Saki is a remarkable satirist of British high society from the pre-World War I era. I have been laughing out loud at his accounts of characters and situations that can only emerge from a master story-teller's pen. There is hardly any comparison possible with P.G. Wodehouse who is a much gentler wit. Saki can draw blood with his humor. He made me feel attacked (a century after he first wrote these lines!) with these words "When [Sophie] inveighed eloquently against the evils of capitalism at drawing-room meetings and Fabian conferences she was conscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all its inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time." (from the story titled 'The Byzantine Omelette'). As Noel Coward writes in his introduction, his style likely works only in the rigid social hierarchies of pre-WW England. The word 'aristocracy' does not quite trip off the tongue while discussing Saki's object because they are so richly satirized that they appear quite comic. Empire repeatedly features as a living, pulsing entity that the nobility feeds off and feels a proprietary pride over. The uncanny and horrifying likewise are a recurring character, like a reptile creeping through a lush surfeit of delicious fruit, like the sharp edge of a bejewelled rapier. All that being said (and I am only midway through the short stories), he is incredibly, laugh-out-loud funny and is easily the most irreverently entertaining British wit I have encountered.
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