The Story-Teller (Classic Short Stories Series)

Rating:
Summary: This is the story that made me love to read!!!
Review: Astonishing! This single story is the piece of literature that first turned me into a true book lover. I had always enjoyed reading and excelled at it in the early grades of school, but when I first read this story by Saki (H.H. Munro) in a sixth grade anthology it changed my whole view of literature and began to change my view of the world around me. Irreverant, hysterically funny, and brimming with a satiric take on the all-too-true facts of life, all of Saki's stories are well worth a read, but few pack as potent and brilliant a punch as this one! It's a model of short story writing, conjuring up its setting (a hot, claustrophobic railway car on a summer afternoon) and its characters (the harried aunt, the inquisitive, unattractive children, the ingeneous bachelor) with brevity and assurance. It made me laugh then, and today, 24 years later, I can still recall whole passages word-for-word! Read it! Just read it! For as Saki wrote (in one of the single most brilliant lines in English letters) "The story began badly, but it had a beautiful ending!" I can say no more!