Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield

Selected Stories Reviews

• 
  Essareh

  «ببین... من هیچ زندگی بیرونی‌ای ندارم. اسم خیلی چیزها را بلد نیستم، مثلاً اسم درخت‌ها و این‌جور چیزها. هیچ‌وقت هم متوجه جاها و اسباب و اثاث و قیافه آدم‌ها نمی‌شوم. همه اتاق‌ها به نظرم شکل هم هستند‌، یک جایی که آدم بنشیند و چیز بخواند یا حرف بزند...»
  
  از داستان «روان‌شناسی»
• 
  Zanna

  
  Mansfield was revered to the point of envy as a writer by Virginia Woolf. Her stories are written in a distinctive style, somehow spare and yet lush, usually accessible and emotionally charged, with extraordinary characters, often so well realised that they take up residence in the reader's consciousness. I read this as I began my solitary travels in Brazil, and Kezia followed me everywhere through those months; her longing for her grandmother's unconditional love and the security of her embraces reflected my constant mindfulness of my family and especially my mother's concern for my safety.
  
  However, the genius of these stories goes much deeper than aesthetic success and emotional resonance. They are innovative, form-breaking and rich in critical thought. The Aloe and Prelude critique the subjugation of women by the construction of their sexuality and roles, both through the characters thoughts, and structurally, by refusing the climax/resolution structure of traditional narrative. Rather they are excerpts from a fluid cycle incorporating moments of ecstatic pleasure and self-awareness/development.
  
  Mansfield's use of momentary 'bliss' (one of her stories has this title, and actually explicitly discusses the self-engulfing state of bliss) is more sophisticated than the naive aestheticism of Wilde (maybe I should say his disciples rather than slander an important writer): it affirms the inexpressible pleasure of being alive, drawing the reader directly into the immediacy of the ecstatic moment, but it goes on to develop the feeling in relation to dramatic irony and other pleasures-of-reading. It reflects Barthes' concept of pleasure-as-suspension, in which ecstatic moments have a subversive function, shrugging off attempts to appropriate them to serve restrictive constructions of identity such as gender.
  
  Commentators have pointed out that Mansfield is part of the innovative strain of modernism that shortened the unit of time in fiction from the year (in every pre-twentieth century novel, every traditional novel) to the day, allowing for a focus on the epiphany, the 'one blazing moment' in Mansfield's words, which she said allows us to 'appreciate the importance of one "spiritual event" rather than another'. This helps explain why short story form has been a playground for innovative writers since Mansfield, Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence etc.
  
• 
  Jowita Mazurkiewicz

  Ah, co to są za opowiadania!!!
  Subtelne, skrzące, sensualne, zamykające głębię doświadczeń w niepozornych detalach, doskonale kadrujące subiektywną rzeczywistość nieoczywistych postaci, z ironią wskazujące przepaść między klasami. Peryferyjne, filmowe, rytmiczne, kłujące w serce.
  
  Dlaczego nie ma Katherine Mansfield w kanonie? Dlaczego mieści się w nim tylko Virginia Woolf? Proszę, czytajmy je obie, w jak największych ilościach!
• 
  Banafsheh

  این کتاب در واقع جلد دوم گاردن پارتی محسوب میشه. مجموعه ای از داستانهای کوتاه کاترین منسفیلد به انتخاب و ترجمه نرگس انتخابی.
  پانزده داستان کوتاه توی این مجموعه گنجونده شده. من از بین داستانها «خلیج»، «کودکی که خسته بود»، «سم»، «مگس» و خود «یک فنجان چای» رو بیشتر از بقیه دوست داشتم.
  
  منسفیلد هم مثل چخوف از زندگی روزمره مینویسه. توی داستانهاش هیچ قهرمانی نیست. شروع و پایان قصه هاش ناگهانیه ولی اون حس مطبوعی که بعد از تموم شدن هر قصه میاد سراغ آدم، اون حسی که میگی منظورت رو فهمیدم از نوشتن این قصه، حسی که شاید با خوندن رمانهای بلند هم بهت دست نده، اون حس رو من همیشه از خوندن داستانها گرفتم.
  به نظرم نقطه مشترک منسفیلد و چخوف که من خیلی دوستش دارم اینه که فقط قصه میگن. قصه آدمهای زندگیمون رو. نتیجه نمیگیرن. نتیجه رو مثل یه جمله قصار نمیزارن وسط قصه اشون. فقط قصه میگن ولی خواننده بعد از تموم شدن هر قصه هدف و نتیجه رو میگیره یا بهتر بگم حسش میکنه. اینه که منو حسابی جذب داستانهای کوتاه این دو نفر کرده.
  یک اعترافی هم لازمه بکنم: من داستانهای «گاردن پارتی» رو خیلی خیلی بیشتر از «یک فنجان چای» دوست داشتم.
• 
  Martyna Antonina

  Fenomenalny zbiór modernistycznych mikrostanów ludzkiej czułości. Mansfield restrukturalizuje dynamizm osobowości sensualną stabilnością języka; zachwyca lekkością wobec kontrowersji, które wytwarza, czaruje feministycznym portretem pseudoutopijnej, kobiecej rzeczywistości, rozkochuje w sobie swoimi umiejętnościami obserwacji. Ludzkość sama się w jej dziełach analizuje, a zabieg rozszczepienia na wiele różnych percepcji tylko wzmacnia przekaz głównej tezy o elastyczności świata - w całej jego pierwotnej kruchości. Alegoryczne smaczki w postaci jakby wyszeptanej - bo niepodanej dosłownie - symboliki materializmu wchodzą w polemikę z intelektualną strukturą świata, który pisze. A na koniec - nie mogłabym nie pochwalić tego pozornie złośliwego cynizmu jej pióra, który tak naprawdę służy zmiękczeniu społeczeństwa i ukryciu literackiego pastiszu względem klasowości, normatywności, określoności i w ogóle całej światowości świata.
  Już wiem, czym tak zachwycała się Virginia Woolf.
• 
  Senga

  Cóż za perełki!
  Połączenie malarskości opisów, tak wyraźnych i szczegółowych, że czytelnik wpada w miejsce akcji po uszy, uczestniczy bezpośrednio w wydarzeniach. Bogata, barwna, pobudzająca zmysły scenografia sprawia wrażenie bardzo dobrze dopracowanego planu filmowego. Nietypowe sposoby prowadzenia narracji, wrzucanie odbiorcy w sam środek wydarzeń, zmiany perspektyw i ujęć, jeszcze podtrzymują to wrażenie.
  Najważniejsze jednak są portrety - przede wszystkim kobiet. Szczere, autentyczne, niepozbawione cielesności i prawdziwych przeżyć, które próbują znaleźć ujście spod gorsetów i ograniczeń narzuconych przez męski, patriarchalny świat ściśle określonych ról społecznych. Postaci Mainsfield są bardzo różnorodne i niejednoznaczne. Pochodzą z różnych warstw społecznych, autorka podejmuje krytykę klasowości i ściśle określonych pozycji w społeczeństwie. Nie jest to jednak krytyka oceniająca, czy moralizatorska. Stosuje raczej pokazanie absurdu sytuacji, podkreślenie rysy, wyszydzenie. Taki sam jest jej stosunek wobec wszystkich bohaterów - uważnie ich obserwuje i portretuje, ale pozostaje obiektywna, co tylko dodaje im autentyczności. Postaci są dopracowane, mówią różnymi językami, wywołują emocje. Przyglądanie się bardzo prywatnym momentom życia kobiet sprzed stu lat skłania do przemyśleń i budzi mnóstwo skojarzeń, niestety wskazujących, że mnóstwo zmian, które od tego czasu zaszły, jest tylko pozornych.
  Katherine Mansfield poza świetnym warsztatem pisarskim, ma fantastyczne poczucie humoru, w moim ulubionym gorzkim wydaniu. Niemal w każdym z opowiadań są elementy satyryczne, najbardziej przygnębiające momenty podszyte są ironią, która poprzez kontrast jeszcze bardziej podkreśla beznadzieję przedstawianej sytuacji.
  Virginia Woolf mówiła, że zazdrości Mansfield i czerpała z jej nowatorskich rozwiązań mnóstwo inspiracji. Jednak w Polsce nowozelandzka pisarka popadła w zapomnienie. Ogromnie się cieszę, że ktoś się o nią upomniał!
• 
  Robert

  There seem to be two schools of thought regarding what makes a great short story. (There may be more - tell me about them if you can think of any.) I'm going to call them the Bradbury School and the Chekov School. I was brought up to love the Bradbury School where-in the perfect short story tells a story and has a remarkable ending that might be a revelation or plot twist or unexpected action or possibly even an ambiguous cliff-hanger. The absolute best of these will have a crucial and memorable final sentence.
  
  Then there's the Chekov School in which the ideal is for absolutely nothing to happen, no plot, no surprise ending, just an excruciating description of minutiae from the perspective of a usually dull or unpleasant character. Implication is everything.
  
  Well, as you may have already guessed, I hate the Chekov School and Mansfield falls heavily into this camp. So heavily that it took most of her life to claw her way back onto her knees and stretch one hand out towards the Bradbury School before she died, depressingly young, from tuberculosis.
  
  In this entire collection there are fewer then five stories that I really liked and they are concentrated near the beginning and end of what is a chronologically ordered selection. In those few stories we see not only acute perception of character but also hatred of class division and snobbery. Most of this book was masochistic torture and the few reasonable quality items were no compensation.
• 
  Sarah

  I couldn't find the exact collection that I own, so I'll be reviewing her, generally.
  
  Mansfield had a talent for atmosphere, creating sensory impressions that are (still) both physically and emotionally vivid to the reader. The effect is a very solitary voice, -- yet close to the ear, and inclusive in spirit. She never argued a story. She let the story speak for itself.
  
  To be honest, there were times I didn't quite know what she was getting at. But then, I am an idiot. About midway through, around 1918, the stories suddenly develop a kind of wholeness that makes them brilliant. I can see why Virginia Woolf admired her.
  
  There is one thing, however, that I really must address:
  
  "He tore the little cat out of his coat and swung it by its tail and flung it out to the sewer opening." -- from Ole Underwood, 1912
  
  "What creepy things cats are!" -- from Bliss, 1918
  
  "...and an old brown cat without a tail appeared from nowhere, and began greedily and silently drinking up the spill." -- from Pictures, 1919
  
  Dude.
  
  
• 
  Megi Kamashidze

  მოკლედ, ბრიტანული ლიტერატურის კურსის ფარგლებში მომიწია მენსფილდის კითხვა, ჰოდა, ეს ქალი აღმოჩნდა ძალიან მაგარი და მამაცი, ნამდვილად არ იქნებოდა მარტივი ასე ღიად წერა ქალებზე და მათ რეალურ ემოციებზე ვიქტორიანულ ბრიტანეთში. ყველა მოთხრობა, რაც წავიკითხე ძალიან ლამაზი და გულწრფელია. ტყუილად კი არ ამბობდა ვირჯინია, ერთადერთია ვის ნაწერებზეც ვეჭვიანობო <3
  
• 
  Anna

  Opowiadania Katherine Mansfield należą już do klasyki literatury angielskojęzycznej, ja sięgnęłam po nie dopiero teraz, w nowym przekładzie Magdy Heydel. Te nietuzinkowe teksty, w których centrum zawsze stoi kobieta, zajęły mnie na dłużej, niż się spodziewałam. Podobnie, wbrew moim oczekiwaniom, nie wszystkie opowiadania mnie ujęły. By je zrozumieć i docenić, należy poznać życiorys autorki, a także warto zapoznać się ze świetnym posłowiem tłumaczki. Wychowana w zamożnej rodzinie w Nowej Zelandii Katherine zapewnie nigdy nie osiągnęłaby sukcesów literackich, gdyby nie wyjechała do Londynu. Tam zerwała ze wszystkimi konwenansami wpajanymi jej od dzieciństwa, poznała szeroki krąg literacki, prowadziła swobodne życie, podróżowała po Europie i wreszcie zachorowała na gruźlicę, która stała się jej wyrokiem.
  
  Te przepełnione melancholią opowiadania czerpią z doświadczeń autorki - jej dzieciństwa w Nowej Zelandii, podróży po tym kraju, ale także wypraw do Niemiec do sanatorium i wielu innych doświadczeń. Mansfield stara się uchwycić kobiety na rozdrożu - uwikłane w zasady, konwenanse, traktowane przemocowo. Ten ostatni temat przewija się bardzo delikatnie, jest ledwie naznaczony, niemal nieuchwytny, ale bardzo poruszający. Szczególnie widać to w opowiadaniu o guwernantce, która wybiera się do pracy do Niemiec i poznaje w pociągu starszego mężczyznę, po którym nie spodziewa się złych zamiarów. Jej zaufanie, naiwność i niewiedza zostaną bez skrupułów wykorzystane, a dziewczyna zostanie naznaczona na zawsze. Podobnie jest w przypadku dwóch sióstr, które opiekowały się chorym ojcem. Pod okiem tyrana nie miały odwagi sformułować ani jednej niezależnej myśli - gdy ojciec umiera, ich lęki i niepewność są na pierwszy rzut oka komiczne, ale na drugi już przeraźliwie smutne.
  
  Ciąg dalszy:
  http://przeczytalamksiazke.blogspot.c...
• 
  Samir Rawas Sarayji

  A modernist writer who doesn’t shy away from purely character-driven stories. Her technique of free indirect discourse (in many of the stories) takes some getting used to, but then it’s sweet sailing. The stories seem almost frivolous on the surface, but dig a little deeper and this is very far from the truth. They are as complex and thought-provoking as all good literature ought to be.
• 
  Xandre

  profound and delightful, near-perfect short stories...why has it taken me this long to get around to mansfield? i enjoyed reading this so much. almost can’t believe that such a writer came out of little old WGTN, NZ. but then again, of course! imploring all my goodreads friends to get their hands on a book of hers someday soon, too
• 
  AC

  Always a pleasure to read Mansfield. What a marvelous writer. “At the Bay”, written near the end of her life — while she was in continual misery — is truly a gorgeous story.
• 
  Hoora

  مجموعه پانزده داستان کوتاه با موضوعات متنوع که اکثراً در مورد ازدواج و مسائل مربوط به آن هستند یا کودکی که مورد آزار و اذیت قرار می گیرد و...
  به شخصه داستان های کودکی که خسته بود، چگونه پِرل باتِن دزدیده شد؟، خدمتکار و بانو، درس آواز، خانه ی عروسکی و یک فنجان چای، را دوست داشتم.
• 
  Katika

  To jest naprawdę tak dobre jak mówią! Zaskakująco aktualne, jak na prozę sprzed stu lat. Codzienność, detale, emocje, relacje, kobiecość. Chce się więcej.
• 
  Tatiana

  Mansfield's writing is SO BEAUTIFUL!!! I got to explore it in my ENGL110 lectures but wanted to continue reading and finish it even after the semester was over... good stuff. :D
• 
  Michelle

  First ever foray into Katherine Mansfield.
  First off, I’ll be honest and just get it out that I didn’t quite know what Mansfield was getting at for the most times. I found her writing to be ambiguous especially at the beginning, but as I read on, I began to get a sense of understanding of her stories.
  
  Some of my favourite are:
  • A Cup of Tea
  • The Little Girl
  • The Garden Party
  • Late at Night
  • Two Tuppenny Ones, Please
  • The Black Cap
  • A Suburban Fairy Tale
  • Sixpence
  • How Pearl Button was Kidnapped
  • The Tiredness of Rosabel
  
  She liked trapping her characters in unresolved epiphany. They had sense of duty to do what’s right, or, what will get them out of their appointed roles, and yet nothing. I would be lying if I didn’t feel like I’m one of her characters with all of my never ending resolutions that usually came up to nothing. In short, they were real—us. She let the stories speak for themselves through the vivid simple scenes and ultimately, her characters left their impressions.
  
  It is both satisfying and unsatisfying. She left me full of conjectures of what could’ve been and what happened to these people following the events. Her writing is like a quiet storm—came silently, and left everything devastated in its wake.
  
• 
  Calzean

  These stories are nearly 100 years old but are still very readable, enjoyable and immensely clever. Mansfield was ahead of her time in being able to depict the discriminatory practices of the English class system with all its snobbery and false airs. She also had great empathy for the working class who loyally toiled to support the undeserved privileged.
  
  She also wrote about a range of people - children, the elderly, the naive, the rich, the poor. Quiet brilliant.
  
  
• 
  Rachael Lum

  Her stories are focused on building the characters rather than the plot, a style that took me a while to get used to. Some endings had me going 'wait...what just happened', only for me to reread and realise that it was nothing. Nothing happens.
  
  Instead the beauty is in the sparsity and subtle descriptions, which adds a certain emotional vividness. I'm not normally fond of Modernist writing, but I enjoyed some of Mansfield's stories.
• 
  Noah Goats

  This is a lovely collection of beautifully written stories about well drawn characters who find themselves in pivotal situations in their lives. The first two or three stories were my least favorite in the collection, but I'm glad I stuck with it. What a tragedy that Mansfield died so young.
• 
  مسعود

  ظرافت توصیف‌ها، فضاسازی، شخصیت‌پردازی، نکته‌سنجی در توصیف ارتباط آدم‌ها
  این‌ها نقاط قوت داستان‌های منفیلد هستند.
  البته اگر به دنبال پلات و ماجرا و شگفتی و ... باشید داستان‌ها تقریبا چیزی برای ارائه ندارند. اما فضای خوش و حس و حال خوبی را برایتان رقم می‌زنند و گاهی در توصیف یک رفتار از شخصیت یا در توصیف انگیزه او چشمتان برق می‌زند، جهان داستان‌ها هم آنقدر زنده و آنقدر خوش هست که بعدترها گاهی دلتان بخواهد سری دوباره به دنیای داستانهای این کتاب بزنید
• 
  holly gc

  I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful array of Mansfield’s work. She has such an alluring and delicate charm to her narrative. Her writing touches upon youth, differing perspectives, dual meanings, fate, and insecurity. She evokes the dissatisfaction of life but simultaneously the hyper-idealisation that stems from our disappointment. Nothing is unequivocally real; there is always a ‘stage’, a meta-narrative, an orchestra of emotions conducted by nature, ironically supernatural. Her characters often paint their feelings through the melancholic, silvery outside world. Mansfield realises that we rarely own up to our own emotions, often placing them on a glossy cake-stand, leaving them to dry and be eaten up. She allows her characters to become overgrown and thorny, without a single straightforward facet to them. This wandering and mutable nature is very modernist and subsequently, vitalist (vitalism engaged with life as a constant process of metamorphosis) illustrating this constant sudden change in Mansfield’s characters. Sometimes there are sudden fires, bursts of desire and youth, drains of energy, of melancholy, of dullness. There is a grey draping cloth around the world that Mansfield torments us with. But she makes a fairy-lit den out of it, filled with half-shadowy excitement. Often her characters glimpse sight of the greyness again but will sometimes grow back into their dream-like, clueless states. A comforting but torturous song sung ‘over and over’.
• 
  James Wilkinson

  This was a little difficult to get into. Some of her themes I found initially ambiguous but this panned out in relation to the number of stories I read. What becomes clear is the simple scenes that are evoked and how these straightforward scenes are made to symbolise the subtle inner workings of her fabulous characters. The heartbreaking truths of many of her stories is how her characters seem on the brink of making beneficial changes to their lives but are somehow trapped or harried into taking the easy option and staying in their appointed roles. It is a rewarding selection of stories by a sophisticated writer, whose writing is at times beautifully evocative in its almost poetic imagery as well as extraordinarily fluid in her analogies between scenes and characters.
• 
  Phillip Kay

  A selection of 73 stories originally published in 1965 by Alfred A Knopf. Contains the amateurish "From a German Pension" stories, the great "Bliss", the two masterpieces which are surely novel fragments about her childhood, "Prelude" and "At the Bay", and the final work which contains many accomplished stories. About 12 good stories here in a career which was cut short before it really developed. No criticism I've noticed explores Mansfield's relation to Chekhov and many seem to credit Mansfield with the latter's achievement. A great writer who may have been greater had she lived, but who wrote some absorbing and enchanting work.
• 
  Saide

  Kathrine Mansfield is a true master of un resolved epiphany...Her characters never find out what can be done to make thing right. Like Tchekouf, she shows the gun in first chapter and for sure will shoot the barrel in the end.
  She is a pioneer in feminist writing. Short stories such as Miss Brill, The Fly, Je ne parle pa francies, doll house, Bliss are among the best short stories of the world.
• 
  Lauren

  I'll tend to read a story from this book here and there. On a rainy night, I'll read one of the stories from this book. They're pretty short, but each one is very profound. I'll probably be reading it for a long time because I don't want it to end :).
• 
  Masiesmaili

  زن و دخترهایش سر درنمی‌آوردند او در سیتی چه‌کار می‌کند و فکر می‌کردند فقط اسباب دردسر دوستانش می‌شود... خب، شاید هم می���شد. به‌هرحال آدم‌ها به آخرین لذت‌های زندگی‌شان چنگ می‌اندازند،
  ‏درست مثل درخت که دل به آخرین برگ‌هایش می‌بندد.
  
  ‏– داستان «مگس»، ⁦‪کاترین‬⁩ ⁦‪منسفیلد‬⁩
• 
  Zach Short

  Concise, colorful, and cutting. Beautiful prose and deeply personal themes. Instant favorite among authors.