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Title: In a German Pension
Author: Katherine Mansfield
Narrator: Cathy Dobson
Format: Unabridged
Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
Language: English
Release date: 04-13-13
Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks
Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Classics, World Literature
Publisher's Summary:
First published in 1911, Katherine Mansfield's collection In a German Pension was inspired by her extended stay in a spa town in Bavaria in 1909, during which she suffered a miscarriage. The collection brought her instant fame and popularity as a short story writer, particularly as her amusing - though less than favourable - caricatures of the Germans were very popular at that time.
Members Reviews:
Germans Stereotyped
Enjoyable but not her best writing. Interesting for anyone interested in the German people, althought they are too often turned into stereotypes.
Not to be taken too seriously
This collection of short pieces shows early signs of Mansfield's talents, particularly her sense of the absurd and ability to skewer pretensions, but also shows how much she was to develop as an author. Here, she relies too heavily here on stereotypes (the self-absorbed actress, the pompous German) and on painting with too broad a brush.
That said, these stories are amusing in their own right, though definitely not the great short stories she would later write.
Thoughtful and descriptive prose
Within the stories of this collection, which the author considered "immature," there is some great descriptive prose around German characteristics and perspective which can even be said to live on in present Germany. Most impressive is Mansfield's gift in rummaging about in the German psyche. While some of the stories may seem melodramatic, e.g., "The Child-Who-Was-Tired," there are some very entertaining moments in which the author thoughtfully pulls out themes that include sycophancy, overbearance, resignation, mediocrity, selfishness, vanity, truculence, and compunction. For those who love German history and German culture, this is an essential volume.
Prelude to Conflict
New Zealander Katherine Mansfield (nee Kathleen Beauchamp), one of the key modernist authors linked to the so-called Bloomsbury set, said of this, her first commercially published work: 'It was a bad book, but the press was kind to it.'
Well, maybe it's not as bad as she says - and certainly it's a must-have for anyone who's interested in her work - but, when you get right down to it, this is a bunch of stories, the theme of each one of which is "All Germans are stupid and the first person singular Anglophile narrator (Miss Mansfield) is a wonderfully civilised smart ass for pointing it out!"
Well, okay if you say so, Miss Mansfield . . . I don't think! And neither do you, I suspect - not in your literary heart of hearts. Because it's the original date of publication of the book which gives us a clue regarding the kindness that was shown to it by the press: 1912 - just two years before WWI broke out, thanks in part to press jingoism . . . and to anti-German propaganda in bad books like this one.