"To read a Saki story is to hire an assassin."

August 16, 2016 5:13 PM

One hundred years ago, a soldier named Hector Hugh Munro was shot in the head as he crossed no-man’s-land. The night had been dark. Some of the soldiers accompanying him had lit up when they stopped to rest, and the glowing cigarettes attracted a German sniper’s attention. His last words were reported to be: ‘Put that bloody cigarette out!’ The soldier was perhaps the wittiest writer Britain had; his other name was Saki.

–Ferrets can be gods, a short essay by Katherine Rundell on the Edwardian short story writer Saki. His stories are available online.
posted by Kattullus (38 comments total)

I was pre-adolescent when I was gifted his short stories, oddly enough. All I recall now is that they were rivetting.
posted by infini at 5:41 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful
posted by Mogur at 5:42 PM on August 16, 2016 [13 favorites]

Thanks for posting this. I had never heard of him but I enjoyed reading about the talented writer that Dahl was ripping off that I always knew must have existed.
posted by bleep at 5:44 PM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

One of the few writers who is actually laugh out loud funny.
posted by Alluring Mouthbreather at 5:54 PM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

infini: "I was pre-adolescent when I was gifted his short stories, oddly enough."

I think he's similar to Douglas Adams in that you'll love him more if you first discover him as a kid. When I first read Saki as a kid, so many moments in his stories actually made me put down the book and say, "You're allowed to do that in a book?"
posted by roll truck roll at 5:59 PM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

His stories are available online.

My favorite is "The Open Window," not least because the way Ross Chambers reads it in Story and Situation made a number of things click for me in grad school. Here's how that begins:

A story that concerns the power of fiction--analyzed as a function of narrative situation--is Saki's "The Open Window" ... The questions are: How does the text theorize its own impact? What power, in what situation, does the tale lay claim to? How does this claim relate to the fictional power directly represented in the text? Or, putting it another way, is the textual representation of fictional power a model or an antimodel of the text's own power?

The quote doesn't do justice to Saki or to Chambers, but it sort of points toward one way to read this super short, very light story. Then, each time I re-read the story, I feel like I get glimmers of other possibilities, and that's why I like it so much.

Thanks for the post!
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:12 PM on August 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

I have very fond childhood memories of having found Saki in my uncle's place and devouring it one summer.

Time to get reacquainted. Thanks for this post.
posted by viramamunivar at 6:21 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Saki's writing appears so effortless. Brilliant stuff.
posted by scruss at 6:24 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful

You called?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:31 PM on August 16, 2016 [34 favorites]

I came here to say "Filboid Studge".

[and "Tobermory". Loved Saki as a teenager.]
posted by acrasis at 6:31 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The first Saki story I ever read, in a collection of short stories assigned in middle school, which made me go out and check out the collected edition at the library.

I mean where would I be without discovering Clovis at a young age? "hard work never killed anyone but why take the chance?"
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 PM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think they did a version of "The Open Window" on "Tales Of The Unexpected", which was a series of adaptations of mostly Roald Dahl stories. At any rate I can recall seeing a film version decades ago, about 1980 maybe.
posted by thelonius at 6:46 PM on August 16, 2016

I read Saki stories to more than one new girlfriend as a test. Sredni Vashtar was one of my favorites.
posted by nickmark at 7:00 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The actual song Bertie the Bounder, which I had vaguely supposed that Saki made up.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:19 PM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've always liked The Comments of Moung Ka, which has one of the best punchlines I've seen in political humor. It's also near timeless; it could have been about Brexit instead of events in 1911 (this and that?) .
posted by easyasy3k at 7:22 PM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

When I was in undergrad, at a women's college, we had a tradition (among many) of reading either bodice-rippingly awful romance novels or horror stories to the freshmen at a particular time in the year. I read Sredni Vashtar, and let me tell you - a surprise hit. His relative unknown and the subtle gothic awfulness was perfect for a late-night read.
posted by cobaltnine at 7:29 PM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Open Window is my favourite too. I think his work varies in quality from par for the course at the time to truly excellent. I do feel he's a little over rated these days, or more correctly that some other great writers around those times are underrated I suppose. The short story occupied a different space back then, and I truly believe it reached dizzying heights. I literally read, I dunno I'd say over hundred possibly two hundred or more Georgian, Victoria, and Edwardian short stories as a teen,they left an indelible mark on me, if only for my anachronous love of em dash and semicolon.
posted by smoke at 7:59 PM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Lumber Room is my favorite Saki story, which I read in middle school so long ago. It has stayed with me all these years.
posted by Lynsey at 8:01 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Saki is often said to ring through the novels of P.G. Wodehouse, but ... in a truly Sakian Wodehouse story, Bertie would be trapped under a piece of vintage furniture and torn apart by the dog Bartholomew.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:32 PM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Somehow I've missed this guy and his stories growing up, but anyone who writes about ferrets as deities deserves a look I think...
posted by WalkerWestridge at 9:10 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Unbearable Bassington is quite the impactful story as I recall, never read any of what seems to be his more humorous material though.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 9:12 PM on August 16, 2016

I love Saki.
posted by srednivashtar at 11:58 PM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

A long time ago, when I left home to go to university, each student at the university I attended was assigned a sequential 4-letter login ID for the university mainframe. By sheer happenstance, I was randomly assigned the login ID "SAKI", which I thought was very cool. It was nice having a cool user name but the best part was that it provoked a conversation with another student I met who turned out to be the other big Saki fan I've known and she and I became good friends.

I can still remember the first Saki short story I ever read -- it was "The Interlopers" and I was in grade school -- and in the years since then I've owned (and sometimes given away) at least four or five hardcover editions of the complete short stories and/or collected works of Saki; to this day I'm likely to buy an additional copy, should I come across one, with the intention of giving it to someone who has yet to have the joy of discovering these stories.

I was going to start enumerating favorites but it's so very hard to choose. If pressed I would probably name "The Story Teller", but would immediately start with "but wait, what about ($story)" until I had listed a good third of them, at least, as all-time favorites.

I haven't seen this discussion mentioned yet, but previously on Metafilter we discussed six recently-rediscovered uncollected Saki stories so even if you think you've read them all there might be more Saki out there for you to discover.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:35 AM on August 17, 2016 [6 favorites]

I think he's similar to Douglas Adams in that you'll love him more if you first discover him as a kid. When I first read Saki as a kid, so many moments in his stories actually made me put down the book and say, "You're allowed to do that in a book?"

It led to me to devouring anything and everything similar - Somerset Maugham's short stories were a big hit. I ended up using The Poet for an interschool elocution competition
posted by infini at 1:29 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

I read The Open Window to my daughter's 2nd grade class in Japan as part of something called Mystery Reader or similar, where a random parent wandered in and read a short story or poem of their choosing. I ran it by the teacher beforehand, and she stopped me immediately and said "anything by Saki is perfect," which surprised me. The kids were riveted, although >50% had a minor issue understanding the ending (but were happily figuring it out and discussing). It's one of our favorite memories. Saki never disappoints.
posted by Vcholerae at 7:00 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

A book-dealer friend of mine had a t-shirt made up for wear at conventions:

H H MUNRO
WAS A
WRY SWINE
posted by Major Clanger at 7:27 AM on August 17, 2016 [8 favorites]

Sredni Vashtar is a sovereign remedy for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
posted by 0rison at 8:33 AM on August 17, 2016

Sredni Vashtar is a sovereign remedy for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

And, uh, my band might have written a punk song about it...
posted by lumpenprole at 8:40 AM on August 17, 2016 [6 favorites]

I've been working for a while, slowly, on a Saki side project. When you start looking into his references to the period (names, places, terms, etc) it really comes alive. The stories themselves are great, but understanding the references make them amazing.

For me, The Occasional Garden and Morlvera are my go-to with The Byzantine Omelette and The Unrest Cure being close seconds.

Frederick Davidson and Nadia May did a really well-done audiobook of maybe 11 hours that really brings them to life.
posted by Tchad at 10:41 AM on August 17, 2016 [6 favorites]

Interesting link to George Saunders.
posted by doctornemo at 10:54 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

One of my childhood favourites. I should reread more
posted by mdoar at 11:28 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Very nice intro article to one of the greats.

Never taught a Saki story. I should rectify that.
posted by doctornemo at 12:14 PM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Saki on LibriVox
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 1:02 PM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

I read Saki at an impressionable age and have never recovered and am grateful for it.
posted by Hogshead at 1:41 PM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just ordered the collected works today after seeing this thread!

Thanks for the reminder of something that I really enjoyed when I was younger, and which I think just might be resistant to the magic of the Suck Fairy. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 1:52 PM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Occasional Garden and Morlvera are my go-to with The Byzantine Omelette and The Unrest Cure being close seconds.

Let's play ... Saki Stories, Or Edward Gorey Drawings?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:42 PM on August 17, 2016 [7 favorites]

"Never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden"

Transcendently sage advice anyone could live their life by
posted by Queen of Spreadable Fats at 6:20 PM on August 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

Because of this post I just bought a collection of Saki's short stories illustrated by Edward Gorey. Can't wait to read these to the youngsters. The Reticence of Lady Anne has one of the best punchlines I've ever read.
posted by bstreep at 1:16 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]