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The story by Guy de Maupassant turns out to be one lame, extremely depressing "joke."All in all, I found this a rather lame collection, made even worse by the editors affixing their silly opinions in front of every story, sometimes going so far as to ruin the plot. --- or any of the Russian writers, for that matter. Nothing by Henry James, nothing by Somerset Maugham. I find it hard to believe that people are still putting "The Lady or the Tiger." into short-story anthologies. Your mileage may vary, but my copy of this book is going right to the second-hand shop. On top of the essential "so what." feeling arising from this "story," it is very, very badly written.Another story that does not improve with age is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," a simple, funny idea that has been done to death by now. It's not even a story: it's supposed to be a puzzle ("What will the princess do.") --- but unfortunately the answer to that puzzle depends entirely on what you know about the character of the princess --- which is not very much. Similarly, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" just barely makes it into the "story" category, as does "Eve in Darkness." And we wind up with "The Pearl." What a thrill.Looking at it from another angle, there is nothing in here by Chekhov ().
I recommend this to anyone who likes to read short stories that make you think. An excellent collection of stories.
B. I had to ration myself to one story every two days, not only to make the book last longer, but so my brain could be properly marinated in the sublime perfection of each of them.If you only ever read one set of short stories, let this be it. To describe this book would exhaust superlatives. Bryan), every one of these stories is a gem, a find, a transcending experience. I cannot recommend it too strongly. From familiar favourites such as "The Tell-Tale heart" (Poe) and "What Stumped the Bluejays" (Mark Twain) to stories almost unheard of - "Eve in Darkness" (Kaatje Hurlburt) and "So Much Unfairness of Things" (C. D.
I enjoyed reading each and every one of them. This collection of short stories is absolutely perfect. They are all classics by well-known writers.
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