Saki: 5 Short Stories with a Sharper Sense of Humor

Saki’s characters often sound most certain just when their certainty becomes interesting to question. A visitor knows how to behave, an adult knows how children should learn, or a stranger offers an explanation that seems to settle a situation. The stories give those assurances very little room to rest.

The five selections here are all in Beasts and Super-Beasts.¹ They offer compact encounters with his comedy, but they are not all cheerful. Cruelty, embarrassment, and unequal power can be part of the joke.

“The Open Window”: who controls a first impression?

A young woman entertains a visitor who knows almost nothing about her household. A room, an open window, and an apparently helpful explanation establish the scene.²

Read for the distribution of information. The visitor has learned the manners of a social call, but manners do not necessarily help him assess a story. The young speaker’s confidence is an event in its own right.

This makes a useful first Saki story because the situation is so concentrated. Stay with the conversation rather than searching for a twist. Once finished, return to the earliest questions and consider why those particular questions were worth asking. The answer belongs after the story, not before it.

“The Lumber Room”: what counts as imagination?

Nicholas is kept at home while other children are sent on an outing. The adult in charge understands the day as a punishment; Nicholas has an interest in parts of the house that are normally out of bounds.²

A child outwitting an adult is only part of the pleasure. Notice how each understands attention. An adult may look carefully for one kind of wrongdoing while missing another kind of curiosity altogether.

The title refers to a storage room, not a place where wood is being cut. Read the objects Nicholas encounters as invitations to invent, not only as possessions someone has put away.

“The Story-Teller”: what does an audience actually want?

An aunt travels by train with children whose questions and energy are difficult to contain. Another passenger listens as she attempts to entertain them, then offers a different sort of story.²

Choose this for competing ideas of storytelling. A story can be designed to improve its audience, satisfy it, control it, or surprise it. Those intentions do not always produce the same result.

Pay attention to the children’s responses rather than treating them as interruptions to be skipped. Their objections test what the adults think a successful story should do. The nested tale becomes dark, so the presence of children is not a guarantee of soothing material for young readers.

“Dusk”: when does a convincing detail become evidence?

Norman Gortsby sits in a park as the light fades. A stranger’s account invites him to judge both the situation and the person describing it.²

“Dusk” follows a confident observer deciding what to believe. Gortsby does not approach the encounter without a theory; he already has a way of interpreting the people around him.

Read for the moment a judgment hardens. Was it based on the whole account, one detail, or a preference for feeling discerning? The sequence matters, so leave its later discoveries unexamined until you reach them. It works as a miniature exercise in reading a reader of other people.

“The Schartz-Metterklume Method”: whose authority is being performed?

Lady Carlotta misses a train after intervening in a situation outside the station. A confident stranger then assigns her an identity and a role, without giving uncertainty much of a chance.²

The story turns on verbal control and social assumptions. Observe who gives instructions, who asks questions, and who acts as though an explanation is unnecessary. Much of the comic energy comes from people trying to keep authority intact while the circumstances cease to cooperate.

The method in the title is invented; there is nothing to research before reading. Its place in the conversation is the point. Some of the humor is harsh; read the scene as satire, not as a model for treating children or employees.

Two routes through the five stories

For conversations and belief, read “The Open Window” and “Dusk.” Compare the kind of confidence each listener brings to an encounter. For adults, children, and the uses of stories, read “The Lumber Room” and “The Story-Teller,” then move to “The Schartz-Metterklume Method.”

The plots are independent, so any order works. One story is enough to decide whether Saki’s edge suits your mood. If it does not, a warmer comic voice may be a better next choice.

Do not let an explanation take the place of the story

Saki’s brevity makes it easy for a synopsis to consume the whole effect. Give the opening its chance first. Afterward, reread a sentence in which someone sounded entirely sure of themselves and see whether its tone has changed for you.

Beasts and Super-Beasts offers online reading and an EPUB containing all five selections. Upload that EPUB to BlueReader and open it after server processing; keep your downloaded copy too.³

For a different treatment of coincidence and affection, try O. Henry’s short fiction. For broader comic company, see five funny classic books.