The Garden Party

I often think of the best short stories as being perfectly fine tuned machines. Like in old cartoons where the watchmaker opens the back of some golden timepiece that counts the heartbeats of life with impeccable precision to reveal the intricate innards of gears that must be adjusted to nearly impo......more

The book is a collection of fine expressionistic short stories… At the Bay… A summer day spent by the sea… Adults and children… Talks, games and thoughts… It was all very well to say it was the common lot of women to bear children. It wasn’t true. She, for one, could prove that wrong. She was broken,......more

Piazza del Duomo is my least favourite place in Florence. I always hurry through it. Probably San Marco (except at four in the morning) and St Peters are my least favourite places in, respectively, Venice and Rome so I guess I just don’t respond very well to the grandiose. I prefer what’s smaller, m......more

(Book 714 from 1001 books) - The Garden Party, Katherine Mansfield The Garden Party, is a 1922 short story by Katherine Mansfield. The wealthy Sheridan family prepares to host a garden party. Laura is charged with instructing the workers on the placement of the marquee. Her haughty air quickly disint......more

If there was just one sentence I could save from a fire, it would be this one from The Garden Party: "And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly its petals closed." Here is life in all its order. Rhythmic in sound and symbol, hushed as a prayer. Read it again out loud. Though "lo......more