The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories by Malcolm Bradbury

The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories Reviews

• 
  Paul Bryant

  Contains one of PB's All Time Greats :
  
  "Weekend" by Fay Weldon (1978)
  
  The development of one's own consciousness is often incremental, but sometimes, on occasion, you get to experience epiphanies, when something that's been hanging around just over your left shoulder mumbling and buzzing faintly suddenly wheels right round and stares at you right in the face and you see things for what they are. And it's a shock. On even fewer occasions these epiphanies come from books. This story was one such for me. It's a kind of horror story with universal application for men and women. It's the single most pungent, most hair-raising encapsulation of What Feminists Are On About I've ever come across. It blew my mind open like Fay Weldon had broke into my skull and planted gelignite.
  One of the scariest things about it is that there's no violence, no swearing, no overt male brutality at all. It's just an account of middle-class English family life, no big dramas. Nobody dies, no one gets married, no one gets born. So what makes it so explosive? Because it shows the reader, sentence by sentence, the interior violence, the interior horror of the shit that gets piled onto women all the time every day by the situations they get maneouvered into by the expectations of men and the roles they've been educated to accept. The story's situation is so simple : our couple are fairly well-off but not especially rich. They're just wealthy enough to have bought themselves a second home which is, naturally, in the country. So every weekend (hence the title) they pile the kids and a whole lot of food and drink into the Range Rover and swan off down to Swan-Throttling-On-Thames. What could be nicer? What more pleasant? & while they're at it they invite Harry and Susan down for Sunday lunch...he's the life and soul and she's such a pretty little thing. And then - for the wife - the interior horror begins. All she has to do is to reconstruct the country house into the house they live in during the week, clean it, make all the meals, having remembered to bring all the right food, because the nearest supermarket is an hour away, then entertain the kids because daddy's on the phone to his office buddies all the time, then plan the giant haute cuisine meal with the friends for Sunday, then smile excitedly when husband says he's invited yet another random pal for Saturday dinner, so that's something else, and since this pal is important in the company can she make a bit of an effort, and then since it's the weekend he's thinking they really ought to have some sex because they hadn't had time all week.... and on and on and on it goes for about 40 pages, then the weekend's over and they pile everything into the Range Rover and head back to London, with the entrancing prospect of repeating the whole thing the following weekend but next weekend would she mind if he asked her to look a bit more cheerful because after all, what did they buy this cottage in the country for if it just causes long faces and irritableness?
  Anyway, I hope I've given a hint of the horror. This was really seeing things from a whole new perspective for me. I'd heard a lot of the rhetoric of course, I'd read Kate Millett and Germaine and even Andrea Dworkin, god help me, but that was theory, and this little story by Fay Weldon was a whole other thing. It changed me. In my mind it marked the end of my Stupid Hippy phase and the beginning of my Hard Line Politics phase.
  
  
• 
  Jamie

  Rushdie, Ishiguro, and Greene particularly knocked it out of the park. (Naturally.) If you wanted to know, Graham Greene can do more with four pages than most novelists can with forty, and Rushdie can do more with a sentence than most can with a book.
• 
  Jason Mills

  There are impressive stories in here - Lessing, Fowles, Sillitoe, Rushdie, Weldon and Hughes wrote some of the offerings that stick in my mind - and there aren't any turkeys. But overall the package seems kinda colourless: dismal stories of failed relationships; academic writers writing about academics and writers; prose that is clever, but apologetically rather than excitingly. Compare this with the entertainment and stimulation of a decent science fiction anthology, or (for instance) George R R Martin's Rretrospective collection, and it looks a bit grey and drizzly...
• 
  Nathaniel Taylor

  The writing itself was impeccable. The subject matter (decaying relationships, mostly marital) was repetitive. Could have operated much better under a different title: "Modern British Short Stories About Decaying Relationships, Mostly Marital". Still good. Look out for a ravishingly rancid little piece from the great Dylan Thomas in this one.
  
  All in all, definitely recommended!
• 
  Ian Russell

  I first read these about three or four years ago, I think. A mixed bunch but very much enjoyed. I'm giving it another go starting, fairly randomly this time, with the ones I remember liking the most.
  
  Alan Sillitoe is a great writer of the vernacular, capturing that pre-war, British working-class austerity, you almost believe you're imagining it unfold in sepia.
  
  I remember this book turned me onto a lot of women authors I wouldn't have considered, believing they wrote about women's issues but you can be so wrong! Trouble is, I can't remember which ones now.... time to re-read!
• 
  Chas Bayfield

  What a book! This kick started everything for me. Having been newly dumped by a 'reader', I began to devour books to see what it was about them (and not me!) she loved. This was a perfect jumping off point - Dylan Thomas, Marin Amis, Doris Lessing, Malcolm Bradbury, Fay Weldon - I was so spoiled. Then I ran off and read their novels - one each so not to be favouritist, and by the end of it I'd read so much that I got a job in a brand new book store which opened in Kensington. My love of reading began with this book.
• 
  Betheliza

  I have finished the wretched boring thing. I liked perhaps 30% of the stories, and there were others I could appreciate. I left the most boring 'til last and I had to half read the last two aloud as I simply couldn't concentrate from the beginning to the end of a sentence. I think that, as I started reading this anthology so long ago, I will have to go back and read the ones I actually enjoyed again.
• 
  Camille

  assigned in college; I come back to it now and then. Favorites:
  
  for amusement: Memories of the Space Age (JG Ballard), The House of the Famous Poet (Muriel Spark). Also, Let Me Count the Times (369), The Enigma (John Fowles)
  for enjoyable oddity: The Burning Baby (Dylan Thomas), A Few Selected Sentences (BS Johnson)
  for gender commentary: To Room Nineteen (Doris Lessing) and Weekend (Fay Weldon)
  for insight on what good writing looks like: Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (Beryl Bainbridge), Psychopolis (Ian McEwan), A Family Supper (Kazuro Ishiguro), My Wife is a White Russian (Rose Tremain)
  for my favorite: Structural Anthropology (Adam Mars-Jones)
• 
  Rebeka

  Bija konkrēti stāsti, kuri bija interesanti un lasīšanas vērti. Īpaši prātā nāk Rushdie, Barnes, Ishiguro, Lodge un Weldon.
  
  Pārāk daudzi rakstīja par rakstīšanu un par gulēšanu ar studentēm. Nezināju, ka tas ir tik izplatīti. Vispār tas atsvešinātais tonis, kādā daudzi vīrieši rakstīja par sievietēm… Madonna-Whore complex is alive and real.
  
  Lielākoties vilšanās gan. Daži bija neizturami garlaicīgumā vai pieturējās pie klišejas, ko es nezinu kā savādāk nosaukt, ja ne par ‘īsā stāsta šokējošo virpuli’, kur beigās stāsts piepeši kļūst vairāk sirreāls un metafizisks, kur piepeši nejēgā šķīst asinis un varoņi pieņem neiedomājamus lēmumus. Boo! Boring.
• 
  Margaret

  This book introduced me to Doris Lessing, for which I will be eternally grateful.
• 
  Elisabetta

  Storie scritte molto bene che parlano di persone abbastanza noiose
• 
  blueisthenewpink

  As I was reading a masterful short story by Salman Rushdie, he was being stabbed on stage. I had just talked about how certain authors in this collection (and in literature, generally) operate on a different level than others who are still very good, then I read about the contemptible attack. I hope he will recover as soon and as completely as possible.
  
  I found this to be a very strong collection, with absolutely no weak points, and some real gems. Each short story was at least fine, but some were simply outstanding:
  
  Samuel Beckett: Ping - I have a soft spot for the nonsense which of course does have sense and such a strong rhythm in all its minimalism that it is positively enjoyable
  
  Dylan Thomas: The Burning Baby - nightmarish as its title, intense and skilful, with all due respect, trying to purge my memory of it
  
  Ted Hughes: The Rain Horse - a tad less nightmarish but still very much in that territory, also very intense and skilful
  
  Salman Rushdie: The Prophet's Hair - this is where I had to pause to acknowledge how certain authors produced works that were not better but on a completely different level of quality than others, and those others were also very good. (for me, authors of this different quality include Auster, Nabokov, Esterházy) I intend to use this in ESL lessons as I did with the following one.
  
  Kazuo Ishiguro: A Family Supper What a twist! I loved how he built up the readers' expectations very clearly towards one final outcome and then provided an utter anticlimax. This is a short story I already used with my C1-level students. As I was making photocopies for them to read, I accidentally dropped the last page, which gave me the idea to make them write their own ending to the story. (Some loved the idea, others detested it.) I only gave them the last page when they handed in their versions. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and would definitely repeat with other groups.
  
  I really appreciate the following as well:
  Graham Greene: The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen - another one up for ESL lessons
  William Golding: Miss Pulkinhorn
  Alan Sillitoe: The Fishing-boat Picture
  Doris Lessing: To Room Nineteen
  Muriel Spark: The House of the Famous Poet
  John Fowles: The Enigma - started as a detective story but turned out to be something even better
  Malcolm Bradbury: Composition - with its 3 different endings
  Beryl Bainbridge: Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie - very powerful
  Ian McEwan: Psychopolis - turning so suddenly from a constant mood, and capturing the shock perfectly
  Julian Barnes: One of a Kind
  Clive Sinclair: Bedbugs
• 
  Iva

  In Malcolm Bradbury's introduction to this wonderful collection, he mentions that "only a few British writers have made the short story their first or only form, and a good many of our finest short story writers also happen to be our finest novelists". And of course these novelists can create great short stories:
  Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, John Fowles (the best!), David Lodge, Beryl Bainbridge, Rose Tremain, Kazuo Ishiguro and practically everyone included in this well selected collection. The American reader may not have had access to these stories. The definition of modern is after WWII. Themes vary, but often have themes dealing with relationships; often marital or families. These are haunting stories and are worth re-reading.
• 
  Beth Hall

  Bought for class. Some good stuff in here.
• 
  Emma Laureano

  3.5
• 
  Clare

  2.5 stars
• 
  Elena

  My personal favourites: A Family Man, A Family Supper, The Fishing-boat Picture, The House of the Famous Poet, Weekend and Seraglio
• 
  Russio

  Variable fare with some cracking writers, sometimes on cracking form. I read this in two halves: for a short story course at uni (1st half) and then with the completist zeal that I have developed, now, twice that age. I remember rating Rushdie's story higher than most others in my first sweep, hating Beckett's story and feeling nonplussed with Greene. I would say that these, perhaps against-expectation, views still hold water today, although my hate is nowadays reserved for more important matters. I remember liking Hughes and my jaw dropping to Martin Amis's amusing story, with Fay Weldon's also being the major high point (it was the sole tale I had discovered prior to embarking on this collection 20 years ago and is still great).
  
  In. The second foray I read far too many tales of rich, leisured literati having a high old time. I really felt that privileged navel gazing was something I could live without, ironic or not. AngusWilson's story particularly suffered from this, I felt. I was ready to dislike the Malcolm Bradbury tale because he had anthologised himself, but found that I really liked it's experimental ending and voice - it reminded me of Stoner. Emma Tennant achieves a parabolic apex and Graham Swift's take is also wonderfully spooled out. The three kings of the second wave though are perhaps more typical of my more modern tastes: Beryl Bainbridge with her humorous rendering of a family visit to a ( disputed) pants made me laugh; JG Ballard's temporal sci-if marvellousness reminded me of his Drowned World, which is always welcome and John Fowles's left-field tale of a missing right-winger made me wonder why he doesn't get talked up more than he does.
  
  Plenty to love and admire, although I have read better by many of the writers, which made this good rather than great.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Andrew Wright

  The stories in this have a number of appeals and a number of detractions for me as a reader. I suppose it reminds me how much my being an American shapes my opinions, or maybe it's just coincidental. In any event, the stories closer to WWII were more satisfying in that they were so quintessentially English, so obsessed with class and with the distinctions between the classes even after the money distinguishing them is gone. The beauty and humor was in the details. There were some authors here I absolutely hated, some I liked a great deal, but it was less consistent than the American book of stories I just read. The stories also lacked diversity. So many university writers where the narrator was a professor of literature who accidentally falls into getting seduced by a student and his wife pays the consequences for this infidelity. And my number one complaint with a bullet was that almost every story written by a woman in here seemed to be about how hard it is being a house wife. These women who have been handed the golden ticket, the ultimate privilege, and somehow all they can see is their own victimhood at being supported (see: having it as good as it can possibly get)... infuriating and not enjoyable to read. Dorris Lessing is a no talent hack. Muriel Spark is hilarious. Martin Amis isn't half of what his father was, etc...
• 
  Russell George

  This is an anthology of the great and the good of post war British writers. Like any anthology, you're not going to like everything, but overall I was slightly disapponted that many of these stories were ever so slightly dull. Honourable exceptions go to Dylan Thomas (who'd clearly had a few), Alan Silitoe, Malcolm Bradbury (the editor), Ian McEwan (who may or may not have been reading Brett Easton Ellis at the time) and the regularly brilliant Kazuo Ishiguro. But the great thing about collections of short stories is that you can skip those that don't immediately float your boat. I couldn't be arsed with J.G. Ballard and Doris Lessing, and wish I'd skipped Ted Hughes' bizarre and rather pointless story about a man being frightened by a horse (like a rustic version of Spielberg's Duel, but without the tension).
  
  But although I know that a lot of people don't like short stories, even if these weren't always to my taste, they did demonstrate that art very well. Conceptually diverse, they do give a loose impression of the development of British literature, and the different voices that have become prominent.
• 
  Ben Banyard

  I enjoyed this anthology, which probably felt quite modern when it was first published in the early 80s, but sadly a lot of the content feels rather old-fashioned by today's standards.
  
  It's very uneven in terms of quality, and I was surprised to find that some of the work by 'big name' writers, which drew me to the book in the first place, was below par - I'm looking at you, John Fowles.
  
  That said, I really enjoyed Alan Sillitoe's "The Fishing Boat Picture" (not someone I'd read before but will certainly keep an eye out for), Doris Lessing's "To Room Nineteen" (deliciously bleak), J.G. Ballard's "Memories of the Space Age" and Fay Wheldon's "Weekend".
  
  Worth picking up if, like me, you're keen to read a cross-section of 20th Century British short stories, but don't expect too much if you enjoy a satisfying narrative in miniature.
  
  Oh, and an honourable mention for the eery cover image, which is a painting called "The Badminton Game" by David Inshaw.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad...
• 
  Michael Moseley

  This book gives an introduction to a wealth of different British Authors. Some of the stories are more readable that other. My main impression from the stories was one of post war austerity and foggy Britain. Everything is much more complicated than we are at first. So much to read and what to read. Writing this review I cannot recall many of the details of the stories, which is a poor indictment of my ability or the writer. Sex seems to be the only them that has an enduring memory for me. Perverted old bugger that I am.
• 
  Kirsty

  Really enjoyed this collection - two of my favourites being 'The Invisible Japanese Gentleman' by Graham Greene and 'Ping' by Samuel Beckett. A gigantic array of brilliant authors such as J.G Ballard, Elizabeth Bowen, Samuel Beckett, Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Salman Rushie etc. Can't fault it. Highly recommended by yours truly.
• 
  Rob

  i've only really liked the muriel spark story so far, and i don't understand it really.
• 
  Alison

  Especially liked Rain Horse (Ted Hughes)and Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (Beryl Bainbridge)
  
• 
  Laura

  Although some of the stories in this collection are tiring and weird, most are enjoyable and interesting to read with some providing great comedy.
• 
  Ivan

  In many ways more satisfying a read than a novel - so many different characters, situations, writers' styles...
• 
  M-L

  Enjoyed this wide selection of short stories which I studied on my Creative Writing module at university. Favourites included, 'A Family Supper', 'Psychopolis' and 'The Prophet's Hair'.