Godina izdanja: Ostalo
ISBN: Ostalo
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

U dobrom stanju

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (May 1, 1988)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0192818546
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0192818546
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5 ounces

My Uncle Silas H. E. Bates
Introduced by V. S. Pritchett
‘My Unde Silas got gloriously and regularly drunk, loved food and the ladies and good company . . . told lies, got the better of his fellow-men whenever the chance offered itself... was a wonderful gardener, took the local lord’s pheasants, and yet succeeded in remaining an honest, genuine and lovable character.’

In writing this collection of short stories H. E. Bates drew on his memories of his own great-uncle, who lived in one of the prettiest villages in the Ouse Valley in Bedfordshire. Uncle Silas is seen through the eyes of a young boy captivated by, if a little sceptical of, his charm. Every detail of the old villain`s unwashed ugliness is faithfully put before us, as if we were sitting in his house or had been sent down to the cellar to fetch another bottle of his dreadful cowslip wine.

H. E. Bates was one of the most gifted of English short-story writers of the Twenties and Thirties, here he is at his best — in ` Athe country landscape of his childhood where the hours seemed fuller and longer.

This edition includes the original illustrations by Edward Ardizzone.


In his preface to ‘My Uncle Silas’, Bates says that the character of Silas and a number of the stories in this volume are firmly based on real events in the life of Joseph Betts, husband of the author’s great aunt Mary Ann. Bates characterizes Silas as `the original Adam, rich and lusty and robust` and `a protest against the Puritanical poison in the English blood,” and he adds: `to those who find these stories too Rabelaisian, far-fetched, or robust, my reply would be that, as pictures of English country life, they are in reality understated.` This volume contains: The Lily, The Revelation, The Wedding, Finger Wet Finger Dry, A Funny Thing, The Sow & Silas, The Shooting Party, Silas the Good, A Happy Man, Silas & Goliath, A Silas Idyll, The Race, The Death of Uncle Silas, The Return.

Published in England in October 1939, these 14 tales offer sly, affectionate glimpses of the narrator`s great-uncle Silas--a rural oldster of the earthy, boozy, incorrigible school. In a voice at once dreamy, devilish, innocent, mysterious and triumphant, 93-year-old Silas recalls his more youthful days of poaching and wooing. In "The Revelation," the narrator watches old Silas being given a bath by his surly, longtime housekeeper--and realizes for the first time that their relationship is (or at least Once was) intensely romantic. Elsewhere, Silas chortles over tall-tales of his Casanova days, trying to out-lie his dandyish, equally ancient brother-in-law Cosmo. (In one anecdote, Silas hides from a jealous husband in a cellar for days, eating "stewed nails" to keep from starving to death.) There are nostalgic vignettes of roof-thatching, pig-wrestling, and grave-digging--plus, in "A Happy Man," a somewhat more serious sketch of Silas` old chum Walter, an outwardly cheerful ex-soldier who eventually succumbs (with traumatic memories of 1880s Asian campaigns) to madness. And, inevitably, "The Death of Uncle Silas" arrives at the close--though, even on his deathbed, Silas is sneaking snorts of wine . . . while, in an epilogue, the narrator shows that he`s inherited a wee bit of his great-uncle`s mischief.
Fiction

Short Stories