stellar, making this well worth checking out. I'll be trying The Garden Party and Other Stories next.
Thank you Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
At that moment an intense wave lifted Jonathan, rode past him, and broke along the beach with a joyful sound. What a beauty! And now there came another. That was the way to live -- carelessly, recklessly, opening oneself [...] To take things easy, not to fight against the ebb and flow of life but to give way to it -- that was what was needed. It was this tension that was all wrong. To live -- to live! And the perfect morning, so fresh and fair, basking in the light, as though laughing at its own beauty, seemed to whisper, 'Why not?'
Mansfield has been called 'the pioneer of the short story' which made me intrigued to give this collection a try. Strange Bliss collects a handful of her stories which focus on the relationships between women and the interior worlds of said women. These felt like character studies in miniature and provided the perfect snapshot view of Mansfield's way with words and her craft. I would say it often feels like you've been dumped in the middle of the story and it can take a while to orient yourself. That said, the writing is stellar, making this well worth checking out. I'll be trying The Garden Party and Other Stories next.
Thank you Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
December 16, 2023
I discovered Mansfield in university and read through her complete short story collection. And thus began my love for short stories.
It's so lovely to revisit some of her writing all these years later and remember what made me a fan. Mansfield writes about privilege, social hypocrisies, misogyny, racism and deception so simply yet beautifully. There is humour and warmth, but also sudden yet nuanced turns to the dark and the bleak. Such sensitive revelations about relationships and humanity, both hopeful and hopeless. Tiny, meaningless, ordinary worlds seem to expand somehow, becoming extraordinary and meaningful in Mansfield's hands. Every sentence has depth delivered through sublime and effortless writing. All of this makes me want to return to Mansfield again and again.
It's so lovely to revisit some of her writing all these years later and remember what made me a fan. Mansfield writes about privilege, social hypocrisies, misogyny, racism and deception so simply yet beautifully. There is humour and warmth, but also sudden yet nuanced turns to the dark and the bleak. Such sensitive revelations about relationships and humanity, both hopeful and hopeless. Tiny, meaningless, ordinary worlds seem to expand somehow, becoming extraordinary and meaningful in Mansfield's hands. Every sentence has depth delivered through sublime and effortless writing. All of this makes me want to return to Mansfield again and again.
June 27, 2021
How delicious to revisit these stories from the pen of New Zealand's greatest short story writer. Her writing, at its best, is a masterclass in 'showing, not telling', a process writers of today are encouraged to follow. For Mansfield it was probably as natural as breathing; it was all about her acute powers of observation and imagination; memory as well. And of course finding the exactly the right words and arranging them exactly the right way!
For me, a New Zealander raised in a small farming town more than 60 years after Mansfield was a child raised in a similar environment, one of her earlier stories "Prelude" (more of a novella than a short story) and one of her last stories "At The Bay" capture my memories so vividly it is astonishing. Of course the horses and carts of her childhood were trucks in mine, but the sheep are the same, the sheepdogs are the same (sheep and dogs are as acutely understood as people), the baby of the family being left behind are the same (poor little Lottie), and the holiday at the bach (beach bungalow) are the same.
Mansfield's life, tragically so very short, did not lack in richness(!)—it is mind-blowing to even read a list of the lovers, intimates, famous and infamous people she could call her friends (and indeed family), and exotic places she lived. Yet she found time to write herself into history, mostly in a short 5 year period before she died of TB, aged only 34 in January 1922. Her last years were lived in France, not New Zealand, an old-fashioned country that she not surprisingly outgrew very quickly, but which never-the-less seemed to, at some level, hold a special place in her heart.
If you haven't yet read a Katherine Mansfield story, this is a lovely collection with which to start. If you are a writer, whether of long or short fiction, reading these stories is better than any masterclass in writing you could possibly find.
And for those readers who have in mind a trip to NZ one day, if you go into the country, stay on a farm, and rent a cheap basic bach on one of our less touristy old-fashioned beaches! You'll probably find an old dog-eared copy of Katherine Mansfield short stories in the bookcase!
For me, a New Zealander raised in a small farming town more than 60 years after Mansfield was a child raised in a similar environment, one of her earlier stories "Prelude" (more of a novella than a short story) and one of her last stories "At The Bay" capture my memories so vividly it is astonishing. Of course the horses and carts of her childhood were trucks in mine, but the sheep are the same, the sheepdogs are the same (sheep and dogs are as acutely understood as people), the baby of the family being left behind are the same (poor little Lottie), and the holiday at the bach (beach bungalow) are the same.
Mansfield's life, tragically so very short, did not lack in richness(!)—it is mind-blowing to even read a list of the lovers, intimates, famous and infamous people she could call her friends (and indeed family), and exotic places she lived. Yet she found time to write herself into history, mostly in a short 5 year period before she died of TB, aged only 34 in January 1922. Her last years were lived in France, not New Zealand, an old-fashioned country that she not surprisingly outgrew very quickly, but which never-the-less seemed to, at some level, hold a special place in her heart.
If you haven't yet read a Katherine Mansfield story, this is a lovely collection with which to start. If you are a writer, whether of long or short fiction, reading these stories is better than any masterclass in writing you could possibly find.
And for those readers who have in mind a trip to NZ one day, if you go into the country, stay on a farm, and rent a cheap basic bach on one of our less touristy old-fashioned beaches! You'll probably find an old dog-eared copy of Katherine Mansfield short stories in the bookcase!
January 21, 2023
The first half was alright, but I really started enjoying this in the second half. At the Bay was my favorite, with beautiful descriptions and feminists themes woven masterfully into moments of everyday life.
December 1, 2023
I really liked Psychology.
November 10, 2024
To be quite honest, this didn‘t do anything for me.
October 16, 2021
While perusing books to read I came across the name Katherine Mansfield. It's a name familiar to me but I couldn't honestly say I was familiar with her work. And so I decided Strange Bliss could be my introduction. This book is a curated collection of six short stories.
Both the first and last stories are the longest ones and feature the Burnell family. They both follow a similar format of being sequences of snapshots over the course of a day. In the first, "Prelude" the family is moving into a more rural location and we see the move through the eyes of various family members, including the three young daughters in the family. In the last story, "At the Bay", the family is on holiday and it's an account of a day in the life where we sneak a look at all of them at various points, from the morning while waiting for patriarch Stan to depart for work until the end of the day when the sun sets and we see scenes that are a bit more private.
The other stories are much shorter but still quite interesting. I think the one I liked best was "The Daughters of the Late Colonel". Two spinster sisters have lived with their father all their lives and then he dies. The impact on the women is both freedom and fear as they must now embark on a life without the father in charge.
I also found "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped" fascinating as two women come along and find Pearl near the road and just take her along with them like it's the most natural thing. Pearl seems to think of it as an adventure that ends when the blue people show up to take her home.
In many cases, we actually get inside the heads of the women in the stories and know what they are thinking. Their hopes, desires, dislikes, and frustrations are all on display as we look into the lives being lead. There are male characters but they seem to be less developed with the focus on the female ones.
I should make note that these stories were written in the early 20th century and so some of the language used may make the reader a bit uncomfortable in modern times. One notable example is a reference to the Chinaman's shop, which would have seemed normal when written but definitely does not stand up in today's society.
Overall I'm quite satisfied with my introduction and give this four stars. I would like to thank Netgalley and Pushkin Press for providing an advanced reader copy for free. I am providing this review voluntarily.
I
Both the first and last stories are the longest ones and feature the Burnell family. They both follow a similar format of being sequences of snapshots over the course of a day. In the first, "Prelude" the family is moving into a more rural location and we see the move through the eyes of various family members, including the three young daughters in the family. In the last story, "At the Bay", the family is on holiday and it's an account of a day in the life where we sneak a look at all of them at various points, from the morning while waiting for patriarch Stan to depart for work until the end of the day when the sun sets and we see scenes that are a bit more private.
The other stories are much shorter but still quite interesting. I think the one I liked best was "The Daughters of the Late Colonel". Two spinster sisters have lived with their father all their lives and then he dies. The impact on the women is both freedom and fear as they must now embark on a life without the father in charge.
I also found "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped" fascinating as two women come along and find Pearl near the road and just take her along with them like it's the most natural thing. Pearl seems to think of it as an adventure that ends when the blue people show up to take her home.
In many cases, we actually get inside the heads of the women in the stories and know what they are thinking. Their hopes, desires, dislikes, and frustrations are all on display as we look into the lives being lead. There are male characters but they seem to be less developed with the focus on the female ones.
I should make note that these stories were written in the early 20th century and so some of the language used may make the reader a bit uncomfortable in modern times. One notable example is a reference to the Chinaman's shop, which would have seemed normal when written but definitely does not stand up in today's society.
Overall I'm quite satisfied with my introduction and give this four stars. I would like to thank Netgalley and Pushkin Press for providing an advanced reader copy for free. I am providing this review voluntarily.
I
October 2, 2023
02-10-23: just finished this book this morning. Magnificent. Glittering. Apparently Woolf envied Mansfield. I can see why. She does what Woolf did with the illumination of a woman’s experience, of female relationships, but she did it with less fruity language. Evocative through simplicity and very fine writing skills.
September 6, 2021
I got interested in Katherine Mansfield after reading about her in Ali Smith's Spring, where a character describes her, in short, as a slutty Kiwi badass. So, alas, I had some expectations starting this collection, which were thwarted only a dozen pages in - however, when my pulse quieted down, all the way down to a beginning-of-the-20th- century-New-Zealand beat, I began to appreciate the loveliness of Mansfield's language and the faraway fable landscape her frustrated women populate. The first and the last story, Prelude and At The Bay, share the protagonists and the location, and have a feeling of a novella. They are, more than a character study, something of a story study - you might hear the prologue and some of the less plot-driven chapters while staying for tea, but you will be gone before things happen and carry only the feel of the story with you. It is a good framing device, but ultimately ruined by the length of Prelude - at 98 pages and little to sink your teeth into, I wonder if any of the rest of the shorter, more exciting and rounded stories here (How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped, Psychology, Bliss and The Daughters of the Late Colonel) would have been a better choice for the opening.
My absolute favourite was Bliss, which keeps the reader tied until the very end, when it unravels so spectacularly that it is feels like a shot to the system. Which, after a snooze on the beach under a manuka tree, is just what one needs.
Thanks to Pushkin Press for the ARC.
My absolute favourite was Bliss, which keeps the reader tied until the very end, when it unravels so spectacularly that it is feels like a shot to the system. Which, after a snooze on the beach under a manuka tree, is just what one needs.
Thanks to Pushkin Press for the ARC.
September 6, 2021
Included in this new compilation of Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) works are stories where women are at the center. These 6 stories were previously published between 1910 and 1922, one of which, Prelude, was published by Hogarth Press, owned and operated by Virginia Woolf, who was a great friend and competitor of Mansfield; Woolf said of Mansfield, "The only writing I have ever been jealous of"
Mansfield, born in New Zealand, was a high-ranking Modernist, as well as a master crafter of the short story with Chekhov’s influence being felt.
These stories reflect the literary rule breaking that was happening as writers who had lived during the Victorian period were facing fast-paced changes in the world around them with industrialization, technological advancement, and eventually, two world wars.
Two of these stories, Prelude and At the Bay are connected in that they both involve the same family and were inspired by Mansfield’s childhood in New Zealand.
Reading these stories can feel awkward in the beginning because Modernist work is much different from anything being written today, and the societal standards and mores are, of course, very different; therefore, the reader might want to do a little preparatory reading/research before delving in so as to not be caught off guard and to better appreciate the intent of Modernism.
I did feel, and rather enjoyed, the story Psychology, in that even today, some nearly 100 years later, men and women still have conversations with each other out loud and in their thoughts.
#StrangeBliss #NetGalley
Thank you, Pushkin Press and NetGalley for an ebook version in exchange for my honest review.
Mansfield, born in New Zealand, was a high-ranking Modernist, as well as a master crafter of the short story with Chekhov’s influence being felt.
These stories reflect the literary rule breaking that was happening as writers who had lived during the Victorian period were facing fast-paced changes in the world around them with industrialization, technological advancement, and eventually, two world wars.
Two of these stories, Prelude and At the Bay are connected in that they both involve the same family and were inspired by Mansfield’s childhood in New Zealand.
Reading these stories can feel awkward in the beginning because Modernist work is much different from anything being written today, and the societal standards and mores are, of course, very different; therefore, the reader might want to do a little preparatory reading/research before delving in so as to not be caught off guard and to better appreciate the intent of Modernism.
I did feel, and rather enjoyed, the story Psychology, in that even today, some nearly 100 years later, men and women still have conversations with each other out loud and in their thoughts.
#StrangeBliss #NetGalley
Thank you, Pushkin Press and NetGalley for an ebook version in exchange for my honest review.
July 7, 2021
I’ve wanted to read Katherine Mansfield’s short stories for a long while and was very happy to receive advance copy of Pushkin Press new collection, Strange Bliss.
There are six stories in the collection, all beautifully observed and nuanced. The stories reflect social attitudes of the times (early 1900s), dealing with race, class and especially with limits placed on women. Mansfield’s women yearn for freedom, love or just being seen for themselves. The first (and the longest story), Prelude and the last, At the Bay focus on the same family, the Burnells, first moving to a new house, later on holiday. They are wonderfully evocative of time and place and I do wander whether Mansfield would have worked them into a longer episodic novel had she not died young. Sisters Linda and Beryl are the central characters, one exhausted by four childbirths feels imprisoned while the other fears she will become an old maid for lack of opportunity to meet anyone. Two sisters also feature in another story, The Daughters of the Colonel. Having spent all their lives under the roof of their strong-willed father, they are completely lost when he dies. I also particularly liked Bliss, where Bertha’s seemingly perfect marriage is revealed as anything but over the course of a dinner party.
I loved the stories and thought this new collection a great introduction to Katherine Mansfield’s writing. Highly recommended.
My thanks to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Strange Bliss.
There are six stories in the collection, all beautifully observed and nuanced. The stories reflect social attitudes of the times (early 1900s), dealing with race, class and especially with limits placed on women. Mansfield’s women yearn for freedom, love or just being seen for themselves. The first (and the longest story), Prelude and the last, At the Bay focus on the same family, the Burnells, first moving to a new house, later on holiday. They are wonderfully evocative of time and place and I do wander whether Mansfield would have worked them into a longer episodic novel had she not died young. Sisters Linda and Beryl are the central characters, one exhausted by four childbirths feels imprisoned while the other fears she will become an old maid for lack of opportunity to meet anyone. Two sisters also feature in another story, The Daughters of the Colonel. Having spent all their lives under the roof of their strong-willed father, they are completely lost when he dies. I also particularly liked Bliss, where Bertha’s seemingly perfect marriage is revealed as anything but over the course of a dinner party.
I loved the stories and thought this new collection a great introduction to Katherine Mansfield’s writing. Highly recommended.
My thanks to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Strange Bliss.
September 12, 2021
'Katherine Mansfield's life straddled the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
She is credited along with James Joyce as a creator of the modern short story. and was something of a rival of Virginia Woolf The New Zealand-born Englishwoman embraced a Bohemian lifestyle and became involved in a series of scandalous relationships, which greatly influenced some of her most significant work.' Her stories suggest someone writing in a vastly different era, one which makes some younger readers find intolerable and unreadable. What is clear to this older reader is that the best way to deal with the disturbing limitations of past norms is to listen to those who lived there and pushed the boundaries. This is a new collection of Mansfield's stories centered on relationships between women and girls in a male dominated era. Enjoy and be enlightened!
She is credited along with James Joyce as a creator of the modern short story. and was something of a rival of Virginia Woolf The New Zealand-born Englishwoman embraced a Bohemian lifestyle and became involved in a series of scandalous relationships, which greatly influenced some of her most significant work.' Her stories suggest someone writing in a vastly different era, one which makes some younger readers find intolerable and unreadable. What is clear to this older reader is that the best way to deal with the disturbing limitations of past norms is to listen to those who lived there and pushed the boundaries. This is a new collection of Mansfield's stories centered on relationships between women and girls in a male dominated era. Enjoy and be enlightened!
December 29, 2022
probably the oldest ~modern~ short story collection i’ve read (published in the 1910s/20s) and i was struck by how many of the concerns and intricacies of womanhood are still v relatable today!!!
April 9, 2023
funny, it read like translated fiction. Anyone to agree or explain why?
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