Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories

Informationen zum Autor Ethel Wilson, Afterword by David Stouck Klappentext The eighteen pieces collected in Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories bring together the many and subtle voices of Ethel Wilson! demonstrating her extraordinary range as a writer. From the gentle mockery of the title story to the absurdist reportage of "Mr. Sleepwalker! Wilson exerts unerring narrative control. Revealing what is "simple and complicated and timeless in everyday life! these stories also venture into irrational realms of experience where chance encounters assume a malevolent form and coincidence transmuted into nightmare. First published in 1961! Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories is a diverse and rewarding collection! unified by Ethel Wilson's distinct and engaging wit. Zusammenfassung The eighteen pieces collected in Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories bring together the many and subtle voices of Ethel Wilson, demonstrating her extraordinary range as a writer. From the gentle mockery of the title story to the absurdist reportage of Mr. Sleepwalker, Wilson exerts unerring narrative control. Revealing what is simple and complicated and timeless in everyday life, these stories also venture into irrational realms of experience where chance encounters assume a malevolent form and coincidence transmuted into nightmare. First published in 1961, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories is a diverse and rewarding collection, unified by Ethel Wilson's distinct and engaging wit. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Mrs. Golightly and the First Convention 2 Haply the soul of my grandmother 3 On Nimpish Lake 4 From Flores 5 God help the young fishman 6 We have to sit opposite 7 The Birds 8 A drink with Adolphus 9 I just love dogs 10 The corner of X and Y streets 11 To keep the memory of so worthy a friend 12 Fog 13 Hurry, hurry 14 Truth and Mrs. Forrester 15 Mr. Sleepwalker 16 Beware the Jabberwock, my son . . . beware the Jubjub Bird 17 Till death us do part 18 The Window Afterword...

Autorentext

Ethel Wilson, Afterword by David Stouck

Klappentext

The eighteen pieces collected in Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories bring together the many and subtle voices of Ethel Wilson, demonstrating her extraordinary range as a writer. From the gentle mockery of the title story to the absurdist reportage of "Mr. Sleepwalker,” Wilson exerts unerring narrative control. Revealing what is "simple and complicated and timeless” in everyday life, these stories also venture into irrational realms of experience where chance encounters assume a malevolent form and coincidence transmuted into nightmare.

First published in 1961, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories is a diverse and rewarding collection, unified by Ethel Wilson's distinct and engaging wit.

Zusammenfassung
The eighteen pieces collected in Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories bring together the many and subtle voices of Ethel Wilson, demonstrating her extraordinary range as a writer. From the gentle mockery of the title story to the absurdist reportage of “Mr. Sleepwalker,” Wilson exerts unerring narrative control. Revealing what is “simple and complicated and timeless” in everyday life, these stories also venture into irrational realms of experience where chance encounters assume a malevolent form and coincidence transmuted into nightmare.

First published in 1961, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories is a diverse and rewarding collection, unified by Ethel Wilson’s distinct and engaging wit.

Leseprobe
Mrs. Golightly and the First Convention
 
 
Mrs. Golightly was a shy woman. She lived in Vancouver. Her husband, Tommy Golightly, was not shy. He was personable and easy to like. He was a consulting engineer who was consulted a great deal by engineering firms, construction firms, logging firms in particular, any firm that seemed to have problems connected with traction. When he was not being consulted he played golf, tennis, or bridge according to whether the season was spring, summer, autumn or winter. Any time that was left over he spent with his wife and three small children of whom he was very fond. When he was with them, it seemed that that was what he liked best. He was a very extroverted sort of man, easy and likeable, and his little wife was so shy that it just was not fair.
 
At the period of which I write, Conventions had not begun to take their now-accepted place in life on the North American continent. I am speaking of Conventions with a capital C. Conventions with a small c have, of course, always been with us, but not as conspicuously now as formerly. In those days, when a man said rather importantly I am going to a Convention, someone was quite liable to ask What is a Convention? Everyone seemed to think that they must be quite a good thing, which of course they are. We now take them for granted.
 
Now Mr. Golightly was admirably adapted to going to Conventions. His memory for names and faces was good; he liked people, both in crowds and separately; he collected acquaintances who rapidly became friends. Everyone liked him.
 
One day he came home and said to his wife, “How would you like a trip to California?”
 
Mrs. Golightly gave a little gasp. Her face lighted up and she said, “Oh Tom . . . !”
 
“There’s a Western and Middle Western Convention meeting at Del Monte the first week of March, and you and I are going down,” said Mr. Golightly.
 
Mrs. Golightly’s face clouded and she said in quite a different tone and with great alarm, “Oh Tom . . . !”
 
“Well, what?” said her husband.
 
Mrs. Golightly began the sort of hesitation that so easily overcame her. “Well, Tom,” she said, “I’d have to get a hat, and I suppose a suit and a dinner dress, and Emmeline isn’t very good to leave with the children and you know I’m no good with crowds and people, I never know what to say, and –”
 
“Well, get a new hat,” said her husband, “get one of those hats I see women wearing with long quills on. And get a new dress. Get twenty new dresses. And Emmeline’s fine with the children and what you need’s a change, and I’m the only one in my profession invited from British Columbia. You get a hat with the longest feather in town and a nice dinner dress!” Mr. Golightly looked fondly at his wife and saw with new eyes that she appeared anxious and not quite as pretty as she sometimes was. He kissed her and she promised that she would get the new hat, but he did not know how terrified she was of the Convention and all the crowds of people, and that she suffered at the very thought of going. She could get along all right at home, but small talk with strangers – oh, poor Mrs. Golightly. These things certainly are not fair. However, she got the dress, and a new hat with the longest quill in town. She spent a long time at the hairdresser’s; and how pretty she looked and how disturbed she felt! “I’ll break the quill every time I get into the car, Tom,” she said.
 
“Non-sense,” said her husband, and they set off in the car for California.
 
Mrs. Golightly travelled in an old knitted suit and a felt hat pulled down on her head in observance of a theory which she had inherited from her mother that you must never wear good clothes when travelling. The night before arriving at Del Monte a car passing them at high speed side-swiped them ever so little, but the small damage and fuss that resulted from that delayed them a good deal. The result was that they got late to bed that night, slept little, rose early, and had to do three hundred miles before lunch. Mrs. Golightly began to feel very tired in spite of some mounting excitement, but this did not m…